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Across Sweden, approximately seventy automotive mechanics persist to challenge among the globe's wealthiest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This industrial action targeting the US automaker's ten Scandinavian repair facilities has now entered its second anniversary, and there is little sign of a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has been at the electric car company's protest line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It's a tough time," remarks the 39-year-old. And as the nation's chilly seasonal conditions arrives, it is expected to grow more challenging.

Janis spends every start of the week alongside a colleague, standing outside an electric vehicle garage within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides accommodation in the form of a portable construction vehicle, as well as hot beverages and sandwiches.

However it remains operations continue normally nearby, at which the workshop seems to operate in full swing.

The strike involves an issue that goes to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the right of trade unions to negotiate wages and working terms on behalf of their workforce. This concept of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Currently some 70% of Swedish workers are members of a trade union, and 90% are covered by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages in Sweden occur infrequently.

This is a system supported by all parties. "We prefer the ability to bargain directly with worker representatives and establish collective agreements," says a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

However the electric car company has upset the apple cart. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the concept of unions. "I just don't like anything that establishes a sort of lords and peasants situation," he told an audience in New York in 2023. "In my view the unions attempt to create negativity within businesses."

The automaker entered Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, while IF Metall has for years wanted to establish a labor contract with the company.

"But they wouldn't respond," states the union president, the union's president. "We formed the belief that they attempted to avoid or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She says the union ultimately saw no other option except to call industrial action, which started in late October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to make the threat," says the union leader. "The company usually signs the agreement."

However this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He claims that pay & work terms frequently subject to the whim of supervisors.

He remembers a performance review where he states he was denied a salary increase because that he "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a colleague was said to be rejected for increased compensation due to having the "wrong attitude".

However, some workers went out in the industrial action. The company had approximately 130 technicians employed when the industrial action was initiated. The union states that today around seventy of its members are participating in the action.

The automaker has since substituted the striking workers with replacement staff, for which that has not occurred since the era of the Great Depression.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," says German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, which is crucial to understand. But it goes against all established norms. Yet the company doesn't care for conventions.

"They want to be norm breakers. Thus when somebody informs them, hey, you are violating a norm, they perceive that as praise."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for comment in an email mentioning "record deliveries".

Indeed, the automaker has granted just a single media interview in the two years after the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the local division's "country lead", the executive, told a financial publication that it suited the company more not to have a union contract, and instead "to work closely with employees and give them optimal conditions".

The executive denied that the decision not to enter a labor contract was one made by US leadership 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 received backing by a number of other unions.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Denmark, Norway & neighboring states, are refusing to handle the company's vehicles; waste is no longer removed from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; and newly built charging stations remain linked to the grid in the country.

There is an example close to the capital's airport, at which 20 charging units stand idle. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station six miles from this location," he comments. "And we can still buy our cars, we can maintain our vehicles, we can power our electric cars."

With consequences high for all parties, it's hard to see a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall risks setting a precedent if it concedes the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is that that would spread," says the researcher, "and ultimately {erode