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Across Sweden, around seventy car mechanics continue to confront among the world's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike at the US carmaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has currently reached its second anniversary, and there is little indication of a resolution.

One striking worker has been on the electric car company's protest line since October 2023.

"It's a tough time," states the worker in his late thirties. With the nation's cold winter weather arrives, it is expected to grow more challenging.

Janis spends each Monday alongside a fellow worker, positioned near a Tesla service center on an industrial park in Malmö. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies accommodation in the form of a mobile construction vehicle, plus hot beverages & light meals.

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

The strike involves a matter that reaches to the core of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for wages & working terms representing their members. This concept of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics across the nation for nearly one hundred years.

Today some seventy percent of Swedish workers are members of a trade union, while 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden occur infrequently.

It's a system supported across the board. "We favor the right to negotiate directly with the unions and establish labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But Tesla has disrupted the apple cart. Outspoken CEO the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just don't like anything that establishes a kind of hierarchical sort of thing," he told listeners in New York last year. "In my view the unions attempt to generate negativity within businesses."

The automaker entered Sweden back in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has for years sought to establish a labor contract with the company.

"Yet they wouldn't reply," states Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "We formed the belief that they tried to hide away or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She states the organization ultimately found no other option except to call industrial action, which started on 27 October, last year. "Usually it's enough to make the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company usually signs the agreement."

However not in this case.

Janis Kuzma, who is from Latvia, started working for Tesla several years ago. He claims that pay & conditions were often subject to the discretion of managers.

He recalls a performance review at which he says he was denied a salary increase because he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was reported to have been rejected for a pay rise due to he had the "wrong attitude".

However, some workers participated on strike. Tesla employed approximately one hundred thirty mechanics employed at the time the strike was called. IF Metall says currently around seventy of its members are participating in the action.

Tesla has since substituted the striking workers with new workers, a situation that has not occurred since the Great Depression.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] openly and methodically," states German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a policy organization supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not against the law, this being crucial to understand. However it goes against all established practices. But the company shows no concern about norms.

"They aim to be norm breakers. Thus when anyone informs them, hey, you are violating a standard, they perceive this as praise."

The automaker's local division refused attempts for interview in an email citing "record deliveries".

In fact, the automaker has granted just a single media interview during the entire period since the industrial action started.

Earlier this year, the local division's "national manager, the executive, informed a business paper that it suited the company better not to have a union contract, and rather "to work closely with employees and provide workers optimal conditions".

The executive denied that the decision to avoid a labor contract was determined by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses a mandate to take our own such decisions," he stated.

The union is not entirely alone in this conflict. This industrial action has received backing by a number of other unions.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & Finland, decline to process Teslas; waste is no longer removed from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed power points remain linked to the grid in the country.

Exists an example close to the capital's airport, at which 20 charging units remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There's an alternative power point six miles from here," he comments. "And we can still buy our cars, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it is difficult to envision an end to the stand-off. The union risks establishing a pattern if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

"The concern is that this could expand," states the researcher, "and ultimately {erode