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Across Sweden, approximately 70 car technicians persist to confront among the world's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action at the US automaker's ten Scandinavian repair facilities has now reached its second anniversary, and there is minimal indication for a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has been on the electric car company's protest line starting from October 2023.

"It's a difficult period," states the 39-year-old. And as the nation's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it's likely to grow more challenging.

Janis devotes every start of the week with a colleague, standing outside a Tesla garage on a business district in Malmö. His union, IF Metall, supplies accommodation in the form of a portable builders' van, plus hot beverages & light meals.

But it remains business as usual nearby, at which the service facility appears to operate at full capacity.

The strike concerns an issue that goes to the heart of Swedish labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to negotiate wages & working terms representing their workforce. This concept of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for almost a century.

Currently some 70% of Swedish workers belong to labor organizations, while 90% fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

It's a system supported across the board. "We prefer the ability to negotiate freely with worker representatives and establish collective agreements," says Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Businesses employer group.

But the electric car company has disrupted established practices. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has stated he "disagrees" with the concept of labor organizations. "I simply don't like any arrangement which creates a kind of lords and peasants situation," he informed an audience in New York in 2023. "I think labor groups try to generate negativity within businesses."

Tesla came to Sweden back in 2014, while IF Metall has for years sought to establish a collective agreement with the company.

"Yet they wouldn't respond," states the union president, the union's president. "And we got the impression that they tried to avoid or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She states the organization eventually saw no alternative except to announce a strike, which started in late October, 2023. "Typically the threat suffices to issue a warning," says Ms Nilsson. "Employers typically agrees to the agreement."

But this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, who is from Latvia, began employment for Tesla several years ago. He asserts that wages & conditions frequently subject to the whim of managers.

He recalls a performance review at which he states he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds that he "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a coworker was said to be rejected for a pay rise because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers went out on strike. The company had approximately 130 technicians employed at the time the industrial action was initiated. The union states currently around seventy of their represented workers are participating in the action.

Tesla has long since substituted the striking workers with replacement staff, for which there is not occurred since the era of the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and systematically," says German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not against the law, this being crucial to understand. However it violates all established norms. But Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They want to become norm breakers. Thus when anyone tells them, hey, you are breaking a norm, they see this as a compliment."

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

Indeed, the company has granted only one media interview in the two years since the strike began.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, Jens Stark, informed a financial publication that it suited the organization more not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide workers the best possible terms".

The executive denied that the choice to avoid a labor contract was one made at Tesla headquarters in the US. "We have a mandate to take independent such choices," he stated.

The union is not completely alone in its fight. The strike has received backing by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Norway & Finland, decline to process Teslas; waste is no longer collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed charging stations remain connected to the grid in the country.

Exists an example near the capital's airport, where 20 charging units remain unused. But Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point six miles from here," he says. "And we can still buy our cars, we can service our cars, we can power our cars."

With consequences significant on both sides, it's hard to envision an end to the deadlock. The union faces the danger of establishing a pattern if it concedes the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The concern is that this could expand," states Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode