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In Sweden, around 70 car technicians persist to challenge among the world's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike targeting the American carmaker's ten Scandinavian repair facilities has currently entered its second anniversary, and there is little sign for a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has been at the Tesla protest line since October 2023.

"It has been a tough period," states the 39-year-old. And as Sweden's cold winter weather sets in, it is expected to grow even tougher.

Janis devotes each Monday with a colleague, standing near an electric vehicle garage on an industrial park located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies accommodation via a mobile builders' van, plus coffee & sandwiches.

But it remains operations continue normally across the road, at which the workshop seems to be at full capacity.

This industrial action involves an issue that reaches to the heart of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to negotiate wages & working terms on behalf of their members. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics across the nation for almost a century.

Today approximately 70% of Swedish workers belong of a trade union, while 90% are covered by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We favor the ability to negotiate freely with the unions and establish labor contracts," says Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses employer group.

But the electric car company has upset established practices. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the idea of unions. "I just disapprove of any arrangement which creates a sort of lords and peasants situation," he told an audience at an event last year. "In my view labor groups try to create conflict within businesses."

The automaker came to Sweden back in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has long sought to establish a collective agreement with the company.

"But they did not reply," states the union president, the organization's leader. "We formed the impression that they tried to avoid or evade discussing this with us."

She says the union eventually saw no alternative than to announce a strike, which started in late October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to issue the threat," comments the union leader. "Employers typically signs the agreement."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, who is from Latvia, started working for Tesla several years ago. He claims that wages and work terms frequently dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He recalls a performance review where he states he was refused a salary increase because that he "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a colleague was said to have been rejected for a pay rise because he had the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone participated in the industrial action. Tesla had some 130 technicians employed at the time the strike was initiated. IF Metall states that today approximately 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has long since replaced the striking workers with replacement staff, for which there is not occurred since the Great Depression.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] openly and methodically," states a labor researcher, an analyst at a research institute, a policy organization supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not illegal, which is important to recognize. However it goes against all established practices. But Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They want to be convention challengers. So if anyone tells them, listen, you are breaking a standard, they perceive this as a compliment."

The company's local division declined attempts for comment in an email citing "record deliveries".

In fact, the company has given only one media interview during the entire period after the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, the executive, informed a business paper that it benefited the company more to avoid a union contract, and instead "to work closely with the team and give workers the best possible conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was determined at Tesla headquarters in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to make our own such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not entirely isolated in this conflict. The strike has been supported by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Norway and Finland, are refusing to handle Teslas; rubbish is not collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; and newly built power points are not being connected to the grid across the nation.

Exists an example near the capital's airport, where 20 charging units remain unused. But Tibor Blomhäll, the president of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists another charging station six miles from here," he says. "Plus we are able to still purchase vehicles, we can service our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With stakes significant on both sides, it is difficult to see a resolution to the stand-off. The union risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is that this could expand," says Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode