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Across Sweden, approximately 70 car mechanics continue to confront among the world's wealthiest corporations – Tesla. This industrial action at the US automaker's 10 Swedish service centers has now entered its second anniversary, with minimal indication of a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has been on the electric car company's protest line since the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a tough time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. With Sweden's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to grow even tougher.

The mechanic devotes every start of the week with a colleague, positioned outside an electric vehicle garage on a business district in Malmö. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter in the form of a portable construction vehicle, as well as hot beverages & sandwiches.

However it's business as usual nearby, where the service facility seems to be at full capacity.

This industrial action involves a matter that reaches to the core of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the right of trade unions to negotiate wages & working terms on behalf of their members. This concept of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Today approximately 70% of Scandinavia's workers are members to labor organizations, while 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden occur infrequently.

This is a system 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.

But the electric car company has upset established practices. Vocal CEO Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just don't like any arrangement which creates a sort of lords and peasants situation," he told listeners at an event in 2023. "In my view labor groups attempt to create conflict within businesses."

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

"But they did not reply," states the union president, the union's president. "We formed the impression that they attempted to hide away or not discuss the matter with us."

She states the organization ultimately found no alternative than to call industrial action, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Usually the threat suffices to make a warning," says Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually agrees to the agreement."

However this did not happen in this case.

The striking mechanic, originally of Latvian origin, started working for Tesla several years ago. He asserts that pay & conditions were often subject to the whim of supervisors.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he says he was denied a salary increase on grounds that he "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a coworker was said to have been rejected for a pay rise due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone went out in the industrial action. Tesla had some one hundred thirty technicians employed at the time the strike was called. IF Metall says currently approximately 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has since replaced these with new workers, a situation that has no precedent since the Great Depression.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and systematically," states German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not illegal, which is crucial to understand. However it violates all established norms. Yet the company doesn't care about norms.

"They aim to be convention challengers. So if somebody tells them, hey, you are violating a norm, they perceive this as praise."

The automaker's local division refused attempts for comment in an email mentioning "record vehicle shipments".

In fact, the company has granted only one media interview in the two years since the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a business paper that it benefited the organization more not to have a union contract, and instead "to work closely with employees and give workers optimal conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision to avoid a labor contract was determined by US leadership in the US. "We have authorization to make independent such decisions," he said.

The union is not completely isolated in this conflict. This industrial action has received backing by a number of other unions.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries and Finland, decline to handle the company's vehicles; waste is not collected from Tesla's Swedish facilities; and newly built power points remain connected to power networks in the country.

There is an example close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which twenty chargers remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, states vehicle owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station six miles from this location," he comments. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our vehicles, we can charge our electric cars."

With consequences high on both sides, it's hard to see a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall risks setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is how this could expand," says Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode