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In Sweden, approximately seventy car technicians continue to confront among the globe's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action at the American carmaker's ten Swedish service centers has currently entered its second anniversary, with little indication for a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has remained at the electric car company's picket line starting from October 2023.

"It's a tough period," remarks the 39-year-old. With the nation's cold winter weather sets in, it is expected to grow more challenging.

Janis spends each Monday with a fellow worker, positioned near an electric vehicle service center on a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies accommodation in the form of a portable builders' van, as well as coffee and sandwiches.

However it's business as usual nearby, at which the service facility seems to operate in full swing.

This industrial action involves a matter that reaches to the heart of Swedish industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to negotiate wages & working terms representing their workforce. This concept of collective agreement has underpinned industrial relations across the nation for almost one hundred years.

Currently approximately 70% of Scandinavia's employees are members to labor organizations, and 90% fall under by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

It's a system supported by all parties. "We prefer the ability to negotiate directly with the unions and establish labor contracts," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal CEO Elon Musk has said he "disagrees" with the concept of unions. "I simply don't like anything which creates a kind of hierarchical situation," he told listeners in New York in 2023. "In my view labor groups attempt to generate conflict within businesses."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market starting in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has for years wanted to establish a collective agreement with the automaker.

"Yet they wouldn't respond," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's president. "We formed the impression that they tried to avoid or evade discussing this with us."

She states the union eventually found no other option except to call industrial action, which started in late October, 2023. "Usually the threat suffices to make a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company typically signs the agreement."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, who is from Latvia, started working with the automaker in 2021. He claims that wages & conditions frequently dependent on the discretion of managers.

He recalls an evaluation meeting where he says he was denied a salary increase because that he "not reaching Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a colleague was reported to have been turned down for a pay rise due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone participated on strike. The company employed approximately 130 mechanics working at the time the industrial action was called. The union says currently approximately 70 of its members are on strike.

The automaker has long since replaced the striking workers with new workers, a situation there is no precedent since the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly and methodically," states a labor researcher, a researcher at Arena Idé, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not illegal, this being crucial to understand. But it violates all established practices. But the company doesn't care about norms.

"They aim to become norm breakers. Thus when somebody informs them, hey, you are breaking a norm, they perceive that as a compliment."

The company's local division refused attempts for comment via correspondence mentioning "record deliveries".

Indeed, the company has granted just a single press discussion during the entire period since the industrial action began.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, the executive, informed a financial publication that it suited the organization more to avoid a collective agreement, and instead "to work closely with the team and give them the best possible conditions".

The executive denied that the decision to avoid a collective agreement was determined by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses a mandate to take our own such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not entirely isolated in this conflict. This industrial action has received backing from several of other unions.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Norway & Finland, decline to process the company's vehicles; waste is not removed from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and recently constructed charging stations remain linked to the grid across the nation.

There is one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where twenty charging units remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, states Tesla owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station six miles from here," he says. "Plus we are able to still purchase vehicles, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With stakes high for all parties, it's hard to envision a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall faces the danger of establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is how that would spread," says Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode