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Across Sweden, around seventy car mechanics continue to challenge among the globe's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action targeting the US automaker's ten Scandinavian repair facilities has now reached its second anniversary, with little indication for a settlement.

One striking worker has remained on the electric car company's picket line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It's a tough period," states the 39-year-old. With the nation's chilly seasonal conditions arrives, it is expected to become more challenging.

Janis spends every start of the week alongside a colleague, positioned near a Tesla garage within a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter via a mobile construction vehicle, as well as hot beverages & sandwiches.

However it's operations continue normally nearby, at which the service facility seems to operate in full swing.

The strike involves a matter that reaches to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the right of trade unions to bargain for pay and working terms on behalf of their members. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Today some 70% of Scandinavia's employees belong to labor organizations, while ninety percent are covered by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages in Sweden are rare.

It's an arrangement supported by all parties. "We prefer the right to bargain freely with worker representatives and sign collective agreements," states Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However the electric car company has disrupted established practices. Outspoken chief executive Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply disapprove of anything which creates a kind of hierarchical sort of thing," he told an audience at an event in 2023. "I think labor groups try to generate conflict within businesses."

The automaker came to the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has long wanted to secure a labor contract with the automaker.

"But they did not reply," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "And we got the belief that they tried to avoid or not discuss this with our representatives."

She states the union eventually found no other option except to call a strike, which started in late October, last year. "Typically it's enough to make a warning," comments the union leader. "Employers usually agrees to the agreement."

However this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, started working for Tesla in 2021. He claims that pay & conditions were often subject to the whim of managers.

He recalls a performance review at which he says he was refused a salary increase on grounds he was "failing to meet Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a coworker was reported to have been rejected for increased compensation because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone went out in the industrial action. The company had some one hundred thirty mechanics working at the time the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall says currently around 70 of its members are participating in the action.

The automaker has long since substituted the striking workers with new workers, for which there is no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & systematically," says a labor researcher, an analyst at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, this being crucial to recognize. But it goes against all traditional practices. Yet Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They want to be convention challengers. So if somebody tells them, hey, you are violating a standard, they perceive that as praise."

The company's Swedish subsidiary declined attempts for comment in an email citing "record vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the automaker has granted only one media interview during the entire period since the strike started.

In March 2024, the local division's "country lead", the executive, informed a financial publication that it benefited the organization more not to have a union contract, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and give workers optimal terms".

Mr Stark denied that the decision to avoid a collective agreement was one made by US leadership in the US. "We have authorization to make our own such choices," he said.

The union is not entirely alone in its fight. The strike has received backing from several of other unions.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Norway and neighboring states, decline to handle Teslas; rubbish is not removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and newly built power points are not being connected to the grid across the nation.

Exists an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 charging units remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists an alternative power point 10km from this location," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can maintain our vehicles, we can charge our electric cars."

With consequences significant for all parties, it is difficult to envision a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall faces the danger of setting a precedent if it concedes the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The concern is how this could expand," says Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode