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Across Sweden, approximately 70 automotive mechanics continue to challenge among the globe's richest corporations – Tesla. The industrial action at the US automaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has now entered two years of duration, and there is little indication for a resolution.

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

"It has been a tough time," states the worker in his late thirties. And as the nation's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to grow more challenging.

Janis spends every start of the week alongside a fellow worker, positioned outside a Tesla garage on a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, IF Metall, provides accommodation in the form of a mobile construction vehicle, as well as hot beverages and light meals.

But it remains business as usual nearby, where the service facility appears to operate at full capacity.

The strike involves an issue that goes to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to bargain for wages and working terms representing their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported industrial relations in Sweden for nearly a century.

Currently approximately 70% of Scandinavia's employees belong to labor organizations, while ninety percent fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

It's a system welcomed by all parties. "We favor the ability to negotiate directly with worker representatives and establish labor contracts," says Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses business organization.

However the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal CEO the company leader has stated he "disagrees" with the concept of unions. "I just don't like any arrangement that establishes a sort of lords and peasants situation," he told an audience in New York last year. "I think labor groups try to create negativity in a company."

Tesla entered Sweden back in 2014, while IF Metall has long sought to establish a collective agreement with the company.

"But they did not reply," says the union president, the organization's leader. "We formed the belief that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing the matter with us."

She states the union ultimately found no alternative except to call a strike, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to issue a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers typically agrees to the agreement."

However this did not happen in this case.

The striking mechanic, originally of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He asserts that pay & conditions frequently dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He recalls a performance review at which he says he was refused a salary increase because that he "not reaching company targets". Meanwhile, a colleague was reported to be turned down for a pay rise due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, some workers went out on strike. The company employed some one hundred thirty mechanics working when the industrial action was called. IF Metall states that today approximately 70 of their represented workers are participating in the action.

Tesla has since substituted the striking workers with replacement staff, a situation there is not occurred since the era of the Great Depression.

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

"It is not illegal, this being crucial to recognize. But it goes against all established practices. Yet the company doesn't care about norms.

"They aim to become convention challengers. Thus when anyone informs them, hey, you are breaking a norm, they see that as a compliment."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary declined attempts for comment in an email mentioning "all-time high vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the company has granted only one media interview during the entire period after the strike began.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it suited the organization better to avoid a union contract, and instead "to work closely with employees and give them optimal conditions".

The executive denied that the choice not to enter a labor contract was one made at Tesla headquarters in the US. "Our division possesses a mandate to make our own such choices," he said.

The union is not entirely isolated in this conflict. The strike has been supported by a number of other unions.

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Norway and neighboring states, decline to handle the company's vehicles; waste is not collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed charging stations are not being connected to the grid across the nation.

There is an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which twenty chargers stand idle. But Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the strike.

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

With consequences high for all parties, it's hard to envision a resolution to the deadlock. The union faces the danger of establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is how this could expand," says the researcher, "and eventually {erode