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Across Sweden, around seventy car technicians continue to confront among the world's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike targeting the US automaker's ten Scandinavian service centers has currently reached two years of duration, with little indication of a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has been on the Tesla protest line since the autumn of 2023.

"It's a tough time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. With Sweden's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to grow more challenging.

The mechanic spends every start of the week alongside a colleague, standing outside a Tesla service center within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. His union, IF Metall, provides accommodation in the form of a portable builders' van, plus hot beverages and sandwiches.

However it's business as usual across the road, at which the workshop seems to operate at full capacity.

This industrial action involves an issue that goes to the core of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the authority of trade unions to negotiate pay and working terms on behalf of their workforce. This concept of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Currently approximately 70% of Scandinavia's workers are members of a trade union, and ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes across the nation occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement supported across the board. "We favor the right to bargain directly with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses employer group.

But Tesla has upset the apple cart. Vocal chief executive the company leader has said he "opposes" with the concept of unions. "I just don't like anything that establishes a sort of lords and peasants situation," he told listeners at an event in 2023. "I think the unions attempt to generate conflict in a company."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has long sought to establish a labor contract with the automaker.

"But they did not reply," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "And we got the impression that they attempted to hide away or not discuss the matter with us."

She states the union eventually found no other option than to announce a strike, beginning on 27 October, last year. "Typically the threat suffices to issue a warning," says the union leader. "Employers usually signs the agreement."

However this did not happen in this case.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, started working for Tesla several years ago. He asserts that pay and conditions frequently subject to the whim of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he states he was refused a salary increase on grounds he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a colleague was reported to have been turned down for increased compensation because he had the "wrong attitude".

However, some workers went out on strike. Tesla had approximately one hundred thirty technicians working when the strike was called. IF Metall says that today around 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has since replaced the striking workers with new workers, a situation that has not occurred since the era of the 1930s.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly and systematically," states German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not illegal, this being important to recognize. However it violates all traditional norms. But the company shows no concern about norms.

"They want to be norm breakers. So if somebody informs them, hey, you are violating a standard, they see that as praise."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused attempts for comment via correspondence mentioning "all-time high vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the company has given just a single media interview during the entire period after the strike began.

Earlier this year, the local division's "country lead", the executive, informed a financial publication that it benefited the organization more to avoid a union contract, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide them optimal terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision not to enter a labor contract was one made at Tesla headquarters in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to take our own such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not entirely alone in its fight. This industrial action has received backing from several of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries and Finland, decline to handle Teslas; waste is no longer collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed power points remain linked to the grid across the nation.

There is an example near the capital's airport, at which 20 charging units remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says vehicle owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There exists another charging station 10km from here," he comments. "And we can still purchase vehicles, we can maintain our vehicles, we can charge our cars."

With stakes significant for all parties, it's hard to see a resolution to the stand-off. The union faces the danger of setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The concern is that that would spread," states the researcher, "and ultimately {erode