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In Sweden, approximately seventy automotive mechanics persist to challenge one of the world's wealthiest companies – Tesla. This industrial action targeting the American carmaker's ten Swedish service centers has currently entered its second anniversary, with little sign of a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has been at the Tesla picket line since October 2023.

"It has been a difficult period," remarks the 39-year-old. And as the nation's cold winter weather arrives, it is expected to grow more challenging.

The mechanic spends every start of the week with a fellow worker, standing near a Tesla garage on an industrial park located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter via a portable builders' van, as well as coffee and light meals.

But it remains business as usual nearby, where the workshop seems to be in full swing.

This industrial action involves a matter that goes to the heart of Swedish industrial culture – the right of trade unions to bargain for pay and conditions on behalf of their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Currently some seventy percent of Swedish workers are members of a trade union, while 90% are covered by a collective agreement. Strikes across the nation occur infrequently.

This is an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We prefer the right to bargain freely with worker representatives and establish collective agreements," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But Tesla has disrupted established practices. Outspoken CEO the company leader has said he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I simply don't like any arrangement which creates a kind of hierarchical situation," he informed listeners in New York last year. "In my view labor groups try to generate negativity within businesses."

Tesla came to Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, and IF Metall has long wanted to establish a labor contract with the company.

"But they wouldn't reply," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "We formed the impression that they tried to hide away or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She says the organization ultimately found no other option except to call a strike, which started in late October, last year. "Typically it's enough to make the threat," says Ms Nilsson. "The company typically agrees to the agreement."

But not in this case.

Janis Kuzma, who is of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker several years ago. He claims that wages & work terms frequently dependent on the whim of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he states he was denied a salary increase because he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was said to have been turned down for increased compensation because he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, some workers went out in the industrial action. Tesla employed some 130 technicians working when the strike was initiated. The union says that today approximately seventy of its members are on strike.

Tesla has long since substituted the striking workers with new workers, for which there is no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and systematically," states German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a think tank supported by Swedish trade unions.

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

"They aim to become norm breakers. So if somebody informs them, listen, you are violating a norm, they see that as a compliment."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for comment via correspondence mentioning "all-time high vehicle shipments".

In fact, the company has given only one press discussion during the entire period since the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, told a financial publication that it benefited the company more not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide them the best possible terms".

Mr Stark denied that the decision not to enter a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters in the US. "Our division possesses a mandate to take independent such choices," he stated.

The union is not completely isolated in this conflict. The strike has been supported from several of other unions.

Dockworkers in nearby Denmark, Nordic countries & Finland, decline to process Teslas; rubbish is no longer removed from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while newly built charging stations are not being linked to the grid across the nation.

There is one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which twenty charging units remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, the president of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There exists an alternative power point six miles from here," he says. "And we can continue to buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can power our electric cars."

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

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