Across Sweden, approximately 70 car mechanics continue to challenge among the globe's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This industrial action at the US automaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has now entered two years of duration, with little sign of a settlement.
Janis Kuzma has been on the electric car company's protest line starting from the autumn of 2023.
"It has been a tough period," remarks the 39-year-old. With Sweden's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it's likely to grow even tougher.
The mechanic spends each Monday alongside a colleague, positioned near an electric vehicle garage within an industrial park in Malmö. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides shelter in the form of a mobile builders' van, plus coffee and sandwiches.
However it remains business as usual nearby, at which the service facility seems to operate at full capacity.
This industrial action concerns an issue that goes to the heart of Swedish labor traditions – the authority of trade unions to bargain for wages and conditions on behalf of their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned labor dynamics across the nation for almost a century.
Currently approximately seventy percent of Swedish workers are members to labor organizations, while 90% are covered by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages in Sweden are rare.
This is an arrangement supported by all parties. "We favor the ability to bargain directly with worker representatives and sign collective agreements," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses business organization.
However Tesla has upset the apple cart. Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of any arrangement that establishes a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he informed an audience in New York in 2023. "I think labor groups try to generate conflict within businesses."
Tesla came to Sweden starting in 2014, and IF Metall has for years wanted to establish a labor contract with the company.
"But they wouldn't reply," 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 us."
She states the organization eventually saw no other option than to call a strike, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Typically the threat suffices to make a warning," says Ms Nilsson. "Employers typically signs the contract."
But not in this case.
Janis Kuzma, who is of Latvian origin, began employment for Tesla in 2021. He asserts that wages & conditions frequently dependent on the whim of managers.
He remembers an evaluation meeting where he states he was refused a salary increase on grounds he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was reported to have been turned down for increased compensation due to having the "wrong attitude".
Nevertheless, not everyone went out in the industrial action. Tesla had some one hundred thirty technicians employed when the industrial action was called. IF Metall says currently around seventy of its members are participating in the action.
Tesla has long since substituted the striking workers with replacement staff, a situation that has not occurred since the era of the Great Depression.
"The company has done it [found replacement staff] publicly and methodically," says German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a policy organization financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.
"It's not against the law, which is important to recognize. But it violates all traditional practices. But the company shows no concern about norms.
"They want to become convention challengers. So if somebody tells them, hey, you are violating a norm, they perceive that as a compliment."
The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused attempts for comment via correspondence citing "record deliveries".
In fact, the automaker has given only one media interview in the two years after the strike started.
Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, told a financial publication that it benefited the organization better not to have a union contract, and instead "to work closely with the team and give workers optimal terms".
The executive denied that the decision not to enter a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to take independent such choices," he said.
The union is not entirely isolated in its fight. The strike has received backing from several of labor organizations.
Dockworkers in nearby Denmark, Norway and neighboring states, decline to process Teslas; rubbish is no longer removed from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while newly built charging stations remain linked to power networks across the nation.
Exists one such facility close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where 20 chargers remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.
"There exists another charging station six miles from this location," he comments. "Plus we are able to still purchase vehicles, we can maintain our vehicles, we can charge our electric cars."
With stakes significant on both sides, it's hard to see a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall faces the danger of setting a precedent if it concedes the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.
"The concern is that this could expand," states Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode
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