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Across Sweden, around 70 automotive mechanics continue to confront one of the world's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This industrial action at the American automaker's ten Scandinavian service centers has now entered its second anniversary, and there is minimal sign for a resolution.

One striking worker has been on the Tesla protest line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a tough time," remarks the 39-year-old. With the nation's chilly winter weather sets in, it is expected to grow more challenging.

Janis spends each Monday with a fellow worker, positioned outside a Tesla garage on a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides shelter via a portable builders' van, as well as coffee and light meals.

However it remains business as usual nearby, where the workshop appears to be at full capacity.

This industrial action concerns an issue that reaches to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for pay & conditions on behalf of their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics across the nation for nearly one hundred years.

Today approximately seventy percent of Swedish workers are members of a trade union, and 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden are rare.

This is a system welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the right to negotiate directly with worker representatives and establish labor contracts," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But Tesla has disrupted established practices. Outspoken chief executive the company leader has stated he "disagrees" with the concept of unions. "I just disapprove of any arrangement that establishes a sort of lords and peasants situation," he informed listeners in New York last year. "In my view labor groups try to create conflict in a company."

Tesla came to Sweden back in 2014, while IF Metall has for years wanted to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"But they wouldn't respond," says Marie Nilsson, the union's leader. "We formed the belief that they attempted to avoid or evade discussing this with us."

She says the union eventually found no alternative than to call industrial action, which started in late October, last year. "Usually it's enough to make the threat," comments the union leader. "Employers usually signs the agreement."

But not on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, began employment for Tesla in 2021. He asserts that pay & conditions were often dependent on the discretion of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting at which he says he was denied an annual pay rise because that he "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a coworker was reported to be turned down for increased compensation because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers participated in the industrial action. Tesla employed some 130 mechanics working when the strike was called. The union says currently approximately seventy of its members are on strike.

Tesla has long since replaced these with new workers, for which that has not occurred since the 1930s.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and systematically," states German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not against the law, this being crucial to understand. But it goes against all traditional norms. Yet Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They aim to become norm breakers. So if somebody informs them, listen, you are violating a standard, they perceive that as a compliment."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for interview in an email citing "all-time high vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the automaker has granted only one media interview during the entire period since the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, the executive, told a financial publication that it benefited the company more to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to work closely with employees and provide workers the best possible conditions".

The executive denied that the decision not to enter a labor contract was one made by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses a mandate to make our own such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not completely alone in its fight. This industrial action has received backing by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in nearby Denmark, Nordic countries & Finland, are refusing to process the company's vehicles; rubbish is no longer collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and newly built power points remain connected to power networks across the nation.

Exists an example near the capital's airport, where 20 charging units stand idle. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners are unaffected by the strike.

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

With consequences high for all parties, it is difficult to see a resolution to the stand-off. The union risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is that this could expand," states Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode