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Across Sweden, around seventy car technicians continue to confront among the world's richest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This labor strike at the US automaker's 10 Swedish repair facilities has currently reached two years of duration, and there is minimal sign of a settlement.

One striking worker has remained on the Tesla protest line since the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a tough period," states the worker in his late thirties. And as the nation's chilly seasonal conditions arrives, it's likely to become more challenging.

Janis devotes every start of the week with a colleague, positioned near an electric vehicle garage within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides accommodation via a portable construction vehicle, plus hot beverages and light meals.

However it's business as usual across the road, at which the service facility seems to be at full capacity.

This industrial action concerns an issue that goes to the core of Swedish labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for wages and working terms representing their workforce. This concept of collective agreement has supported labor dynamics in Sweden for almost a century.

Today some 70% of Swedish employees belong to labor organizations, and 90% fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

It's a system supported by all parties. "We favor the right to negotiate directly with the unions and sign collective agreements," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses business organization.

But Tesla has upset the apple cart. Outspoken chief executive 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 lords and peasants situation," he told an audience in New York in 2023. "In my view the unions try to generate negativity within businesses."

The automaker came to Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has long wanted to establish a collective agreement with the company.

"Yet they did not reply," states Marie Nilsson, the union's leader. "And we got the belief that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing this with our representatives."

She states the organization eventually found no alternative except to call industrial action, beginning in late October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to issue a warning," says the union leader. "Employers typically agrees to the contract."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, who is from Latvia, started working with the automaker several years ago. He asserts that pay & conditions were often subject to the whim of supervisors.

He recalls a performance review at which he states he was refused an annual pay rise on grounds that he "failing to meet Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was said to have been rejected for a pay rise due to he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers went out in the industrial action. The company had some one hundred thirty mechanics working when the strike was called. The union states that today approximately seventy of its members are participating in the action.

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

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," says a labor researcher, a researcher at a research institute, a policy organization supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not illegal, this being important to recognize. But it goes against all traditional norms. Yet the company doesn't care about norms.

"They want to become norm breakers. So if somebody informs them, listen, you are breaking a standard, they perceive this as a compliment."

The automaker's local division declined requests for interview in an email citing "all-time high deliveries".

In fact, the automaker has granted just a single media interview during the entire period after the industrial action began.

In March 2024, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it suited the organization better not to have a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and give them the best possible terms".

Mr Stark denied that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was one made by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to take independent such choices," he stated.

The union is not entirely isolated in its fight. The strike has been supported from several of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries and Finland, are refusing to handle Teslas; waste is not removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed power points remain linked to the grid in the country.

There is an example near the capital's airport, where twenty charging units remain unused. But Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station six miles from here," he comments. "And we can continue to buy our cars, we can service our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it's hard to see a resolution to the deadlock. The union risks setting a precedent should it surrender the principle of collective agreement.

"The worry is that this could expand," states Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode