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Across Sweden, approximately seventy automotive mechanics persist to confront among the globe's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action targeting the American carmaker's 10 Swedish repair facilities has currently entered its second anniversary, with minimal sign for a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has remained on the electric car company's picket line since the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a difficult period," states the worker in his late thirties. And as Sweden's cold winter weather sets in, it is expected to grow more challenging.

Janis devotes every start of the week alongside a colleague, standing outside a Tesla garage on a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides shelter in the form of a mobile builders' van, plus coffee and light meals.

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

The strike involves a matter that goes to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to bargain for pay & conditions on behalf of their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has supported industrial relations across the nation for almost a century.

Currently some 70% of Scandinavia's employees belong of a trade union, and 90% are covered by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages in Sweden are rare.

It's a system supported by all parties. "We prefer the right to bargain freely with the unions and establish collective agreements," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But Tesla has disrupted established practices. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just don't like any arrangement which creates a kind of lords and peasants sort of thing," he informed an audience in New York last year. "In my view the unions attempt to create negativity in a company."

Tesla entered Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, while IF Metall has for years wanted to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"But they did not reply," states the union president, the union's president. "And we got the impression that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing the matter with us."

She states the organization ultimately found no alternative than to announce industrial action, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Typically the threat suffices to make the threat," says the union leader. "Employers usually agrees to the contract."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, who is from Latvia, began employment with the automaker in 2021. He claims that pay and conditions were often dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He remembers a performance review where he states he was denied an annual pay rise because that he "failing to meet Tesla's goals". At the same time, a colleague was said to have been rejected for a pay rise because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, some workers went out in the industrial action. Tesla had approximately 130 mechanics employed at the time the strike was called. The union says currently approximately seventy of its members are participating in the action.

Tesla has since replaced the striking workers with replacement staff, for which there is not occurred since the Great Depression.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] openly and systematically," says a labor researcher, a researcher at Arena Idé, a think tank financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not against the law, this being important to recognize. But it violates all traditional norms. But the company shows no concern about norms.

"They aim to be norm breakers. So if anyone informs them, hey, you are violating a standard, they see that as praise."

The company's Swedish subsidiary declined attempts for comment in an email mentioning "all-time high vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the company has given only one media interview during the entire period since the strike started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, Jens Stark, informed a business paper that it suited the organization better to avoid a collective agreement, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and provide workers the best possible terms".

The executive denied that the choice to avoid a collective agreement was determined by US leadership overseas. "We have a mandate to take independent such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in its fight. The strike has been supported from several of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries and neighboring states, are refusing to process the company's vehicles; rubbish is no longer removed from Tesla's Swedish facilities; while newly built charging stations are not being connected to power networks across the nation.

There is an example near the capital's airport, at which 20 chargers stand idle. But a Tesla enthusiast, the president of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There exists an alternative power point 10km from this location," he says. "And we can continue to buy our cars, we can service our cars, we can power our cars."

With stakes significant for all parties, it is difficult to see an end to the deadlock. IF Metall risks setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is how this could expand," states the researcher, "and ultimately {erode