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Across Sweden, approximately seventy car technicians persist to challenge one of the globe's richest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This industrial action targeting the US automaker's ten Scandinavian service centers has currently reached two years of duration, and there is little indication of a resolution.

One striking worker has been at the Tesla picket line starting from October 2023.

"It's a difficult period," states the 39-year-old. And as the nation's cold winter weather arrives, it is expected to grow even tougher.

Janis devotes each Monday alongside a colleague, standing near an electric vehicle garage on a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation via a portable construction vehicle, plus hot beverages & sandwiches.

However it's operations continue normally nearby, where the workshop seems to be in full swing.

The strike involves a matter that reaches to the heart of Swedish labor traditions – the authority of trade unions to negotiate pay and conditions representing their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned industrial relations in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Today approximately seventy percent of Swedish employees belong to labor organizations, and 90% fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes across the nation are rare.

This is an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We favor the ability to bargain freely with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," says Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But Tesla has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal CEO the company leader has said he "disagrees" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of anything that establishes a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he informed an audience at an event in 2023. "I think the unions try to generate conflict within businesses."

Tesla came to the Scandinavian market starting in 2014, and the metalworkers' union has long wanted to establish a labor contract with the company.

"But they wouldn't respond," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's president. "We formed the belief that they attempted to hide away or not discuss this with us."

She says the union eventually saw no alternative except to call industrial action, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Typically the threat suffices to make a warning," says Ms Nilsson. "The company typically signs the agreement."

But this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker in 2021. He claims that pay & conditions frequently subject to the discretion of supervisors.

He recalls a performance review at which he says he was refused an annual pay rise on grounds that he "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".

Nevertheless, some workers went out in the industrial action. The company employed some 130 technicians employed when the strike was called. The union states that today approximately 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

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

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

"It's not against the law, which is crucial to understand. But it violates all established practices. But the company doesn't care for conventions.

"They want to become convention challengers. Thus when anyone tells them, hey, you are breaking a standard, they perceive this as a compliment."

The company's local division refused attempts for comment via correspondence mentioning "all-time high deliveries".

Indeed, the automaker has granted only one media interview during the entire period after the strike began.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, Jens Stark, informed a financial publication that it suited the company more not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to work closely with employees and give workers the best possible terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision to avoid a labor contract was determined at Tesla headquarters in the US. "We have authorization to make independent such decisions," he said.

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

Dockworkers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & neighboring states, decline to process Teslas; rubbish is no longer removed from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while newly built charging stations are not being linked to power networks in the country.

There is an example close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where twenty chargers remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists an alternative power point 10km from this location," he comments. "And we can continue to buy our cars, we can maintain our vehicles, we can power our cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it is difficult to see a resolution to the deadlock. The union risks setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

"The worry is that this could expand," states the researcher, "and eventually {erode