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In Sweden, around 70 car technicians continue to challenge one of the world's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike targeting the American carmaker's ten Scandinavian service centers has now reached its second anniversary, and there is little sign for a settlement.

One striking worker has remained on the Tesla protest line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a difficult time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. And as the nation's cold winter weather sets in, it is expected to become even tougher.

Janis spends each Monday alongside a fellow worker, positioned outside a Tesla garage on an industrial park in Malmö. His union, IF Metall, supplies shelter via a portable builders' van, plus coffee & light meals.

However it's business as usual nearby, at which the workshop seems to be in full swing.

The strike concerns an issue that goes to the heart of Swedish industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to negotiate pay and conditions on behalf of their workforce. This concept of collective agreement has supported industrial relations across the nation for almost one hundred years.

Currently approximately seventy percent of Swedish employees are members of a trade union, and 90% are covered by a collective agreement. Strikes across the nation occur infrequently.

It's a system welcomed across the board. "We prefer the right to bargain freely with worker representatives and establish labor contracts," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses employer group.

However the electric car company has upset established practices. Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has said he "disagrees" with the concept of labor organizations. "I simply don't like anything which creates a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he told listeners at an event in 2023. "I think labor groups try to create conflict in a company."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market starting in 2014, and the metalworkers' union has long wanted to establish a collective agreement with the automaker.

"Yet they did not respond," states the union president, the union's president. "We formed the impression that they tried to hide away or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She states the organization ultimately found no other option than to announce industrial action, beginning on 27 October, last year. "Typically the threat suffices to make a warning," comments the union leader. "The company usually agrees to the agreement."

But this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, who is of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He claims that pay and conditions frequently subject to the whim of supervisors.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he says he was refused a salary increase because he was "not reaching company targets". Meanwhile, a colleague was reported to be turned down for increased compensation due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, some workers went out on strike. The company employed approximately 130 technicians working when the industrial action was called. IF Metall says that today approximately 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has since substituted these with replacement staff, for which there is no precedent since the era of the 1930s.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly & systematically," states German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not against the law, this being important to understand. However it goes against all traditional norms. Yet Tesla doesn't care for conventions.

"They want to be convention challengers. Thus when anyone informs them, hey, you are breaking a norm, they see this as praise."

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

In fact, the automaker has granted only one press discussion during the entire period since the strike began.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it benefited the company more to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to work closely with employees and provide them the best possible terms".

The executive denied that the decision to avoid a labor contract was one made by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses a mandate to take independent such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in its fight. The strike has been supported from several of other unions.

Port workers in nearby Denmark, Nordic countries and neighboring states, decline to handle the company's vehicles; waste is not removed from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed power points are not being linked to the grid in the country.

There is an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where 20 chargers remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There exists another charging station 10km from here," he comments. "Plus we are able to continue to purchase vehicles, we can service our cars, we can charge our cars."

With consequences significant for all parties, it's hard to envision a resolution to the deadlock. The union risks setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is that that would spread," says the researcher, "and eventually {erode