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In Sweden, around 70 car technicians continue to confront among the globe's wealthiest companies – Tesla. The labor strike targeting the American automaker's ten Swedish repair facilities has now reached its second anniversary, and there is minimal sign of a settlement.

One striking worker has remained at the electric car company's picket line since October 2023.

"It's a tough time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. And as the nation's cold winter weather arrives, it's likely to grow more challenging.

Janis spends every start of the week with a fellow worker, positioned outside an electric vehicle garage on a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, supplies shelter in the form of a mobile construction vehicle, as well as hot beverages & light meals.

But it remains operations continue normally nearby, where the workshop appears to be at full capacity.

The strike concerns an issue that reaches to the heart of Swedish industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to bargain for wages & working terms representing their workforce. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported industrial relations across the nation for almost one hundred years.

Today some seventy percent of Scandinavia's employees belong to labor organizations, and ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement supported by all parties. "We favor the ability to negotiate freely with the unions and establish labor contracts," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

However the electric car company has upset established practices. Outspoken CEO the company leader has said he "disagrees" with the concept of labor organizations. "I simply don't like any arrangement that establishes a kind of lords and peasants sort of thing," he informed an audience in New York last year. "I think the unions try to create conflict in a company."

Tesla came to the Scandinavian market back in 2014, and IF Metall has for years wanted to secure a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they did not reply," says the union president, the organization's leader. "And we got the belief that they tried to avoid or evade discussing this with our representatives."

She states the organization ultimately saw no other option than to announce a strike, which started in late October, 2023. "Usually the threat suffices to issue the threat," says Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually agrees to the agreement."

However not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, who is from Latvia, began employment for Tesla in 2021. He claims that wages and conditions frequently dependent on the whim of managers.

He recalls an evaluation meeting at which he states he was denied a salary increase on grounds that he "failing to meet company targets". Meanwhile, a coworker was said to be turned down for increased compensation because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone participated on strike. Tesla had some 130 mechanics employed at the time the strike was initiated. IF Metall says that today around seventy of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has since replaced these with new workers, for which there is no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly & methodically," says German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a think tank financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not illegal, this being important to understand. However it violates all established norms. Yet the company doesn't care about norms.

"They want to be convention challengers. Thus when somebody tells them, listen, you are breaking a norm, they see that as a compliment."

The automaker's local division declined attempts for interview in an email mentioning "record vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the automaker has granted only one press discussion during the entire period after the industrial action started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, informed a financial publication that it benefited the organization more not to have a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and give workers the best possible terms".

Mr Stark denied that the decision not to enter a labor contract was determined at Tesla headquarters overseas. "Our division possesses a mandate to take independent such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in this conflict. The strike has received backing by a number of other unions.

Port workers in nearby Denmark, Nordic countries & neighboring states, decline to handle Teslas; rubbish is no longer collected from Tesla's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed power points are not being connected to power networks in the country.

Exists an example near the capital's airport, where twenty charging units stand idle. But Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There's another charging station six miles from here," he says. "And we can continue to buy our cars, we can maintain our vehicles, we can power our cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it's hard to see an end to the deadlock. IF Metall risks establishing a pattern if it concedes the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is how this could expand," says Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode