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In Sweden, around seventy automotive mechanics persist to challenge among the world's richest corporations – Tesla. The industrial action targeting the US automaker's ten Swedish service centers has currently reached its second anniversary, with little sign for a settlement.

One striking worker has remained on the electric car company's picket line since the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a tough time," states the 39-year-old. And as the nation's cold seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to become even tougher.

Janis spends each Monday with a fellow worker, standing near a Tesla garage on an industrial park in Malmö. His union, IF Metall, provides shelter via a mobile construction vehicle, as well as hot beverages & sandwiches.

But it remains business as usual across the road, where the workshop appears to be at full capacity.

This industrial action concerns a matter that reaches to the core of Scandinavia's 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 in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Today approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's employees belong to labor organizations, while ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes across the nation occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement supported across the board. "We prefer the right to bargain directly with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," says a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses employer group.

However Tesla has disrupted the apple cart. Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the concept of unions. "I just don't like anything that establishes a sort of hierarchical situation," he informed listeners in New York in 2023. "I think the unions attempt to create negativity in a company."

The automaker came to the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has for years sought to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"Yet they wouldn't reply," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "And we got the belief that they tried to avoid or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She says the union ultimately found no other option except to call industrial action, beginning in late October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to issue a warning," comments the union leader. "The company usually agrees to the contract."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, began employment for Tesla in 2021. He asserts that wages & conditions frequently subject to the whim of supervisors.

He recalls a performance review at which he states he was refused an annual pay rise on grounds he was "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a colleague was said to have been turned down for a pay rise because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers participated on strike. Tesla employed approximately 130 technicians employed when the industrial action was called. IF Metall says currently approximately 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has since replaced the striking workers with replacement staff, for which there is not occurred since the era of the 1930s.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & systematically," states German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not against the law, this being important to understand. But it violates all established norms. Yet the company doesn't care about norms.

"They aim to be convention challengers. Thus when somebody informs them, hey, you are violating a norm, they see that as a compliment."

The automaker's local division refused requests for comment in an email mentioning "all-time high vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the automaker has given only one media interview during the entire period after the strike began.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, informed a business paper that it benefited the organization more not to have a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with employees and provide workers optimal conditions".

The executive rejected that the decision to avoid a collective agreement was determined at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have 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 other unions.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries and neighboring states, are refusing to process the company's vehicles; waste is no longer removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed power points remain connected to power networks across the nation.

Exists an example close to the capital's airport, where 20 chargers stand idle. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from here," he comments. "And we can still buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can charge our electric cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it's hard to see an end to the deadlock. The union risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

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