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Across Sweden, approximately 70 automotive technicians persist to challenge one of the globe's wealthiest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action targeting the American carmaker's ten Scandinavian repair facilities has currently reached its second anniversary, and there is minimal indication of a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has remained on the Tesla protest line since the autumn of 2023.

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

Janis devotes each Monday with a colleague, standing outside an electric vehicle service center on a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter in the form of a portable construction vehicle, plus coffee and light meals.

But it remains business as usual across the road, where the service facility appears to operate at full capacity.

The strike involves a matter that goes to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the authority of trade unions to bargain for pay and conditions representing their workforce. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned labor dynamics across the nation for almost a century.

Today some seventy percent of Swedish workers are members to labor organizations, while ninety percent are covered by a collective agreement. Strikes across the nation occur infrequently.

It's a system welcomed across the board. "We prefer the ability to negotiate freely with the unions and sign labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal chief executive the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply don't like any arrangement that establishes a sort of hierarchical situation," he told listeners at an event in 2023. "I think the unions attempt to generate negativity within businesses."

The automaker came to Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has for years wanted to secure a collective agreement with the company.

"But they wouldn't reply," states the union president, the union's leader. "We formed the belief that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing this with us."

She states the organization eventually saw no alternative than to call industrial action, beginning in late October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to make the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers typically signs the contract."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, started working for Tesla several years ago. He claims that pay and conditions frequently subject to the discretion of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he states he was denied an annual pay rise because he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a colleague was said to be rejected for increased compensation due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone went out on strike. The company employed approximately 130 technicians employed at the time the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall says currently approximately seventy of their represented workers are participating in the action.

The automaker has since substituted these with replacement staff, for which there is no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and methodically," says German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not against the law, which is important to recognize. But it violates all established norms. But Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They want to become norm breakers. So if anyone tells them, hey, you are breaking a standard, they perceive this as a compliment."

The automaker's local division declined attempts for comment in an email mentioning "record vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the company has granted just a single media interview in the two years since the strike began.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, informed a financial publication that it suited the company better not to have a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with employees and provide them the best possible terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision not to enter a collective agreement was one made by US leadership in the US. "We have authorization to make independent such decisions," he stated.

The union is not completely isolated in this conflict. The strike has received backing from several of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries and Finland, are refusing to process the company's vehicles; waste is not removed from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; and newly built charging stations are not being connected to power networks across the nation.

There is one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which twenty chargers stand idle. But a Tesla enthusiast, the president of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, states Tesla owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There exists another charging station six miles from here," he says. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can service our vehicles, we can power our cars."

With consequences high on both sides, it's hard to envision a resolution to the deadlock. The union risks setting a precedent should it surrender the principle of collective agreement.

"The concern is how this could expand," says the researcher, "and eventually {erode