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Across Sweden, around 70 car technicians persist to challenge one of the globe's wealthiest companies – Tesla. This industrial action at the US carmaker's ten Scandinavian repair facilities has now entered two years of duration, with little sign of a settlement.

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

"It has been a tough period," remarks the 39-year-old. And as the nation's cold winter weather sets in, it's likely to become even tougher.

Janis spends each Monday alongside a colleague, standing near a Tesla garage within an industrial park in Malmö. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides shelter in the form of a portable builders' van, as well as coffee and light meals.

However it's business as usual across the road, at which the workshop appears to be at full capacity.

The strike concerns an issue that goes to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for wages & conditions representing their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned industrial relations in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Today approximately seventy percent of Swedish employees are members to labor organizations, and ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We prefer the ability to bargain directly with worker representatives and establish labor contracts," says a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But the electric car company has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has said he "disagrees" with the idea of unions. "I just disapprove of any arrangement which creates a kind of lords and peasants situation," he informed an audience at an event in 2023. "In my view the unions attempt to create negativity in a company."

The automaker came to the Scandinavian market back in 2014, and IF Metall has long sought to secure a collective agreement with the company.

"Yet they did not reply," says the union president, the union's leader. "And we got the impression that they attempted to avoid or not discuss the matter with us."

She says the union eventually found no alternative except to call a strike, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to make the threat," says the union leader. "The company typically agrees to the contract."

But this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, began employment with the automaker in 2021. He claims that wages & work terms frequently dependent on the discretion of supervisors.

He recalls a performance review at which he says he was denied an annual pay rise because that he "not reaching Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a coworker was reported to have been turned down for increased compensation due to he had the "wrong attitude".

However, some workers participated in the industrial action. Tesla had approximately 130 technicians working at the time the strike was called. IF Metall says currently approximately seventy of its members are participating in the action.

Tesla has long since substituted these with replacement staff, a situation that has not occurred since the 1930s.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] publicly and systematically," says a labor researcher, a researcher at Arena Idé, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, which is crucial to understand. However it violates all established norms. But Tesla shows no concern for conventions.

"They aim to become norm breakers. So if anyone informs them, hey, you are violating a norm, they perceive that as a compliment."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary declined requests for comment in an email mentioning "record vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the automaker has given just a single press discussion during the entire period since the industrial action began.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, told a business paper that it benefited the organization more to avoid a union contract, and rather "to work closely with employees and provide workers optimal terms".

The executive denied that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to take independent such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not completely alone in this conflict. The strike has received backing from several of other unions.

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & Finland, decline to process Teslas; waste is not collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and newly built charging stations remain linked to power networks in the country.

There is an example near the capital's airport, where twenty chargers remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists an alternative power point six miles from this location," he says. "And we can continue to buy our cars, we can maintain our cars, we can power our electric cars."

With stakes high for all parties, it's hard to see an end to the stand-off. 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