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In Sweden, around seventy automotive mechanics continue to confront among the globe's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This labor strike targeting the American carmaker's 10 Swedish repair facilities has now entered its second anniversary, with little sign for a resolution.

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

"It has been a difficult time," states the worker in his late thirties. And as the nation's chilly seasonal conditions arrives, it's likely to become more challenging.

Janis devotes each Monday alongside a colleague, standing near an electric vehicle garage within a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter via a portable construction vehicle, plus coffee and light meals.

However it remains business as usual nearby, where the workshop seems to operate in full swing.

This industrial action concerns a matter that goes to the core of Swedish labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to negotiate wages & conditions on behalf of their members. This principle of collective agreement has supported industrial relations in Sweden for almost a century.

Currently some 70% of Swedish employees are members of a trade union, while ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes across the nation are rare.

It's an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We prefer the ability to bargain directly with the unions and sign labor contracts," says Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But Tesla has upset established practices. Outspoken chief executive the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the idea of unions. "I just don't like anything that establishes a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he informed an audience at an event last year. "In my view labor groups attempt to create conflict within businesses."

The automaker came to the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, while IF Metall has long sought to secure a labor contract with the automaker.

"But they did not reply," says the union president, the organization's president. "We formed the impression that they tried to avoid or evade discussing this with our representatives."

She says the organization ultimately saw no other option except to call a strike, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Usually the threat suffices to issue a warning," says the union leader. "Employers usually agrees to the contract."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He claims that pay & work terms frequently dependent on the whim of managers.

He recalls a performance review at which he states he was refused a salary increase because he was "failing to meet Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was reported to have been turned down for increased compensation because having the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone went out on strike. The company employed some 130 technicians employed when the strike was called. IF Metall states that today approximately 70 of its members are on strike.

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

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & methodically," says a labor researcher, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, this being crucial to recognize. But it violates all established norms. Yet the company shows no concern about norms.

"They want to become convention challengers. So if anyone tells them, listen, you are violating a standard, they see that as praise."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for interview in an email mentioning "record vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the automaker has given just a single media interview in the two years since the industrial action started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, informed a business paper that it benefited the company better not to have a union contract, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and give them the best possible conditions".

The executive denied that the choice to avoid a collective agreement was determined by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to take independent such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not completely alone in this conflict. This industrial action has been supported from several of other unions.

Port workers in nearby Denmark, Norway and neighboring states, are refusing to handle the company's vehicles; rubbish is no longer removed from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; while newly built charging stations remain linked to the grid in the country.

There is an example near the capital's airport, where 20 chargers stand idle. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists another charging station 10km from here," he comments. "And we can still buy our cars, we can maintain our cars, we can power our electric cars."

With consequences significant on both sides, it's hard to see a resolution to the deadlock. The union faces the danger of setting a precedent should it surrender the principle of collective agreement.

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