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In Sweden, around 70 car mechanics persist to confront one of the world's wealthiest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action targeting the American carmaker's 10 Swedish repair facilities has now entered two years of duration, and there is minimal sign of a resolution.

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

"It has been a difficult time," remarks the 39-year-old. With the nation's chilly winter weather sets in, it is expected to become even tougher.

Janis spends each Monday with a colleague, positioned near an electric vehicle service center within a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies accommodation in the form of a portable builders' van, as well as hot beverages and 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 goes to the heart of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to negotiate pay & conditions on behalf of their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported industrial relations across the nation for nearly one hundred years.

Currently some seventy percent of Scandinavia's employees are members to labor organizations, while 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden occur infrequently.

This is a system supported across the board. "We prefer the right to bargain directly with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But Tesla has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal chief executive the company leader has said he "disagrees" with the concept of unions. "I simply disapprove of any arrangement which creates a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he told listeners at an event in 2023. "I think the unions attempt to generate conflict in a company."

The automaker came to the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, and IF Metall has for years sought to establish a collective agreement with the company.

"But they did not reply," states the union president, the union's leader. "We formed the belief that they tried to hide away or not discuss this with us."

She states the union ultimately saw no alternative except to call a strike, which started on 27 October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to issue a warning," says Ms Nilsson. "Employers typically signs the contract."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker in 2021. He claims that pay and work terms frequently subject to the discretion of supervisors.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he states he was refused an annual pay rise on grounds he was "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a coworker was said to have been turned down for a pay rise because having the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, not everyone went out on strike. The company had some one hundred thirty mechanics working at the time the strike was initiated. IF Metall states that today around 70 of its members are participating in the action.

The automaker has long since replaced the striking workers with replacement staff, for which that has not occurred since the era of the Great Depression.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," states a labor researcher, an analyst at Arena Idé, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, which is crucial to recognize. However it violates all established norms. Yet Tesla doesn't care for conventions.

"They aim to become convention challengers. So if somebody informs them, listen, you are violating a standard, they perceive this as praise."

The company's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for comment via correspondence citing "all-time high vehicle shipments".

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

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, informed a business paper that it benefited the organization more not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to work closely with the team and provide workers the best possible conditions".

The executive rejected that the choice to avoid a labor contract 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 alone in its fight. This industrial action has received backing by a number of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Denmark, Norway & neighboring states, are refusing to process the company's vehicles; waste is no longer collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed charging stations are not being linked to power networks across the nation.

There is one such facility close to the capital's airport, at which twenty chargers stand idle. However Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists an alternative power point 10km from here," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can power our cars."

With consequences significant on both sides, it's hard to envision a resolution to the stand-off. IF Metall risks setting a precedent should it surrender the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is that this could expand," says Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode