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In Sweden, around 70 car technicians persist to challenge one of the globe's wealthiest companies – Tesla. This industrial action at the US automaker's 10 Swedish repair facilities has currently entered two years of duration, and there is minimal indication for a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has been on the Tesla picket line since October 2023.

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

The mechanic spends every start of the week alongside a colleague, positioned outside an electric vehicle garage on an industrial park located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation via a mobile builders' van, plus coffee & light meals.

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

This industrial action concerns a matter that reaches to the heart of Swedish labor traditions – the authority of trade unions to bargain for pay & working terms on behalf of their members. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned industrial relations in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Currently some seventy percent of Scandinavia's employees belong of a trade union, while ninety percent are covered by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

This is an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the right to negotiate directly with worker representatives and establish collective agreements," says Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But Tesla has disrupted established practices. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the concept of unions. "I just don't like any arrangement that establishes a kind of lords and peasants situation," he told listeners at an event in 2023. "In my view labor groups attempt to generate conflict in a company."

The automaker came to the Scandinavian market starting in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has long sought to establish a labor contract with the automaker.

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

She says the organization eventually saw no other option except to call a strike, beginning in late October, last year. "Typically it's enough to make a warning," says Ms Nilsson. "The company typically signs the agreement."

But not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally of Latvian origin, started working for Tesla in 2021. He claims that pay & work terms frequently dependent on the discretion of supervisors.

He recalls an evaluation meeting at which he states he was denied an annual pay rise because that he "not reaching company targets". Meanwhile, a colleague was reported to be turned down for increased compensation because having the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone participated in the industrial action. The company employed some one hundred thirty mechanics working when the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall states that today around 70 of its members are on strike.

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

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] publicly and systematically," states German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not against the law, which is important to understand. But it violates all traditional norms. Yet the company shows no concern for conventions.

"They want to become convention challengers. So if anyone informs them, listen, you are breaking a norm, they perceive this as praise."

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

In fact, the company has given only one press discussion during the entire period since the strike began.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, informed a financial publication that it suited the organization more not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and provide workers optimal conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice to avoid a labor contract was determined at Tesla headquarters in the US. "We have a mandate to make our own such decisions," he stated.

The union is not completely isolated in its fight. This industrial action has received backing from several of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Norway & neighboring states, decline to handle Teslas; waste is no longer collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed power points are not being connected to power networks across the nation.

Exists an example close to the capital's airport, where 20 chargers stand idle. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station 10km from this location," he comments. "And we can continue to buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can power our electric cars."

With consequences high for all parties, it is difficult to envision a resolution to the stand-off. IF Metall faces the danger of setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

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