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Across Sweden, around seventy automotive mechanics persist to confront one of the world's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This industrial action at the American automaker's ten Swedish repair facilities has now reached two years of duration, and there is minimal indication of a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has been on the Tesla picket line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a difficult period," states the worker in his late thirties. With the nation's cold winter weather sets in, it's likely to grow even tougher.

Janis devotes every start of the week alongside a fellow worker, standing near an electric vehicle garage on an industrial park in Malmö. The labor organization, IF Metall, supplies accommodation in the form of a portable construction vehicle, plus coffee & sandwiches.

However it remains operations continue normally across the road, at which the workshop appears to be in full swing.

This industrial action concerns an issue that reaches to the core of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the authority for worker organizations to negotiate wages and working terms representing their workforce. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported industrial relations across the nation for almost one hundred years.

Today approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's employees belong of a trade union, and ninety percent are covered by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages in Sweden occur infrequently.

This is an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We favor the right to negotiate freely with the unions and establish labor contracts," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses employer group.

But the electric car company has upset established practices. Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of any arrangement which creates a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he told listeners at an event last year. "I think labor groups try to generate negativity within businesses."

The automaker came to the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has long sought to establish a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they did not respond," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's president. "And we got the belief that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She says the union eventually found no other option than to announce industrial action, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to make the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers typically agrees to the agreement."

But this did not happen in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker several years ago. He asserts that pay and conditions frequently dependent on the discretion of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he states he was refused a salary increase because that he "not reaching Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a coworker was said to have been turned down for increased compensation due to he had the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, not everyone went out on strike. The company had some one hundred thirty mechanics employed when the industrial action was called. IF Metall states currently approximately 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

The automaker has since substituted these with new workers, for which there is not occurred since the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly and methodically," states a labor researcher, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not illegal, this being crucial to recognize. However it goes against all established norms. Yet Tesla shows no concern for conventions.

"They want to become convention challengers. So if somebody informs them, listen, you are breaking a norm, they see this as praise."

The company's local division refused requests for interview via correspondence mentioning "record deliveries".

In fact, the company has given only one media interview during the entire period after the industrial action began.

Earlier this year, the local division's "country lead", the executive, informed a business paper that it benefited the company more to avoid a collective agreement, and instead "to work closely with employees and give them optimal conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the decision not to enter a labor contract was determined by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses a mandate to take our own such decisions," he said.

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

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries & Finland, decline to handle Teslas; waste is no longer collected from Tesla's Swedish facilities; while newly built charging stations remain connected to power networks in the country.

Exists an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where 20 chargers stand idle. But Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, states vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from here," he comments. "And we can still buy our cars, we can service our cars, we can power our electric cars."

With consequences significant on both sides, it's hard to envision an end to the stand-off. The union risks setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The worry is how that would spread," states the researcher, "and ultimately {erode