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Across Sweden, approximately 70 automotive technicians continue to challenge one of the world's richest corporations – Tesla. The labor strike targeting the American carmaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has currently reached its second anniversary, and there is minimal sign of a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has remained on the Tesla protest line since the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a tough period," states the worker in his late thirties. With Sweden's chilly winter weather arrives, it's likely to grow even tougher.

Janis devotes each Monday with a fellow worker, positioned near an electric vehicle garage on a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides shelter in the form of a mobile builders' van, as well as hot beverages and sandwiches.

However it's operations continue normally across the road, where the service facility seems to operate in full swing.

This industrial action concerns a matter that goes to the core of Swedish labor traditions – the right for worker organizations to negotiate pay and working terms on behalf of their members. This concept of collective agreement has underpinned industrial relations in Sweden for almost a century.

Today some seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers are members of a trade union, while ninety percent are covered by a collective agreement. Strikes across the nation occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement supported across the board. "We favor the ability to bargain directly with worker representatives and sign collective agreements," states Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However Tesla has upset the apple cart. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has said he "disagrees" with the concept of labor organizations. "I simply don't like any arrangement which creates a kind of hierarchical situation," he told an audience at an event last year. "I think labor groups attempt to create negativity in a company."

The automaker came to Sweden starting in 2014, while the metalworkers' union has for years wanted to secure a labor contract with the company.

"But they did not respond," says the union president, the union's leader. "We formed the belief that they attempted to avoid or evade discussing this with us."

She says the union ultimately saw no other option except to call industrial action, beginning in late October, 2023. "Usually the threat suffices to make a warning," comments the union leader. "Employers typically signs the contract."

However this did not happen in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, started working for Tesla several years ago. He claims that wages and work terms frequently dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he says he was refused an annual pay rise on grounds he was "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a colleague was said to be rejected for a pay rise because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone participated on strike. Tesla employed approximately one hundred thirty technicians working when the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall says that today around 70 of their represented workers are participating in the action.

The automaker has long since replaced the striking workers with new workers, for which there is not occurred since the 1930s.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & methodically," says German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not illegal, which is crucial to understand. But it violates all traditional norms. But Tesla shows no concern for conventions.

"They aim to become convention challengers. Thus when anyone tells them, hey, you are violating a standard, they perceive that as praise."

The company's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for comment in an email mentioning "record deliveries".

Indeed, the automaker has given just a single media interview during the entire period since the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it suited the company more not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to work closely with employees and give workers the best possible conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the choice to avoid a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have a mandate to take independent such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not completely alone in its fight. This industrial action has been supported by a number of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in nearby Denmark, Nordic countries & neighboring states, decline to process Teslas; rubbish is not collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and newly built charging stations remain linked to power networks in the country.

There is one such facility near the capital's airport, at which twenty chargers stand idle. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the strike.

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

With consequences high on both sides, it is difficult to see a resolution to the stand-off. IF Metall faces the danger of establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The concern is how that would spread," states Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode