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Across Sweden, around 70 car mechanics continue to challenge among the globe's richest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This industrial action targeting the US carmaker's 10 Swedish service centers has currently reached its second anniversary, and there is minimal indication for a settlement.

One striking worker has been on the electric car company's protest line since the autumn of 2023.

"It's a difficult period," states the 39-year-old. And as the nation's chilly winter weather sets in, it is expected to grow even tougher.

Janis spends every start of the week with a colleague, standing outside a Tesla service center on an industrial park located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides shelter in the form of a mobile construction vehicle, plus hot beverages & light meals.

But it's business as usual across the road, where the workshop seems to be in full swing.

This industrial action concerns an issue that goes to the heart of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to bargain for wages & working terms on behalf of their members. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned industrial relations across the nation for nearly one hundred years.

Currently approximately seventy percent of Swedish employees are members of a trade union, while 90% fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes across the nation occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement supported by all parties. "We favor the right to negotiate freely with the unions and establish labor contracts," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But the electric car company has upset established practices. Outspoken CEO the company leader has stated he "disagrees" with the idea of unions. "I simply don't like anything that establishes a kind of lords and peasants sort of thing," he told listeners in New York last year. "I think the unions attempt to create negativity within businesses."

Tesla came to Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has for years sought to establish a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they did not respond," states Marie Nilsson, the union's leader. "And we got the belief that they attempted to avoid or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She says the organization ultimately saw no other option except to call industrial action, which started on 27 October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to issue the threat," comments the union leader. "The company usually agrees to the contract."

But not in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, began employment for Tesla in 2021. He claims that wages & work terms were often subject to the discretion of managers.

He recalls an evaluation meeting at which he states he was denied an annual pay rise because he was "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a colleague was reported to have been rejected for a pay rise due to he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone went out in the industrial action. Tesla had some 130 technicians employed when the strike was initiated. IF Metall states currently approximately 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has since replaced these with new workers, a situation there is no precedent since the Great Depression.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] openly and methodically," says German Bender, an analyst at a research institute, a policy organization financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

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

"They want to be norm breakers. Thus when anyone informs them, hey, you are violating a norm, they see this as a compliment."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused attempts for comment in an email mentioning "record deliveries".

In fact, the company has given only one press discussion in the two years since the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, informed a financial publication that it suited the organization more to avoid a collective agreement, and instead "to work closely with employees and give them the best possible terms".

Mr Stark denied that the choice to avoid a collective agreement was determined at Tesla headquarters in the US. "Our division possesses a mandate to make our own such choices," he stated.

IF Metall is not entirely isolated in its fight. The strike has been supported by a number of other unions.

Dockworkers in nearby Denmark, Nordic countries and Finland, are refusing to process the company's vehicles; waste is not removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and newly built power points are not being connected to the grid in the country.

There is an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which twenty chargers remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from this location," he comments. "Plus we are able to still buy our cars, we can service our cars, we can power our cars."

With stakes significant on both sides, it is difficult to see an end to the stand-off. IF Metall faces the danger of establishing a pattern should it surrender the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is that this could expand," states Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode