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Across Sweden, around 70 automotive mechanics persist to challenge among the globe's richest corporations – Tesla. This industrial action targeting the American carmaker's ten Swedish repair facilities has now reached two years of duration, with little sign for a resolution.

One striking worker has remained at the electric car company's protest line starting from October 2023.

"It's a difficult time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. With the nation's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to become even tougher.

Janis devotes each Monday alongside a fellow worker, positioned outside a Tesla garage on a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, supplies accommodation in the form of a mobile construction vehicle, plus hot beverages & sandwiches.

But it's business as usual nearby, at which the workshop appears to operate in full swing.

The strike concerns a matter that goes to the heart of Swedish labor traditions – the right of trade unions to bargain for pay & working terms representing their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has supported industrial relations across the nation for nearly a century.

Currently some 70% of Scandinavia's workers are members to labor organizations, while 90% are covered by a collective agreement. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

This is a system supported by all parties. "We favor the right to bargain directly with worker representatives and establish collective agreements," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But the electric car company has upset established practices. Outspoken chief executive Elon Musk has stated he "disagrees" with the concept of unions. "I simply disapprove of anything which creates a sort of lords and peasants situation," he told an audience in New York in 2023. "I think the unions try to generate negativity in a company."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, and IF Metall has long sought to secure a labor contract with the company.

"Yet they did not reply," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's president. "We formed the belief that they tried to avoid or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She states the organization eventually saw no other option than to announce industrial action, beginning in late October, last year. "Usually it's enough to issue the threat," says the union leader. "Employers usually signs the agreement."

But this did not happen in this case.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He asserts that wages & conditions were often dependent on the discretion of managers.

He recalls a performance review where he states he was refused an annual pay rise because he was "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a coworker was said to be turned down for a pay rise due to he had the "wrong attitude".

However, not everyone went out in the industrial action. Tesla had approximately 130 mechanics employed at the time the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall says currently around 70 of their represented workers are participating in the action.

Tesla has long since substituted these with new workers, for which there is no precedent since the 1930s.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly and methodically," says German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization supported by Swedish trade unions.

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

"They want to become convention challengers. Thus when somebody informs them, hey, you are breaking a norm, they see that as praise."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for comment via correspondence mentioning "all-time high vehicle shipments".

In fact, the company has granted only one press discussion in the two years after the strike started.

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

The executive denied that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was determined by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses a mandate to take independent such choices," he stated.

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

Dockworkers in nearby Denmark, Norway and Finland, are refusing to handle Teslas; waste is not collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed power points are not being linked to power networks in the country.

There is an example close to the capital's airport, where 20 charging units remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the president of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists another charging station 10km from here," he comments. "And we can still buy our cars, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With consequences significant for all parties, it is difficult to see a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall risks setting a precedent if it concedes the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is that this could expand," states Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode