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In Sweden, around 70 automotive mechanics continue to confront among the globe's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike targeting the American automaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has now reached its second anniversary, with little indication for a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has remained on the electric car company's protest line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It's a difficult period," remarks the worker in his late thirties. And as Sweden's chilly seasonal conditions arrives, it's likely to grow even tougher.

The mechanic spends each Monday alongside a colleague, standing near a Tesla service center within an industrial park in Malmö. His union, IF Metall, supplies accommodation via a mobile builders' van, as well as hot beverages and light meals.

However it remains business as usual across the road, at which the service facility appears to operate at full capacity.

The strike concerns a matter that reaches to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the authority for worker organizations to negotiate wages and conditions on behalf of their workforce. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for nearly a century.

Today approximately seventy percent of Swedish employees are members to labor organizations, while 90% fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We favor the ability to negotiate freely with the unions and establish collective agreements," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses employer group.

However Tesla has upset the apple cart. Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has said he "disagrees" with the idea of unions. "I just don't like anything which creates a kind of hierarchical situation," he informed listeners in New York in 2023. "I think the unions attempt to generate negativity in a company."

Tesla came to Sweden back in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has for years sought to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"But they did not reply," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "We formed the belief that they tried to avoid or not discuss the matter with us."

She says the organization ultimately found no other option than to announce a strike, beginning in late October, last year. "Typically it's enough to make a warning," says Ms Nilsson. "The company typically agrees to the agreement."

However not in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, began employment with the automaker in 2021. He claims that wages & conditions frequently dependent on the whim of managers.

He recalls a performance review where he states he was denied a salary increase on grounds that he "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a colleague was reported to have been turned down for increased compensation because he had the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, some workers participated in the industrial action. The company had approximately one hundred thirty technicians working at the time the industrial action was called. The union states currently approximately seventy of its members are on strike.

Tesla has since replaced these with new workers, a situation there is not occurred since the era of the 1930s.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly and methodically," states a labor researcher, an analyst at Arena Idé, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not against the law, this being crucial to understand. However it violates all traditional practices. But the company shows no concern about norms.

"They aim to become norm breakers. So if anyone informs them, hey, you are violating a norm, they perceive this as a compliment."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused attempts for comment in an email citing "record deliveries".

In fact, the company has given just a single media interview in the two years after the industrial action started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, informed a business paper that it suited the company more not to have a union contract, and rather "to collaborate directly with employees and give workers the best possible terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was determined at Tesla headquarters in the US. "Our division possesses a mandate to take our own such decisions," he stated.

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

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Norway & Finland, decline to handle the company's vehicles; rubbish is no longer collected from Tesla's Swedish facilities; and newly built power points remain linked to the grid in the country.

There is one such facility near the capital's airport, where twenty charging units stand idle. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There's another charging station six miles from here," he says. "Plus we are able to still purchase vehicles, we can service our vehicles, we can power our cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it is difficult to see an end to the deadlock. The union risks establishing a pattern if it concedes the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The concern is that that would spread," says Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode