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Across Sweden, approximately 70 automotive mechanics persist to confront one of the world's wealthiest corporations – Tesla. This labor strike targeting the American carmaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has currently reached two years of duration, with little sign for a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has been at the Tesla picket line starting from October 2023.

"It has been a difficult period," states the worker in his late thirties. And as Sweden's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it is expected to grow even tougher.

The mechanic devotes each Monday with a fellow worker, standing near a Tesla service center within a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter via a portable construction vehicle, as well as coffee and sandwiches.

But it's operations continue normally nearby, where the workshop appears to be in full swing.

The strike involves a matter that reaches to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for pay & working terms representing their workforce. This concept of collective agreement has supported labor dynamics in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Today approximately 70% of Swedish employees belong of a trade union, while 90% fall under by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages in Sweden are rare.

It's an arrangement supported by all parties. "We prefer the right to negotiate directly with the unions and sign collective agreements," says a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses business organization.

However Tesla has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal CEO Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the idea of unions. "I just disapprove of any arrangement that establishes a kind of hierarchical sort of thing," he told listeners at an event last year. "In my view the unions try to generate negativity in a company."

Tesla came to Sweden back in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has long wanted to establish a labor contract with the company.

"Yet they did not reply," states Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "And we got the belief that they attempted to avoid or not discuss this with our representatives."

She says the organization eventually saw no other option than to call a strike, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Typically the threat suffices to make a warning," says the union leader. "The company usually agrees to the agreement."

However not in this case.

Janis Kuzma, who is of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker several years ago. He claims that wages & work terms were often dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He recalls a performance review at which he states he was denied a salary increase because he was "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a coworker was reported to be rejected for increased compensation due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers participated in the industrial action. Tesla had some 130 technicians working when the strike was initiated. IF Metall says that today around seventy of their represented workers are participating in the action.

Tesla has long since substituted these with new workers, a situation there is no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," states a labor researcher, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not illegal, this being crucial to understand. But it violates all traditional practices. But Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They want to be norm breakers. Thus when anyone tells them, listen, you are breaking a standard, they perceive this as praise."

The automaker's local division declined requests for comment via correspondence citing "all-time high vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the automaker has granted just a single press discussion during the entire period after the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, informed a financial publication that it suited the organization better to avoid a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and give workers optimal conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision not to enter a collective agreement was determined at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have a mandate to make independent such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in its fight. The strike has received backing by a number of other unions.

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries and neighboring states, decline to handle the company's vehicles; rubbish is not collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and newly built charging stations are not being linked to the grid in the country.

There is one such facility near the capital's airport, where 20 charging units stand idle. But Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the strike.

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

With consequences high for all parties, it is difficult to envision an end to the stand-off. The union risks establishing a pattern if it concedes the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

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