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Across Sweden, approximately seventy car mechanics persist to confront among the globe's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This labor strike at the US carmaker's ten Scandinavian repair facilities has now reached its second anniversary, with minimal indication of a resolution.

One striking worker has been at the Tesla protest line since the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a tough period," remarks the worker in his late thirties. With Sweden's cold seasonal conditions sets in, it is expected to become more challenging.

Janis devotes every start of the week with a colleague, positioned outside a Tesla service center on an industrial park in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies accommodation in the form of a portable construction vehicle, plus coffee & light meals.

But it remains operations continue normally across the road, at which the service facility appears to be in full swing.

This industrial action concerns a matter that goes to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the authority for worker organizations to negotiate wages and conditions on behalf of their workforce. This concept of collective agreement has supported industrial relations in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Today approximately 70% of Swedish workers are members of a trade union, while 90% are covered by a collective agreement. Strikes in Sweden occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We favor the right to negotiate directly with the unions and sign labor contracts," says a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

However the electric car company has upset the apple cart. Vocal CEO the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the idea of unions. "I just disapprove of any arrangement that establishes a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he informed listeners at an event last year. "In my view labor groups try to generate conflict in a company."

The automaker came to the Scandinavian market starting in 2014, while the metalworkers' union has for years sought to establish a collective agreement with the automaker.

"Yet they did not reply," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "We formed the belief that they attempted to hide away or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She states the organization ultimately saw no other option except to call industrial action, beginning in late October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to make a warning," says the union leader. "The company usually signs the agreement."

However this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, began employment for Tesla several years ago. He claims that wages & work terms were often dependent on the whim of managers.

He recalls a performance review where he states he was denied a salary increase on grounds that he "failing to meet Tesla's goals". At the same time, a colleague was reported to be turned down for a pay rise because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone participated in the industrial action. Tesla employed approximately 130 mechanics working when the industrial action was called. IF Metall says currently approximately seventy of its members are on strike.

Tesla has since substituted these with new workers, a situation there is no precedent since the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly & systematically," states a labor researcher, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not illegal, this being important to recognize. However it violates all traditional practices. Yet the company doesn't care about norms.

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

The automaker's local division refused requests for comment via correspondence citing "record deliveries".

In fact, the company has given just a single media interview in the two years since the industrial action began.

Earlier this year, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, informed a business paper that it suited the organization more to avoid a union contract, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide workers the best possible terms".

The executive rejected that the decision to avoid a labor contract was one made at Tesla headquarters overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to make our own such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not completely alone in its fight. This industrial action has been supported by a number of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Norway and Finland, decline to process Teslas; rubbish is not removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed charging stations remain connected to power networks in the country.

There is an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which twenty charging units remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, states vehicle owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists another charging station six miles from here," he comments. "Plus we are able to still purchase vehicles, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our cars."

With stakes significant for all parties, it's hard to see a resolution to the stand-off. The union faces the danger of establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The concern is that this could expand," says the researcher, "and eventually {erode