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Across Sweden, approximately 70 automotive technicians continue to challenge one of the world's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike targeting the US carmaker's ten Scandinavian repair facilities has currently entered two years of duration, and there is little sign for a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has been at the electric car company's protest line since the autumn of 2023.

"It's a tough time," remarks the 39-year-old. With Sweden's cold winter weather sets in, it is expected to become even tougher.

The mechanic devotes every start of the week with a colleague, standing outside an electric vehicle service center on a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, IF Metall, provides shelter via a portable construction vehicle, as well as coffee and sandwiches.

However it's operations continue normally across the road, at which the workshop seems to operate in full swing.

This industrial action involves an issue that reaches to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to negotiate wages and conditions on behalf of their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has supported industrial relations in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Today some 70% of Scandinavia's employees are members of a trade union, and 90% fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

It's an arrangement supported across the board. "We prefer the right to negotiate freely with worker representatives and establish collective agreements," says a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses employer group.

However Tesla has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal CEO the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the concept of unions. "I simply don't like anything that establishes a sort of hierarchical situation," he informed listeners at an event in 2023. "I think the unions attempt to generate negativity in a company."

Tesla came to the Scandinavian market starting in 2014, and the metalworkers' union has for years sought to establish a collective agreement with the automaker.

"Yet they did not reply," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's president. "We formed the impression that they attempted to avoid or evade discussing this with us."

She says the union eventually found no other option than to call industrial action, beginning in late October, last year. "Usually it's enough to issue the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company typically agrees to the contract."

But not in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is from Latvia, started working for Tesla several years ago. He claims that wages and conditions were often dependent on the discretion of supervisors.

He recalls an evaluation meeting where he says he was refused an annual pay rise on grounds he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a coworker was reported to be rejected for a pay rise due to he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers went out on strike. Tesla employed some one hundred thirty technicians working at the time the strike was initiated. The union says that today around 70 of their represented workers are participating in the action.

The automaker has since replaced these with replacement staff, a situation that has no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & methodically," states German Bender, an analyst at a research institute, a policy organization supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not illegal, this being crucial to recognize. But it violates all traditional norms. But the company doesn't care about norms.

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

The company's Swedish subsidiary declined requests for interview in an email citing "all-time high deliveries".

Indeed, the company has granted just a single press discussion during the entire period since the strike began.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a business paper that it benefited the organization better to avoid a union contract, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide workers optimal conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice not to enter a labor contract was determined at Tesla headquarters in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to take our own such decisions," he said.

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

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries and neighboring states, are refusing to handle Teslas; rubbish is no longer removed from Tesla's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed charging stations are not being connected to power networks across the nation.

There is an example near the capital's airport, where twenty charging units remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, states vehicle owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There's another charging station 10km from this location," he comments. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can maintain our vehicles, we can power our cars."

With stakes significant on both sides, it is difficult to envision a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

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