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In Sweden, approximately 70 car technicians persist to challenge among the globe's richest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action at the US automaker's ten Scandinavian repair facilities has now reached its second anniversary, with minimal indication for a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has remained at the electric car company's picket line starting from October 2023.

"It has been a difficult period," remarks the 39-year-old. With the nation's chilly seasonal conditions arrives, it's likely to become even tougher.

Janis spends each Monday alongside a fellow worker, positioned outside an electric vehicle garage within a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides accommodation in the form of a portable builders' van, plus coffee & sandwiches.

However it remains business as usual nearby, at which the workshop seems to operate at full capacity.

This industrial action involves a matter that goes to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the right of trade unions to negotiate wages & working terms representing their members. This concept of collective agreement has supported industrial relations across the nation for nearly a century.

Today some 70% of Scandinavia's employees are members of a trade union, while 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

This is an arrangement supported across the board. "We prefer the right to bargain directly with the unions and establish labor contracts," says Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However Tesla has disrupted established practices. Outspoken chief executive the company leader has said he "opposes" with the concept of unions. "I just don't like anything which creates a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he informed listeners at an event last year. "In my view the unions attempt to create negativity within businesses."

Tesla entered Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, while IF Metall has long sought to establish a collective agreement with the automaker.

"Yet they wouldn't respond," states the union president, the union's president. "And we got the impression that they tried to avoid or not discuss this with us."

She states the union eventually found no other option except to announce industrial action, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Usually the threat suffices to issue the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company usually signs the contract."

But not in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is from Latvia, started working for Tesla in 2021. He asserts that wages & conditions frequently subject to the whim of supervisors.

He remembers an evaluation meeting at which he states he was denied an annual pay rise because he was "failing to meet company targets". Meanwhile, a coworker was reported to be turned down for increased compensation due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone went out in the industrial action. Tesla had approximately 130 technicians employed at the time the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall says that today approximately seventy of its members are on strike.

Tesla has long since substituted the striking workers with replacement staff, for which there is no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] openly and methodically," says German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a policy organization supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not illegal, which is crucial to recognize. But it violates all traditional norms. Yet Tesla shows no concern for conventions.

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

The automaker's local division declined attempts for comment via correspondence citing "record deliveries".

In fact, the automaker has given only one press discussion in the two years after the strike began.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, informed a financial publication that it benefited the company more not to have a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and give them the best possible terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision to avoid a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have a mandate to take our own such choices," he said.

IF Metall is not entirely alone in this conflict. This industrial action has received backing from several of labor organizations.

Port workers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & Finland, decline to process the company's vehicles; rubbish is not collected from Tesla's Swedish facilities; and newly built power points are not being linked to power networks in the country.

There is an example close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 charging units remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, the president of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station 10km from here," he says. "And we can still purchase vehicles, we can service our vehicles, we can charge our cars."

With consequences significant on both sides, it is difficult to envision a resolution to the deadlock. The union risks setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

"The concern is how that would spread," says Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode