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Across Sweden, approximately 70 car technicians continue to challenge one of the world's wealthiest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This industrial action at the American automaker's ten Scandinavian service centers has now reached its second anniversary, and there is minimal sign of a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has remained at the electric car company's protest line since the autumn of 2023.

"It's a difficult period," states the worker in his late thirties. With the nation's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it is expected to become even tougher.

The mechanic devotes every start of the week with a fellow worker, standing outside a Tesla garage within a business district in Malmö. His union, IF Metall, supplies accommodation via a mobile builders' van, plus coffee and light meals.

However it's operations continue normally nearby, where the workshop seems to operate at full capacity.

The strike involves an issue that reaches to the core of Swedish labor traditions – the authority of trade unions to negotiate wages & conditions representing their members. This concept of collective agreement has supported labor dynamics across the nation for almost a century.

Currently some 70% of Swedish employees belong to labor organizations, and ninety percent are covered by a collective agreement. Strikes across the nation occur infrequently.

This is an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We favor the ability to negotiate directly with the unions and sign collective agreements," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

But Tesla has upset the apple cart. Outspoken CEO the company leader has said he "opposes" with the idea of unions. "I just disapprove of any arrangement that establishes a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he told listeners at an event in 2023. "I think labor groups attempt to create negativity within businesses."

Tesla came to the Scandinavian market starting in the mid-2010s, while IF Metall has for years wanted to secure a collective agreement with the company.

"But they did not reply," says Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "We formed the belief that they attempted to avoid or not discuss this with our representatives."

She says the union eventually found no other option than to announce a strike, which started in late October, last year. "Usually it's enough to issue a warning," says the union leader. "The company usually agrees to the contract."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, started working for Tesla several years ago. He claims that pay and work terms frequently dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He recalls an evaluation meeting where he says he was refused an annual pay rise on grounds he was "failing to meet Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was reported to have been rejected for increased compensation because having the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone went out on strike. Tesla had approximately 130 technicians employed when the industrial action was called. IF Metall says currently approximately seventy of its members are participating in the action.

The automaker has long since replaced these with new workers, for which that has no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly and methodically," states German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, which is important to understand. However it violates all established norms. But Tesla doesn't care for conventions.

"They want to be norm breakers. So if somebody tells them, listen, you are violating a standard, they see that as praise."

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

Indeed, the automaker has given just a single media interview during the entire period since the strike started.

Earlier this year, the local division's "national manager, the executive, told a business paper that it benefited the company better not to have a collective agreement, and rather "to work closely with the team and give workers the best possible terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision to avoid a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to take independent such decisions," he stated.

The union is not entirely alone in its fight. The strike has received backing from several of other unions.

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Norway & neighboring states, are refusing to process the company's vehicles; waste is not collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; and newly built charging stations are not being connected to power networks across the nation.

There is an example near the capital's airport, at which twenty chargers remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states Tesla owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station six miles from this location," he says. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our cars."

With consequences significant on both sides, it's hard to envision a resolution to the deadlock. The union faces the danger of setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

"The concern is that that would spread," says the researcher, "and ultimately {erode