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Across Sweden, around seventy car technicians continue to confront among the world's richest companies – Tesla. This industrial action targeting the American automaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has currently entered its second anniversary, and there is minimal sign for a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has remained on the electric car company's protest line starting from October 2023.

"It's a difficult period," remarks the worker in his late thirties. And as Sweden's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it is expected to grow more challenging.

Janis devotes every start of the week alongside a fellow worker, standing outside a Tesla service center within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. His union, IF Metall, provides shelter via a portable builders' van, as well as hot beverages and light meals.

But it remains operations continue normally across the road, where the service facility seems to operate in full swing.

This industrial action concerns a matter that goes to the core of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to bargain for pay & conditions representing their members. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported industrial relations in Sweden for almost a century.

Currently approximately 70% of Swedish employees belong to labor organizations, while ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes across the nation occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement supported across the board. "We prefer the ability to bargain directly with the unions and establish collective agreements," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

However the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Outspoken CEO the company leader has stated he "disagrees" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply disapprove of any arrangement that establishes a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he told listeners at an event in 2023. "I think the unions attempt to create conflict within businesses."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market back in 2014, and the metalworkers' union has for years sought to establish a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they wouldn't reply," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's president. "We formed the belief that they tried to hide away or evade discussing the matter with us."

She says the organization eventually saw no other option except to announce industrial action, which started in late October, 2023. "Usually the threat suffices to issue a warning," says the union leader. "The company usually agrees to the agreement."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, who is from Latvia, started working with the automaker several years ago. He claims that pay and work terms frequently subject to the discretion of managers.

He recalls an evaluation meeting at which he says he was refused 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 the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone participated on strike. The company employed some 130 mechanics working when the strike was called. IF Metall says currently approximately 70 of their represented workers are participating in the action.

The automaker has long since substituted the striking workers with new workers, a situation there is no precedent since the 1930s.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly & methodically," states German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Swedish trade unions.

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

"They want to become norm breakers. So if somebody informs them, listen, you are breaking a standard, they perceive this as praise."

The company's Swedish subsidiary declined attempts for interview via correspondence mentioning "all-time high deliveries".

In fact, the automaker has granted just a single media interview during the entire period since the strike began.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, informed a financial publication that it suited the organization more to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and give them the best possible conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the decision to avoid a collective agreement was one made by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses a mandate to make our own such choices," he said.

IF Metall is not entirely alone in this conflict. This industrial action has been supported from several of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries and neighboring states, decline to handle Teslas; rubbish is not collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; and newly built charging stations are not being connected to power networks in the country.

Exists one such facility close to the capital's airport, where 20 chargers remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, states Tesla owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from here," he says. "And we can still purchase vehicles, we can service our cars, we can power our cars."

With consequences high for all parties, it's hard to envision a resolution to the stand-off. IF Metall risks setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

"The concern is that that would spread," states the researcher, "and eventually {erode