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In Sweden, around 70 automotive mechanics persist to challenge one of the globe's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action at the American carmaker's 10 Swedish service centers has currently reached two years of duration, with minimal sign for a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has remained on the electric car company's picket line since the autumn of 2023.

"It's a tough time," states the worker in his late thirties. With the nation's chilly winter weather sets in, it is expected to grow even tougher.

Janis spends every start of the week alongside a fellow worker, standing near an electric vehicle service center within a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation in the form of a mobile construction vehicle, as well as hot beverages & sandwiches.

However it's operations continue normally across the road, where the service facility appears to operate at full capacity.

This industrial action concerns an issue that goes to the heart of Swedish labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to negotiate pay and working terms representing their members. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for nearly a century.

Today approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's employees are members of a trade union, while ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes in Sweden occur infrequently.

It's a system welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the ability to bargain directly with worker representatives and establish labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

However the electric car company has disrupted established practices. Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has said he "disagrees" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply don't like anything that establishes a kind of lords and peasants situation," he informed listeners at an event last year. "In my view labor groups attempt to generate negativity within businesses."

Tesla entered Sweden back in 2014, and the metalworkers' union has long sought to establish a labor contract with the company.

"But they wouldn't respond," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "We formed the belief that they attempted to avoid or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She says the organization eventually found no other option than to announce a strike, beginning in late October, 2023. "Usually the threat suffices to make a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually signs the contract."

However this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, started working for Tesla several years ago. He asserts that pay and conditions frequently dependent on the discretion of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he states he was denied a salary increase because that he "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a coworker was said to have been rejected for increased compensation because having the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, not everyone went out on strike. Tesla employed approximately one hundred thirty mechanics employed at the time the industrial action was called. The union says that today around seventy of its members are on strike.

Tesla has long since replaced the striking workers with replacement staff, a situation there is not occurred since the era of the 1930s.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly & systematically," says a labor researcher, a researcher at a research institute, a policy organization supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not against the law, which is important to recognize. But it goes against all traditional practices. Yet the company doesn't care for conventions.

"They want to become norm breakers. So if somebody tells them, hey, you are breaking a standard, they see this as praise."

The company's local division declined attempts for interview in an email mentioning "record vehicle shipments".

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

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, Jens Stark, told a business paper that it suited the organization better to avoid a union contract, and rather "to work closely with the team and give them optimal conditions".

The executive rejected that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters in the US. "We have a mandate to make our own such choices," he said.

IF Metall is not completely alone in this conflict. This industrial action has received backing by a number of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries and Finland, are refusing to handle the company's vehicles; rubbish is not collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed power points remain linked to the grid in the country.

There is one such facility near the capital's airport, at which 20 charging units stand idle. But Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There exists another charging station 10km from here," he says. "And we can still buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can charge our cars."

With consequences significant for all parties, it is difficult to see a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall faces the danger of establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The worry is that this could expand," states Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode