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Across Sweden, approximately 70 car technicians continue to challenge among the world's wealthiest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This labor strike at the American carmaker's ten Scandinavian repair facilities has currently reached two years of duration, with little sign of a settlement.

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

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

Janis spends each Monday alongside a colleague, positioned near an electric vehicle service center within a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides shelter in the form of a mobile construction vehicle, as well as coffee & sandwiches.

However it remains operations continue normally nearby, at which the service facility seems to operate at full capacity.

The strike involves a matter that reaches to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the authority of trade unions to negotiate wages & conditions on behalf of their members. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned industrial relations across the nation for almost one hundred years.

Today approximately 70% of Scandinavia's workers are members of a trade union, while 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden occur infrequently.

This is an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We favor the right to negotiate directly with worker representatives and sign collective agreements," states Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But the electric car company has upset the apple cart. Outspoken chief executive the company leader has stated he "disagrees" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply disapprove of anything that establishes a sort of lords and peasants situation," he told listeners at an event last year. "In my view the unions try to generate negativity in a company."

The automaker came to the Scandinavian market starting in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has long sought to establish a collective agreement with the company.

"But they did not reply," states the union president, the organization's leader. "And we got the belief that they tried to hide away or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She states the organization eventually found no other option than to call industrial action, beginning on 27 October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to issue a warning," comments the union leader. "Employers typically signs the agreement."

However this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, who is from Latvia, began employment with the automaker in 2021. He claims that pay and work terms were often dependent on the discretion of supervisors.

He remembers a performance review at which he states he was denied an annual pay rise because he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a colleague was reported to be turned down for a pay rise due to he had the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone participated on strike. The company employed approximately 130 technicians employed when the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall states currently approximately 70 of their represented workers are participating in the action.

The automaker has since substituted these with replacement staff, for which there is no precedent since the era of the 1930s.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & methodically," says German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not illegal, which is important to understand. However it goes against all established norms. Yet the company doesn't care for conventions.

"They want to become convention challengers. Thus when somebody tells them, hey, you are breaking a norm, they see this as a compliment."

The automaker's local division declined attempts for interview in an email citing "record deliveries".

Indeed, the automaker has granted only one media interview in the two years after the industrial action began.

Earlier this year, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a business paper that it benefited the organization better to avoid a union contract, and rather "to work closely with employees and provide them optimal terms".

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

The union is not completely isolated in this conflict. This industrial action has received backing by a number of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in nearby Denmark, Norway and neighboring states, are refusing to handle the company's vehicles; rubbish is no longer collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; while newly built power points are not being linked to power networks across the nation.

Exists one such facility near the capital's airport, at which twenty charging units remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the president of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

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

With stakes significant on both sides, it's hard to see an end to the stand-off. IF Metall risks setting a precedent should it surrender the principle of collective agreement.

"The worry is that this could expand," states Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode