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In Sweden, approximately seventy car mechanics persist to challenge among the globe's richest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action targeting the American carmaker's 10 Swedish repair facilities has now reached its second anniversary, and there is little sign of a settlement.

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

"It has been a difficult time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. And as Sweden's cold winter weather sets in, it's likely to grow even tougher.

Janis spends each Monday with a fellow worker, standing outside an electric vehicle service center on an industrial park located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation in the form of a portable builders' van, plus coffee & sandwiches.

But it's business as usual across the road, at which the service facility seems to be in full swing.

This industrial action concerns an issue that goes to the core of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the right of trade unions to negotiate wages and conditions representing their members. This concept of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics across the nation for almost a century.

Today approximately seventy percent of Swedish employees are members of a trade union, and ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes in Sweden occur infrequently.

This is an arrangement supported by all parties. "We favor the right to bargain freely with worker representatives and sign collective agreements," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

However the electric car company has upset the apple cart. Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I simply disapprove of any arrangement that establishes a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he told listeners in New York in 2023. "In my view the unions attempt to create negativity in a company."

The automaker came to Sweden starting in 2014, and the metalworkers' union has long sought to establish a collective agreement with the automaker.

"Yet they did not reply," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "We formed the belief that they tried to avoid or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She says the organization ultimately saw no alternative except to call a strike, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to make a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company usually agrees to the contract."

But not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, began employment for Tesla in 2021. He claims that pay & work terms frequently dependent on the discretion of supervisors.

He remembers a performance review where he says he was refused an annual pay rise because that he "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a colleague was said to be turned down for a pay rise because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone went out on strike. The company had some 130 technicians employed at the time the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall says that today around 70 of its members are on strike.

Tesla has since substituted the striking workers with new workers, for which there is not occurred since the 1930s.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & systematically," says German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Swedish trade unions.

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

"They aim to become convention challengers. Thus when somebody tells them, hey, you are breaking a standard, they see that as a compliment."

The company's Swedish subsidiary refused attempts for interview via correspondence citing "record deliveries".

In fact, the automaker has granted just a single media interview during the entire period after the industrial action began.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, informed a business paper that it suited the organization more to avoid a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with employees and provide workers optimal terms".

The executive rejected that the choice not to enter a labor contract was one made at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have authorization to make independent such choices," he said.

The union is not entirely alone in this conflict. The strike has been supported by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & neighboring states, are refusing to process Teslas; rubbish is not collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed power points remain linked to the grid in the country.

Exists one such facility close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 chargers stand idle. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, states Tesla owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There exists another charging station six miles from this location," he says. "And we can still purchase vehicles, we can maintain our cars, we can power our electric cars."

With consequences high on both sides, it's hard to envision a resolution to the stand-off. IF Metall risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the principle of collective agreement.

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