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In Sweden, around seventy automotive mechanics persist to challenge one of the world's wealthiest corporations – Tesla. The labor strike targeting the American carmaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has now reached two years of duration, and there is minimal indication for a resolution.

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

"It has been a tough time," states the worker in his late thirties. And as Sweden's cold seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to grow even tougher.

Janis devotes every start of the week alongside a fellow worker, standing outside an electric vehicle garage on a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides accommodation in the form of a mobile builders' van, plus coffee & sandwiches.

But it remains business as usual nearby, where the service facility appears to be at full capacity.

The strike concerns an issue that reaches to the heart of Swedish labor traditions – the right for worker organizations to negotiate wages & conditions representing their workforce. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned industrial relations in Sweden for nearly a century.

Currently approximately seventy percent of Swedish employees are members of a trade union, while ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes in Sweden occur infrequently.

This is an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the ability to negotiate freely with the unions and sign collective agreements," says a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses business organization.

But Tesla has disrupted the apple cart. Outspoken chief executive Elon Musk has said he "disagrees" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply disapprove of anything that establishes a kind of hierarchical situation," he told an audience in New York in 2023. "I think labor groups attempt to generate negativity in a company."

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

"Yet they wouldn't reply," says the union president, 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 ultimately saw no alternative except to call industrial action, beginning in late October, last year. "Typically it's enough to make the threat," says the union leader. "Employers usually signs the contract."

But this did not happen in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is from Latvia, started working for Tesla several years ago. He asserts that wages & conditions frequently dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he states he was refused a salary increase because that he "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was said to have been rejected for a pay rise because having the "wrong attitude".

However, some workers participated on strike. Tesla employed approximately 130 technicians working at the time the industrial action was called. IF Metall states currently around 70 of its members are participating in the action.

Tesla has long since substituted the striking workers with replacement staff, for which that has not occurred since the 1930s.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & methodically," says German Bender, an analyst at a research institute, a policy organization supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, this being crucial to understand. But it violates all traditional norms. Yet Tesla shows no concern for conventions.

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

The company's local division declined attempts for interview via correspondence citing "record deliveries".

In fact, the automaker has given only one media interview during the entire period since the industrial action started.

Earlier this year, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it suited the organization better not to have a union contract, and rather "to work closely with employees and provide them optimal terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was determined by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to make our own such choices," he stated.

The union is not completely isolated in this conflict. This industrial action has been supported by a number of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Norway & Finland, decline to handle Teslas; rubbish is not collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; and newly built charging stations remain linked to the grid in the country.

There is one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which twenty chargers remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states vehicle owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from this location," he comments. "Plus we are able to still purchase vehicles, we can service our vehicles, we can charge our cars."

With consequences high on both sides, it's hard to see an end to the stand-off. IF Metall risks setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is that that would spread," states Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode