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Across Sweden, around 70 car technicians persist to confront among the globe's wealthiest companies – Tesla. The labor strike at the US automaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has now reached its second anniversary, with minimal indication of a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has remained at the electric car company's picket line since the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a tough period," states the worker in his late thirties. And as the nation's cold winter weather arrives, it is expected to grow even tougher.

The mechanic devotes every start of the week with a colleague, positioned near a Tesla service center within a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, IF Metall, supplies accommodation in the form of a portable builders' van, plus hot beverages and sandwiches.

But it's business as usual nearby, at which the service facility appears to be in full swing.

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

Currently some seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers are members to labor organizations, and ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

It's an arrangement supported by all parties. "We prefer the ability to negotiate freely with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

But the electric car company has disrupted established practices. Outspoken CEO the company leader has said he "opposes" with the concept of unions. "I simply don't like anything which creates a kind of lords and peasants situation," he informed listeners in New York in 2023. "I think labor groups try to create conflict in a company."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market back in 2014, and the metalworkers' union has for years sought to establish a labor contract with the automaker.

"But they wouldn't reply," says the union president, the organization's leader. "And we got the belief that they attempted to avoid or evade discussing this with our representatives."

She states the union ultimately found no other option except to call a strike, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to issue a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company usually agrees to the contract."

However not in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He asserts that wages and work terms frequently dependent on the discretion of managers.

He recalls an evaluation meeting where he states he was refused a salary increase on grounds that he "not reaching Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a coworker was said to be rejected for increased compensation because he had the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone went out in the industrial action. Tesla had some 130 mechanics working at the time the strike was called. The union states currently around 70 of its members are on strike.

The automaker has long since substituted these with replacement staff, for which there is no precedent since the 1930s.

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

"It is not illegal, which is important to recognize. But it goes against all traditional norms. But Tesla shows no concern for conventions.

"They want to become convention challengers. Thus when anyone informs them, hey, you are breaking a standard, they see that as a compliment."

The company's local division declined attempts for comment in an email mentioning "all-time high vehicle shipments".

In fact, the automaker has given just a single press discussion during the entire period since the strike started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, told a business paper that it benefited the company better to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with employees and give them optimal terms".

Mr Stark denied that the choice to avoid a collective agreement was determined at Tesla headquarters in the US. "We have authorization to take our own such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in its fight. The strike has received backing by a number of other unions.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Norway & Finland, decline to handle the company's vehicles; waste is not collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while newly built charging stations are not being linked to power networks across the nation.

Exists one such facility close to the capital's airport, at which twenty chargers remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists an alternative power point six miles from this location," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to purchase vehicles, we can service our cars, we can power our electric cars."

With stakes significant on both sides, it is difficult to see 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 the researcher, "and eventually {erode