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In Sweden, around 70 car mechanics persist to challenge among the world's richest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action at the American carmaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has currently reached its second anniversary, with little indication for a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has been on the Tesla protest line since October 2023.

"It has been a difficult time," states the worker in his late thirties. With Sweden's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it is expected to grow even tougher.

Janis spends each Monday alongside a fellow worker, positioned near a Tesla service center on a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter via a mobile construction vehicle, as well as hot beverages and light meals.

But it's operations continue normally nearby, at which the service facility seems to operate in full swing.

This industrial action involves a matter that reaches to the heart of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to bargain for wages & conditions representing their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for almost a century.

Today approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers belong of a trade union, while 90% are covered by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

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

However Tesla has upset established practices. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply don't like anything which creates a sort of hierarchical situation," he informed an audience in New York in 2023. "I think labor groups attempt to generate conflict in a company."

Tesla came to the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has for years sought to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"But they wouldn't respond," says the union president, the union's leader. "And we got the impression that they tried to hide away or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She says the organization ultimately found no alternative than to announce industrial action, which started in late October, last year. "Typically the threat suffices to make a warning," says Ms Nilsson. "Employers typically agrees to the contract."

But not in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He claims that pay & work terms were often subject to the whim of managers.

He recalls a performance review where he says he was denied an annual pay rise because that he "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a colleague was reported to be rejected for a pay rise because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone participated in the industrial action. Tesla had approximately 130 mechanics employed at the time the strike was called. IF Metall states that today approximately seventy of its members are on strike.

The automaker has since replaced the striking workers with replacement staff, a situation that has not occurred since the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly and methodically," states a labor researcher, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not against the law, this being crucial to recognize. However it violates all traditional practices. But the company doesn't care for conventions.

"They want to become norm breakers. Thus when anyone informs them, hey, you are breaking a norm, they perceive that as praise."

The company's local division declined attempts for comment in an email citing "all-time high deliveries".

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

In March 2024, the local division's "country lead", the executive, told a financial publication that it suited the organization better not to have a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and provide workers optimal conditions".

The executive denied that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was one made by US leadership in the US. "We have a mandate to take independent such choices," he stated.

The union is not completely alone in its fight. This industrial action has been supported from several of other unions.

Port workers in nearby Denmark, Nordic countries & neighboring states, are refusing to handle the company's vehicles; waste is not collected from Tesla's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed charging stations remain connected to the grid across the nation.

Exists one such facility near the capital's airport, at which 20 charging units remain unused. But Tibor Blomhäll, the president of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There exists another charging station 10km from this location," he says. "And we can still purchase vehicles, we can service our vehicles, we can power our cars."

With consequences significant on both sides, it's hard to see a resolution to the stand-off. IF Metall risks setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

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