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In Sweden, around seventy automotive technicians persist to confront one of the globe's wealthiest companies – Tesla. This labor strike targeting the American carmaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has currently reached its second anniversary, and there is minimal indication for a settlement.

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

"It has been a tough period," states the worker in his late thirties. With the nation's cold seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to become more challenging.

The mechanic spends every start of the week with a fellow worker, standing outside a Tesla garage within a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter in the form of a portable construction vehicle, as well as hot beverages & sandwiches.

However it remains business as usual across the road, at which the service facility seems to be at full capacity.

The strike involves a matter that goes to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to bargain for pay & working terms representing their workforce. This concept of collective agreement has supported industrial relations across the nation for nearly one hundred years.

Currently approximately 70% of Swedish employees belong to labor organizations, and ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes across the nation are rare.

It's a system welcomed across the board. "We prefer the right to negotiate directly with worker representatives and establish labor contracts," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses employer group.

But the electric car company has upset established practices. Vocal CEO Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the idea of unions. "I just don't like any arrangement which creates a sort of hierarchical situation," he told an audience at an event in 2023. "In my view the unions try to generate negativity in a company."

The automaker came to Sweden back in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has long sought to secure a labor contract with the company.

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

She says the organization eventually saw no other option except to call a strike, which started on 27 October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to make a warning," says Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually signs the contract."

However not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, began employment for Tesla several years ago. He claims that wages and work terms were often subject to the discretion of managers.

He recalls a performance review at which he says he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds that he "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was reported to be rejected for increased compensation because he had the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, some workers participated in the industrial action. The company employed approximately 130 mechanics employed at the time the industrial action 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 there is no precedent since the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," states a labor researcher, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank supported by Swedish trade unions.

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

"They want to be norm breakers. Thus when somebody tells them, hey, you are violating a norm, they see this as a compliment."

The company's local division refused attempts for interview in an email citing "record deliveries".

Indeed, the company has granted only one press discussion in the two years after the strike began.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, told a financial publication that it suited the organization better to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and give workers optimal terms".

The executive rejected that the decision not to enter a labor contract was determined at Tesla headquarters in the US. "We have a mandate to make independent such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not completely alone in this conflict. This industrial action has been supported by a number of other unions.

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries & neighboring states, decline to process the company's vehicles; rubbish is not removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed power points are not being connected to the grid in the country.

Exists an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 charging units remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, the president of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from this location," he says. "And we can still buy our cars, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our cars."

With stakes significant on both sides, it's hard to see an end to the stand-off. IF Metall risks setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

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