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In Sweden, approximately seventy car mechanics continue to confront one of the globe's wealthiest companies – Tesla. This labor strike at the US automaker's 10 Swedish repair facilities has currently entered two years of duration, and there is minimal sign of a resolution.

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

"It's a difficult time," states the worker in his late thirties. And as Sweden's cold winter weather arrives, it's likely to become even tougher.

The mechanic spends each Monday alongside a colleague, standing outside a Tesla service center within a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies accommodation via a mobile builders' van, as well as coffee and light meals.

But it's business as usual nearby, where the workshop appears to operate in full swing.

This industrial action involves an issue that reaches to the core of Swedish labor traditions – the right of trade unions to bargain for wages and working terms on behalf of their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Today approximately 70% of Swedish workers are members to labor organizations, and ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes in Sweden occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We favor the right to bargain freely with the unions and establish labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However Tesla has disrupted established practices. Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the idea of unions. "I simply disapprove of any arrangement that establishes a sort of lords and peasants situation," he informed listeners at an event last year. "I think the unions attempt to generate negativity within businesses."

The automaker came to Sweden back in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has for years wanted to establish a labor contract with the company.

"But they did not respond," says Marie Nilsson, the union's leader. "We formed the belief that they tried to avoid or not discuss this with our representatives."

She states the organization eventually saw no alternative than to announce industrial action, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to issue a warning," says the union leader. "Employers typically signs the contract."

But not in this case.

Janis Kuzma, who is of Latvian origin, began employment for Tesla in 2021. He claims that wages and conditions frequently subject to the discretion of supervisors.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he states he was denied an annual pay rise because that he "failing to meet Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was said to be turned down for increased compensation because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, some workers participated in the industrial action. Tesla had approximately 130 technicians employed when the strike was initiated. IF Metall states that today around seventy of their represented workers are participating in the action.

The automaker has since replaced the striking workers with new workers, a situation there is not occurred since the era of the Great Depression.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly and methodically," states a labor researcher, a researcher at a research institute, a policy organization supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not against the law, this being important to recognize. However it violates all traditional practices. But the company doesn't care about norms.

"They want to be convention challengers. So if anyone informs them, listen, you are breaking a standard, they see this as praise."

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

In fact, the company has granted just a single media interview during the entire period since the strike began.

Earlier this year, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, informed a business paper that it suited the organization more to avoid a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and give workers the best possible terms".

The executive denied that the decision not to enter a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters overseas. "Our division possesses a mandate to make independent such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not completely alone in its fight. This industrial action has been supported from several of other unions.

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Norway and Finland, decline to process Teslas; rubbish is no longer removed from Tesla's Swedish facilities; while newly built charging stations remain linked to the grid across the nation.

Exists an example close to the capital's airport, where twenty chargers stand idle. But a Tesla enthusiast, the president of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point six miles from this location," he comments. "Plus we are able to continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our cars, we can power our cars."

With consequences high for all parties, it is difficult to envision a resolution to the deadlock. The union risks setting a precedent if it concedes the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

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