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Across Sweden, approximately 70 car mechanics continue to challenge among the globe's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike at the US automaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has currently entered two years of duration, with minimal sign for a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has remained at the Tesla picket line since October 2023.

"It's a difficult time," remarks the 39-year-old. And as the nation's chilly winter weather arrives, it's likely to become more challenging.

The mechanic devotes every start of the week with a colleague, standing near a Tesla garage within a business district in Malmö. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter via a mobile construction vehicle, plus coffee & light meals.

But it's operations continue normally nearby, at which the service facility seems to be in full swing.

This industrial action concerns an issue that goes to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the right for worker organizations to negotiate wages & conditions representing their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported industrial relations in Sweden for nearly a century.

Today some seventy percent of Swedish workers are members to labor organizations, and ninety percent fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the ability to bargain freely with worker representatives and establish collective agreements," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

However the electric car company has upset the apple cart. Outspoken CEO the company leader has said he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of any arrangement that establishes a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he informed listeners in New York last year. "I think labor groups attempt to generate negativity in a company."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market starting in 2014, while IF Metall has long sought to secure a collective agreement with the company.

"But they did not reply," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's president. "And we got the impression that they tried to avoid or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She states the union eventually saw no alternative except to announce a strike, beginning in late October, last year. "Typically it's enough to issue a warning," says the union leader. "The company usually signs the contract."

However this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, who is from Latvia, started working with the automaker in 2021. He asserts that pay & work terms frequently subject to the whim of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting at which he states he was denied a salary increase because that he "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a coworker was said to have been rejected for increased compensation due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone participated in the industrial action. The company had some 130 mechanics employed when the strike was initiated. IF Metall says that today around 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has long since substituted the striking workers with new workers, for which that has not occurred since the 1930s.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," states German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not against the law, which is crucial to understand. But it violates all traditional norms. But the company shows no concern about norms.

"They want to become norm breakers. Thus when somebody tells them, hey, you are violating a norm, they perceive this as praise."

The automaker's local division refused attempts for interview via correspondence citing "record deliveries".

Indeed, the automaker has given just a single media interview in the two years after the strike started.

Earlier this year, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it benefited the company better to avoid a union contract, and rather "to collaborate directly with employees and provide workers the best possible terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision not to enter a collective agreement was determined by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to take our own such choices," he stated.

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

Dockworkers in neighbouring Denmark, Norway & neighboring states, decline to handle the company's vehicles; waste is not collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and newly built power points are not being linked to the grid in the country.

There is one such facility close to the capital's airport, where 20 chargers remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There exists another charging station 10km from here," he comments. "And we can still buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can charge our cars."

With consequences high for all parties, it's hard to envision a resolution to the stand-off. IF Metall faces the danger of establishing a pattern if it concedes the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The worry is that this could expand," states Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode