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Across Sweden, around 70 car mechanics continue to challenge one of the world's wealthiest corporations – Tesla. The industrial action at the American carmaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has currently reached two years of duration, with minimal indication of a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has remained at the Tesla protest line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a tough period," remarks the worker in his late thirties. With the nation's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it's likely to become even tougher.

The mechanic devotes each Monday with a fellow worker, positioned outside an electric vehicle service center on an industrial park in Malmö. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides shelter via a mobile construction vehicle, plus hot beverages and light meals.

However it's business as usual across the road, at which the workshop seems to operate at full capacity.

The strike involves a matter that reaches to the heart of Swedish industrial culture – the right of trade unions to negotiate wages & conditions on behalf of their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has supported labor dynamics across the nation for almost one hundred years.

Today approximately seventy percent of Swedish employees are members of a trade union, while 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes in Sweden occur infrequently.

This is an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We favor the ability to negotiate directly with worker representatives and establish labor contracts," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However Tesla has upset established practices. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just don't like any arrangement that establishes a kind of hierarchical sort of thing," he informed listeners at an event in 2023. "I think the unions attempt to create negativity within businesses."

The automaker came to Sweden starting in 2014, and the metalworkers' union has long wanted to establish a labor contract with the company.

"Yet they did not reply," says the union president, the union's president. "We formed the belief that they tried to hide away or not discuss this with our representatives."

She says the union ultimately found no other option except to call industrial action, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to make the threat," comments the union leader. "Employers typically signs the contract."

However not in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker in 2021. He claims that wages and conditions frequently subject to the whim of supervisors.

He recalls a performance review where he says he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds he was "not reaching company targets". Meanwhile, a coworker was said to have been rejected for increased compensation due to he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone participated on strike. Tesla employed some one hundred thirty technicians working when the strike was called. The union says that today around 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

The automaker has long since replaced these with new workers, a situation that has not occurred since the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly and methodically," states German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, which is crucial to recognize. But it violates all established practices. But the company doesn't care for conventions.

"They aim to become convention challengers. Thus when anyone tells them, hey, you are violating a standard, they see that as praise."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary declined attempts for comment via correspondence citing "all-time high vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the company has granted only one press discussion during the entire period since the industrial action began.

In March 2024, the local division's "country lead", the executive, told a business paper that it suited the organization more to avoid a collective agreement, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide them optimal conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters in the US. "We have a mandate to take independent such choices," he said.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in its fight. This industrial action has received backing from several of other unions.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Norway and Finland, are refusing to process the company's vehicles; waste is no longer collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed charging stations are not being linked to the grid across the nation.

Exists one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 chargers stand idle. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists another charging station 10km from here," he comments. "Plus we are able to continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our vehicles, we can charge our electric cars."

With consequences high for all parties, it's hard to envision a resolution to the stand-off. The union risks setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

"The concern is how that would spread," says Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode