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In Sweden, around 70 automotive technicians continue to challenge among the globe's wealthiest corporations – Tesla. This industrial action at the American carmaker's ten Swedish repair facilities has now entered its second anniversary, and there is little indication for a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has remained on the electric car company's picket line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a tough time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. And as Sweden's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it is expected to become even tougher.

Janis devotes every start of the week alongside a colleague, standing outside a Tesla garage within an industrial park in Malmö. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides shelter in the form of a portable construction vehicle, plus coffee and light meals.

However it remains business as usual across the road, where the workshop seems to operate in full swing.

This industrial action involves an issue that goes to the heart of Swedish labor traditions – the right for worker organizations to bargain for wages & working terms on behalf of their members. This principle of collective agreement has supported industrial relations across the nation for nearly a century.

Currently approximately seventy percent of Swedish workers belong of a trade union, and 90% are covered by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

It's a system supported across the board. "We favor the right to negotiate directly with the unions and establish collective agreements," says Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However Tesla has upset the apple cart. Outspoken CEO the company leader has said he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply disapprove of anything that establishes a sort of lords and peasants situation," he informed an audience at an event in 2023. "In my view labor groups attempt to generate conflict within businesses."

Tesla came to Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has long wanted to secure a collective agreement with the company.

"But they did not reply," states the union president, the union's leader. "And we got the belief that they tried to hide away or not discuss this with us."

She states the union eventually found no other option than to announce industrial action, beginning in late October, last year. "Typically the threat suffices to make a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company typically agrees to the agreement."

But not in this case.

The striking mechanic, originally of Latvian origin, began employment for Tesla in 2021. He claims that pay & conditions frequently subject to the whim of managers.

He remembers 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 be rejected for increased compensation due to he had the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, some workers went out in the industrial action. The company had approximately one hundred thirty mechanics working at the time the industrial action was called. IF Metall says currently approximately 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has since substituted these with replacement staff, a situation there is not occurred since the 1930s.

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

"It's not illegal, this being crucial to recognize. But it violates all traditional practices. But the company doesn't care for conventions.

"They want to be norm breakers. So if anyone tells them, listen, you are breaking a standard, they perceive that as praise."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary declined requests for interview via correspondence mentioning "all-time high vehicle shipments".

In fact, the automaker has given just a single media interview in the two years after the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, the executive, told a business paper that it benefited the company more not to have a collective agreement, and rather "to work closely with the team and provide them optimal conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the choice to avoid a collective agreement was determined by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses a mandate to take independent such choices," he said.

IF Metall is not completely alone in this conflict. The strike has received backing by a number of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in nearby Denmark, Norway and Finland, decline to process the company's vehicles; rubbish is no longer collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and newly built charging stations remain linked to the grid across the nation.

Exists an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which twenty chargers remain unused. But Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

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

With stakes high on both sides, it's hard to envision a resolution to the stand-off. IF Metall risks setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

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