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In Sweden, around seventy car technicians continue to challenge among the world's wealthiest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action targeting the American carmaker's ten Swedish service centers has now entered its second anniversary, and there is little indication for a resolution.

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

"It's a difficult time," states the 39-year-old. And as Sweden's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it is expected to become more challenging.

Janis spends each Monday with a colleague, standing near a Tesla garage on an industrial park in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation in the form of a portable builders' van, as well as hot beverages and sandwiches.

However it's operations continue normally across the road, at which the workshop appears to be in full swing.

This industrial action involves a matter that reaches to the heart of Swedish industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to bargain for pay and working terms on behalf of their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics across the nation for almost a century.

Currently some seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers are members to labor organizations, while ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

It's a system welcomed by all parties. "We favor the ability to bargain freely with the unions and establish collective agreements," says Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But the electric car company has disrupted established practices. Vocal CEO the company leader has stated he "disagrees" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply don't like anything that establishes a sort of lords and peasants situation," he informed an audience in New York last year. "In my view labor groups try to generate conflict within businesses."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market starting in 2014, while IF Metall has long wanted to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"Yet they did not reply," says the union president, the organization's president. "And we got the belief that they attempted to avoid or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She states the organization ultimately found no other option except to announce a strike, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to make a warning," says Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually agrees to the agreement."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, started working for Tesla in 2021. He asserts that wages and conditions were often dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He recalls a performance review at which he says he was denied a salary increase on grounds he was "failing to meet Tesla's goals". At the same time, a colleague was said to have been rejected for increased compensation due to he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, some workers participated in the industrial action. Tesla employed some 130 mechanics working at the time the industrial action was initiated. The union says currently around 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has long since replaced these with replacement staff, for which that has not occurred since the era of the 1930s.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] openly and systematically," says German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not illegal, which is important to understand. But it goes against all established practices. But Tesla shows no concern about norms.

"They aim to be norm breakers. So if anyone tells them, hey, you are violating a standard, they perceive that as praise."

The company's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for comment via correspondence citing "record vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the company has given only one media interview during the entire period after the strike started.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it suited the organization better to avoid a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and give workers the best possible terms".

Mr Stark denied that the choice not to enter a labor contract was one made at Tesla headquarters in the US. "We have authorization to make independent such choices," he stated.

The union is not completely isolated in this conflict. The strike has been supported from several of other unions.

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Norway and Finland, are refusing to handle Teslas; waste is not collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; while newly built charging stations remain connected to the grid across the nation.

Exists one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 charging units remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, states Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point six miles from here," he comments. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can charge our cars."

With stakes significant for all parties, it's hard to envision a resolution to the stand-off. IF Metall risks setting a precedent if it concedes the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The concern is that that would spread," states Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode