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In Sweden, approximately seventy automotive mechanics continue to challenge among the globe's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This industrial action targeting the American automaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has currently reached its second anniversary, with little indication of a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has been on the electric car company's picket line since October 2023.

"It has been a difficult time," states the 39-year-old. And as the nation's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it is expected to become even tougher.

Janis devotes each Monday alongside a fellow worker, standing outside a Tesla garage within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides shelter in the form of a mobile builders' van, as well as coffee and light meals.

However it's operations continue normally across the road, where the workshop seems to be at full capacity.

The strike involves an issue that reaches to the core of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the right for worker organizations to bargain for wages & working terms on behalf of their workforce. This concept of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics across the nation for almost one hundred years.

Today approximately seventy percent of Swedish workers are members of a trade union, while ninety percent fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes in Sweden occur infrequently.

This is an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We favor the ability to bargain directly with worker representatives and sign collective agreements," says Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Businesses employer group.

But Tesla has upset the apple cart. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of any arrangement which creates a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he informed listeners at an event last year. "In my view labor groups attempt to create negativity in a company."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market starting in 2014, and the metalworkers' union has for years sought to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

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

She states the union ultimately saw no alternative except to call industrial action, which started in late October, last year. "Usually it's enough to issue the threat," says the union leader. "The company usually agrees to the agreement."

However this did not happen on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, started working for Tesla in 2021. He asserts that wages & conditions were often subject to the whim of managers.

He recalls a performance review at which he says he was denied a salary increase on grounds that he "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a colleague was reported to have been rejected for a pay rise due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers participated in the industrial action. Tesla had some one hundred thirty technicians employed at the time the industrial action was initiated. The union says that today approximately seventy of its members are on strike.

Tesla has long since substituted the striking workers with new workers, for which that has no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

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

"It is not illegal, this being important to recognize. However it goes against all traditional norms. But the company doesn't care about norms.

"They aim to become norm breakers. So if somebody tells them, hey, you are breaking a norm, they see this as a compliment."

The company's local division declined attempts for comment via correspondence mentioning "all-time high vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the company has granted just a single press discussion during the entire period since the strike started.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, told a financial publication that it suited the organization better to avoid a collective agreement, and instead "to work closely with the team and provide them optimal conditions".

The executive denied that the choice to avoid a labor contract was determined by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses a mandate to take independent such decisions," he said.

The union is not completely alone in this conflict. The strike has been supported from several of labor organizations.

Port workers in nearby Denmark, Norway and Finland, are refusing to handle Teslas; waste is not removed from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; and recently constructed charging stations remain linked to the grid across the nation.

There is one such facility near the capital's airport, at which 20 charging units remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the president of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, states Tesla owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from this location," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to purchase vehicles, we can service our vehicles, we can power our cars."

With stakes significant for all parties, it's hard to envision an end to the deadlock. IF Metall risks setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

"The worry is that that would spread," states the researcher, "and ultimately {erode