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In Sweden, around 70 car mechanics persist to challenge one of the world's wealthiest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action at the US carmaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has now entered two years of duration, with little indication for a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has been on the Tesla picket line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It's a difficult time," states the 39-year-old. And as the nation's chilly winter weather sets in, it's likely to grow more challenging.

Janis devotes every start of the week alongside a colleague, positioned outside an electric vehicle garage on an industrial park located in southern Sweden. His union, IF Metall, supplies shelter via a mobile construction vehicle, as well as hot beverages and light meals.

But it remains operations continue normally nearby, at which the service facility seems to operate at full capacity.

The strike concerns a matter that reaches to the core of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to bargain for wages and conditions representing their workforce. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned industrial relations across the nation for nearly one hundred years.

Today approximately 70% of Scandinavia's employees are members to labor organizations, while 90% fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

This is an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We favor the right to negotiate freely with the unions and sign collective agreements," states Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses employer group.

However Tesla has upset established practices. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has stated he "disagrees" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply don't like anything which creates a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he informed listeners at an event last year. "I think the unions try to create negativity in a company."

The automaker entered Sweden back in 2014, and the metalworkers' union has for years wanted to establish a collective agreement with the company.

"But they wouldn't respond," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "And we got the impression that they tried to hide away or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She says the organization ultimately found no alternative except to call a strike, beginning on 27 October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to issue a warning," comments the union leader. "Employers typically signs the contract."

However not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He claims that wages and work terms frequently dependent on the whim of managers.

He recalls a performance review where he says he was denied a salary increase on grounds that he "failing to meet Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was reported to be rejected for increased compensation due to having the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, not everyone participated in the industrial action. The company employed some 130 mechanics employed when the strike was called. The union says that today approximately seventy of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has since replaced these with new workers, for which there is no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] openly & systematically," states German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not against the law, this being important to recognize. But it violates all established practices. Yet Tesla shows no concern for conventions.

"They aim to be norm breakers. So if anyone tells them, hey, you are breaking a norm, they see that as praise."

The company's local division declined requests for comment via correspondence mentioning "record vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the company has given only one press discussion in the two years since the industrial action began.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, informed a financial publication that it benefited the organization better not to have a union contract, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and give workers optimal conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the choice not to enter a labor contract was one made by US leadership overseas. "We have authorization to make independent such choices," he stated.

The union is not completely alone in its fight. The strike has been supported by a number of other unions.

Port workers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Norway & neighboring states, decline to process the company's vehicles; rubbish is not collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; and recently constructed charging stations are not being connected to the grid in the country.

There is one such facility close to the capital's airport, where twenty chargers stand idle. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, states Tesla owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station 10km from this location," he comments. "And we can still buy our cars, we can maintain our vehicles, we can power our electric cars."

With stakes significant on both sides, it's hard to see an end to the stand-off. The union faces the danger of establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

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