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Across Sweden, around seventy car technicians persist to confront one of the world's richest corporations – Tesla. The labor strike targeting the American automaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has now reached its second anniversary, and there is little indication of a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has remained on the electric car company's protest line since October 2023.

"It has been a difficult period," remarks the 39-year-old. And as the nation's cold winter weather arrives, it is expected to grow more challenging.

The mechanic spends every start of the week alongside a colleague, standing outside an electric vehicle service center within an industrial park in Malmö. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies accommodation via a portable construction vehicle, as well as hot beverages & sandwiches.

However it remains business as usual across the road, at which the workshop appears to operate at full capacity.

The strike concerns an issue that reaches to the heart of Swedish industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to bargain for pay and conditions on behalf of their workforce. This concept of collective agreement has supported industrial relations in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Today some 70% of Scandinavia's workers are members to labor organizations, while ninety percent are covered by a collective agreement. Strikes across the nation are rare.

It's a system supported by all parties. "We favor the ability to bargain directly with worker representatives and establish collective agreements," says Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But Tesla has disrupted established practices. Outspoken chief executive the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply disapprove of anything 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 negativity within businesses."

Tesla entered the Scandinavian market starting in the mid-2010s, while IF Metall has long wanted to secure a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they did not reply," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's president. "And we got the impression that they tried to hide away or not discuss the matter with us."

She says the organization eventually saw no alternative except to announce a strike, which started in late October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to make a warning," says the union leader. "The company usually agrees to the agreement."

However this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker several years ago. He asserts that wages and work terms were often subject to the whim of supervisors.

He remembers an evaluation meeting at which he states he was denied a salary increase because he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was reported to be turned down for a pay rise due to he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers participated on strike. Tesla had approximately 130 mechanics working at the time the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall says that today approximately seventy of its members are on strike.

The automaker has long since replaced the striking workers with new workers, for which there is no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," says 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 understand. But it goes against all established norms. But Tesla shows no concern for conventions.

"They want to become convention challengers. Thus when somebody tells them, listen, you are breaking a norm, they perceive this as a compliment."

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

Indeed, the company has granted only one press discussion during the entire period after the strike began.

In March 2024, the local division's "country lead", the executive, informed a financial publication that it suited the organization more not to have a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with employees and provide them the best possible terms".

The executive denied that the choice to avoid a collective agreement was determined at Tesla headquarters in the US. "We have authorization to make independent such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not completely alone in this conflict. The strike has been supported from several of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & Finland, are refusing to handle the company's vehicles; waste is no longer removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed power points are not being linked to power networks in the country.

Exists one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where twenty chargers remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There's an alternative power point six miles from here," he comments. "Plus we are able to still buy our cars, we can maintain our cars, we can power our cars."

With consequences significant for all parties, it's hard to see an end to the stand-off. The union faces the danger of establishing a pattern if it concedes the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

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