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In Sweden, approximately 70 car technicians continue to challenge among the globe's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This labor strike targeting the American carmaker's ten Swedish repair facilities has now reached its second anniversary, and there is minimal indication for a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has been on the electric car company's protest line since the autumn of 2023.

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

Janis spends each Monday with a colleague, positioned outside a Tesla garage on an industrial park in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies accommodation in the form of a mobile construction vehicle, as well as coffee and sandwiches.

But it remains operations continue normally nearby, where the workshop appears to operate at full capacity.

The strike concerns an issue that goes to the heart of Swedish labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for pay and conditions on behalf of their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics across the nation for nearly one hundred years.

Currently approximately seventy percent of Swedish employees belong of a trade union, while ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

It's an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We favor the ability to bargain freely with worker representatives and establish labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But the electric car company has disrupted established practices. Vocal CEO the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the idea of unions. "I just don't like anything that establishes a sort of hierarchical situation," he told listeners at an event last year. "In my view the unions attempt to generate negativity within businesses."

Tesla came to Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has long wanted to establish a labor contract with the company.

"Yet they did not reply," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "And we got the belief that they tried to avoid or evade discussing the matter with us."

She says the organization ultimately found no alternative than to announce industrial action, beginning in late October, last year. "Typically the threat suffices to make a warning," says the union leader. "The company usually signs the contract."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, started working for Tesla in 2021. He asserts that wages and work terms frequently dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he says he was refused an annual pay rise on grounds that he "failing to meet Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was said to have been rejected for a pay rise because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers participated on strike. The company had approximately 130 technicians employed at the time the industrial action was called. IF Metall states that today approximately seventy of its members are participating in the action.

Tesla has since replaced these with new workers, a situation there is no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly & systematically," says a labor researcher, an analyst at a research institute, a think tank financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not against the law, this being crucial to recognize. But it goes against all established practices. But the company shows no concern for conventions.

"They aim to become convention challengers. So if anyone informs them, listen, you are violating a norm, they perceive this as praise."

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

In fact, the automaker has granted just a single press discussion during the entire period after the industrial action started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, informed a financial publication that it benefited the company more to avoid a union contract, and instead "to work closely with the team and give them optimal conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision to avoid a labor contract was one made by US leadership overseas. "We have authorization to make our own such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in its fight. This industrial action has received backing by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & neighboring states, decline to handle Teslas; waste is no longer removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and newly built charging stations remain linked to the grid across the nation.

Exists one such facility close to the capital's airport, at which 20 charging units remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station six miles from this location," he says. "Plus we are able to still buy our cars, we can maintain our cars, we can power our cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it is difficult to envision a resolution to the stand-off. IF Metall faces the danger of establishing a pattern if it concedes the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

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