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In Sweden, around seventy car mechanics persist to challenge among the world's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This industrial action at the American automaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has now entered two years of duration, and there is little sign for a settlement.

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

"It's a tough period," remarks the 39-year-old. With Sweden's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it's likely to grow more challenging.

The mechanic devotes every start of the week with a colleague, positioned near an electric vehicle garage on a business district in Malmö. His union, IF Metall, provides accommodation in the form of a portable builders' van, as well as hot beverages and light meals.

However it remains operations continue normally across the road, at which the workshop seems to operate at full capacity.

This industrial action concerns an issue that reaches to the heart of Swedish industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to bargain for wages & working terms on behalf of their members. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Currently approximately 70% of Swedish workers belong to labor organizations, while 90% fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden are rare.

This is an arrangement supported across the board. "We favor the right to negotiate freely with worker representatives and sign collective agreements," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But Tesla has disrupted established practices. Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has stated he "disagrees" with the concept of unions. "I just don't like any arrangement that establishes a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he told an audience in New York in 2023. "In my view labor groups try to create negativity within businesses."

Tesla entered Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, and IF Metall has for years wanted to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"But they did not reply," says Marie Nilsson, the union's leader. "We formed the impression that they attempted to hide away or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She states the organization ultimately found no other option except to call a strike, which started on 27 October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to issue a warning," comments the union leader. "Employers typically agrees to the agreement."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, who is of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker in 2021. He claims that pay and conditions frequently subject to the whim of supervisors.

He recalls an evaluation meeting at which he says he was refused a salary increase on grounds he was "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a coworker was said to be rejected for a pay rise due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone went out in the industrial action. The company employed some one hundred thirty technicians employed at the time the strike was initiated. IF Metall says currently approximately seventy of its members are on strike.

Tesla has since replaced the striking workers with replacement staff, a situation that has not occurred since the era of the 1930s.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," states German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not against the law, which is crucial to understand. But it violates all established practices. Yet the company shows no concern about norms.

"They want to be convention challengers. So if somebody tells them, hey, you are violating a standard, they perceive this as praise."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for interview in an email mentioning "all-time high deliveries".

Indeed, the company has granted only one media interview during the entire period since the industrial action started.

Earlier this year, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, informed a business paper that it suited the company more to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to work closely with the team and provide workers optimal conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision to avoid a collective agreement was one made by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to make independent such choices," he said.

The union is not completely isolated in its fight. This industrial action has been supported from several of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in nearby Denmark, Nordic countries and neighboring states, are refusing to process Teslas; waste is not removed from Tesla's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed power points are not being linked to power networks in the country.

There is one such facility near the capital's airport, at which 20 charging units remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states Tesla owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station 10km from here," he comments. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our vehicles, we can power our electric cars."

With consequences significant for all parties, it's hard to envision a resolution to the stand-off. IF Metall faces the danger of setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The worry is that this could expand," states the researcher, "and ultimately {erode