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Across Sweden, around 70 automotive mechanics persist to challenge one of the globe's richest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike at the American automaker's 10 Swedish repair facilities has now entered its second anniversary, with little indication for a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has remained on the Tesla picket line since October 2023.

"It has been a tough time," states the worker in his late thirties. With the nation's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it's likely to grow even tougher.

The mechanic devotes each Monday alongside a fellow worker, standing outside an electric vehicle garage within an industrial park in Malmö. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies accommodation in the form of a mobile builders' van, plus coffee & light meals.

But it's business as usual across the road, at which the service facility appears to operate in full swing.

The strike concerns a matter that reaches to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to bargain for pay & working terms representing their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported industrial relations in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Currently approximately 70% of Scandinavia's employees belong of a trade union, while 90% are covered by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

It's an arrangement supported by all parties. "We prefer the ability to bargain directly with the unions and sign labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses employer group.

But the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal CEO Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just don't like anything that establishes a kind of lords and peasants situation," he informed listeners in New York in 2023. "I think the unions try to create conflict within businesses."

The automaker came to the Scandinavian market starting in 2014, and IF Metall has for years wanted to establish a labor contract with the automaker.

"But they wouldn't reply," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "And we got the belief that they tried to avoid or evade discussing this with our representatives."

She states the union ultimately saw no alternative except to call industrial action, beginning on 27 October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to make the threat," says the union leader. "Employers usually agrees to the contract."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, who is from Latvia, started working with the automaker in 2021. He asserts that wages and work terms were often dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He recalls an evaluation meeting where he states he was refused a salary increase because he was "failing to meet Tesla's goals". At the same time, a colleague was reported to be rejected for increased compensation because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone went out on strike. Tesla had some 130 mechanics working when the strike was initiated. IF Metall states currently approximately 70 of its members are participating in the action.

The automaker has since replaced these with new workers, a situation that has no precedent since the Great Depression.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] openly and systematically," says a labor researcher, an analyst at a research institute, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not against the law, which is important to understand. However it violates all traditional norms. But the company doesn't care for conventions.

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

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for comment via correspondence citing "record vehicle shipments".

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

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, informed a financial publication that it suited the organization better to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with employees and give them optimal terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was determined by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to make independent such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not completely alone in its fight. This industrial action has received backing from several of other unions.

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Norway and neighboring states, are refusing to handle the company's vehicles; waste is no longer collected from Tesla's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed power points remain linked to power networks across the nation.

There is an example close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where 20 chargers stand idle. But a Tesla enthusiast, the president of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, states Tesla owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station six miles from here," he says. "And we can still buy our cars, we can service our cars, we can charge our cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it is difficult to see an end to the stand-off. The union risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The concern is that this could expand," states Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode