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In Sweden, approximately 70 automotive technicians persist to challenge among the world's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike at the US automaker's ten Swedish service centers has currently reached two years of duration, with little indication of a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has remained at the Tesla protest line since October 2023.

"It has been a tough time," states the 39-year-old. And as the nation's cold winter weather sets in, it is expected to become even tougher.

Janis devotes each Monday alongside a fellow worker, standing near a Tesla service center within an industrial park in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation via a mobile builders' van, plus coffee and light meals.

However it remains operations continue normally nearby, where the service facility seems to operate in full swing.

This industrial action concerns a matter that reaches to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to negotiate pay and conditions representing their workforce. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned labor dynamics across the nation for nearly one hundred years.

Today approximately 70% of Scandinavia's employees are members to labor organizations, while 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We favor the ability to bargain directly with worker representatives and sign collective agreements," states Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

But the electric car company has upset the apple cart. Vocal chief executive the company leader has said he "opposes" with the idea of unions. "I just disapprove of any arrangement which creates a sort of lords and peasants situation," he told listeners in New York in 2023. "I think the unions try to generate negativity in a company."

The automaker entered Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, while IF Metall has long sought to secure a labor contract with the company.

"But they did not reply," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "We formed the belief that they attempted to avoid or evade discussing this with our representatives."

She says the organization ultimately saw no other option than to announce industrial action, which started on 27 October, last year. "Typically it's enough to issue the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually signs the agreement."

However this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, began employment for Tesla in 2021. He asserts that pay and conditions frequently dependent on the whim of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting at which he states he was denied a salary increase on grounds he was "failing to meet Tesla's goals". At the same time, a colleague was reported to have been turned down for increased compensation because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers went out on strike. The company employed approximately one hundred thirty technicians working when the strike was called. The union says that today approximately 70 of its members are participating in the action.

The automaker has long since replaced the striking workers with new workers, for which that has not occurred since the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly 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, which is crucial to recognize. But it violates all established norms. But Tesla doesn't care for conventions.

"They want to be convention challengers. So if anyone informs them, listen, you are breaking a standard, they see this as a compliment."

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

Indeed, the company has given only one media interview during the entire period since the strike started.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, Jens Stark, informed a financial publication that it suited the company better to avoid a collective agreement, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and give them the best possible conditions".

The executive denied that the decision not to enter a labor contract was one made by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses a mandate to take our own such decisions," he said.

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

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Norway & Finland, are refusing to handle Teslas; rubbish is not removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed power points are not being connected to the grid across the nation.

There is an example close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which twenty chargers remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There's an alternative power point six miles from this location," he comments. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can maintain our vehicles, we can charge our cars."

With consequences high for all parties, it is difficult to envision an end to the stand-off. The union faces the danger of setting a precedent should it surrender the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is how that would spread," says the researcher, "and eventually {erode