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Across Sweden, around 70 car technicians persist to challenge one of the world's richest companies – Tesla. This labor strike at the US carmaker's 10 Swedish repair facilities has currently reached its second anniversary, and there is little indication of a resolution.

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

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

Janis devotes every start of the week with a colleague, positioned outside a Tesla garage within an industrial park in Malmö. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies accommodation via a portable builders' van, as well as coffee and light meals.

However it's business as usual nearby, at which the service facility seems to be at full capacity.

The strike concerns an issue that reaches to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the authority for worker organizations to negotiate pay and working terms on behalf of their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has supported labor dynamics across the nation for almost a century.

Today some 70% of Swedish employees belong to labor organizations, and ninety percent fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes across the nation are rare.

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

However the electric car company has upset the apple cart. Vocal chief executive the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the idea of unions. "I simply disapprove of anything which creates a sort of lords and peasants situation," he informed an audience at an event last year. "I think labor groups try to create conflict in a company."

The automaker entered Sweden starting in 2014, while IF Metall has long sought to establish a collective agreement with the automaker.

"But they wouldn't reply," says Marie Nilsson, the union's leader. "And we got the impression that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing this with our representatives."

She states the union ultimately saw no alternative except to announce industrial action, which started in late October, last year. "Typically it's enough to issue the threat," says Ms Nilsson. "The company typically agrees to the agreement."

However this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker in 2021. He asserts that pay & work terms were often dependent on the discretion of supervisors.

He recalls an evaluation meeting at which he says he was denied an annual pay rise because he was "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a coworker was reported to be rejected for a pay rise due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, some workers participated on strike. The company had approximately one hundred thirty technicians employed at the time the industrial action was called. IF Metall says currently around 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has since replaced these with replacement staff, for which there is not occurred since the era of the Great Depression.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," states a labor researcher, a researcher at Arena Idé, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not illegal, this being crucial to understand. However it goes against all established practices. But the company shows no concern about norms.

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

The company's Swedish subsidiary refused attempts for comment via correspondence mentioning "record deliveries".

Indeed, the automaker has given only one press discussion in the two years after the strike started.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, told a business paper that it benefited the organization better to avoid a union contract, and rather "to work closely with the team and provide them optimal terms".

The executive denied that the choice to avoid a labor contract was one made by US leadership in the US. "We have authorization to make our own such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not completely alone in its fight. This industrial action has received backing from several of other unions.

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Norway and neighboring states, decline to handle the company's vehicles; rubbish is no longer removed from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and recently constructed charging stations remain connected to the grid in the country.

There is one such facility close to the capital's airport, at which 20 chargers remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There exists an alternative power point 10km from this location," he comments. "Plus we are able to continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our cars, we can power our cars."

With consequences high on both sides, it is difficult to envision a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall risks establishing a pattern if it concedes the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

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