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Across Sweden, approximately 70 car technicians continue to challenge among the world's richest companies – Tesla. The industrial action at the US carmaker's ten Scandinavian service centers has currently reached two years of duration, and there is minimal indication of a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has remained at the Tesla picket line since October 2023.

"It's a difficult period," states the 39-year-old. And as the nation's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it's likely to become more challenging.

The mechanic spends every start of the week with a colleague, standing near an electric vehicle service center on a business district in Malmö. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter via a portable builders' van, as well as hot beverages and light meals.

But it remains business as usual across the road, where the workshop appears to be in full swing.

The strike involves a matter that reaches to the core of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the right of trade unions to negotiate wages and conditions on behalf of their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Currently approximately 70% of Swedish workers belong of a trade union, while ninety percent fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We favor the right to negotiate freely with the unions and establish labor contracts," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But the electric car company has upset established practices. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just don't like any arrangement which creates a sort of lords and peasants situation," he informed an audience at an event in 2023. "In my view the unions try to generate conflict within businesses."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, while IF Metall has for years wanted to secure a collective agreement with the company.

"But they did not reply," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's president. "We formed the impression that they attempted to avoid or evade discussing the matter with us."

She says the organization ultimately saw no other option except to call a strike, which started in late October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to issue the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers typically agrees to the agreement."

However not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally of Latvian origin, started working for Tesla in 2021. He claims that pay & work terms frequently subject to the discretion of managers.

He recalls an evaluation meeting at which he says he was denied a salary increase because he was "not reaching company targets". Meanwhile, a coworker was reported to be turned down for increased compensation due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, some workers went out in the industrial action. The company had some 130 mechanics working at the time the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall says that today around 70 of its members are on strike.

Tesla has since replaced these with new workers, a situation that has no precedent since the era of the 1930s.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," states a labor researcher, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not illegal, which is important to understand. But it violates all traditional practices. Yet Tesla shows no concern about norms.

"They aim to become norm breakers. Thus when anyone tells them, listen, you are violating a norm, they perceive this as a compliment."

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

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

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, told a business paper that it suited the company more not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and give them optimal terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision to avoid a labor contract was determined at Tesla headquarters overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to take independent such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in this conflict. The strike has received backing from several of other unions.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Norway and Finland, are refusing to handle the company's vehicles; rubbish is no longer removed from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and recently constructed charging stations remain connected to power networks across the nation.

There is one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where twenty charging units stand idle. But Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, says vehicle owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There exists an alternative power point six miles from this location," he comments. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can service our cars, we can charge our cars."

With consequences high on both sides, it is difficult to see an end to the deadlock. IF Metall risks setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

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