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Across Sweden, around 70 automotive mechanics persist to confront one of the world's richest corporations – Tesla. This labor strike targeting the American carmaker's 10 Swedish repair facilities has currently entered its second anniversary, and there is minimal sign of a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has remained on the Tesla protest line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It's a difficult period," states the 39-year-old. And as the nation's chilly winter weather arrives, it is expected to grow even tougher.

Janis spends each Monday alongside a fellow worker, standing outside a Tesla garage within a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation via a portable builders' van, plus hot beverages and light meals.

However it remains business as usual across the road, where the workshop seems to be in full swing.

This industrial action concerns an issue that goes to the core of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the right of trade unions to negotiate pay and conditions on behalf of their members. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Today some 70% of Swedish workers are members of a trade union, and 90% are covered by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

This is a system supported by all parties. "We favor the ability to negotiate directly with worker representatives and sign collective agreements," states Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However Tesla has disrupted the apple cart. Outspoken chief executive Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just don't like any arrangement which creates a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he told listeners at an event in 2023. "In my view the unions try to generate negativity within businesses."

Tesla came to the Scandinavian market back in 2014, and IF Metall has for years wanted to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"But they did not respond," states the union president, the union's president. "And we got the impression that they tried to avoid or evade discussing this with us."

She states the organization eventually found no alternative than to announce a strike, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to issue the threat," comments the union leader. "Employers usually agrees to the contract."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, started working for Tesla in 2021. He claims that pay and conditions were often subject to the discretion of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he states he was denied a salary increase on grounds he was "failing to meet Tesla's goals". At the same time, a colleague was reported to have been rejected for increased compensation due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone went out on strike. Tesla had some 130 mechanics working at the time the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall says that today approximately 70 of their represented workers are participating in the action.

The automaker has long since replaced the striking workers with replacement staff, a situation there is no precedent since the era of the 1930s.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," says a labor researcher, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not illegal, which is important to understand. However it violates all traditional norms. Yet the company shows no concern for conventions.

"They aim to be convention challengers. Thus when somebody tells them, hey, you are breaking a standard, they perceive that as praise."

The company's Swedish subsidiary declined attempts for interview in an email citing "all-time high deliveries".

In fact, the company has given just a single press discussion during the entire period since the strike began.

Earlier this year, the local division's "national manager, the executive, told a business paper that it suited the company better to avoid a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and provide them optimal terms".

Mr Stark denied that the decision not to enter a collective agreement was determined at Tesla headquarters in the US. "We have a mandate to make independent such choices," he stated.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in its fight. The strike has been supported by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & neighboring states, decline to handle the company's vehicles; rubbish is not collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and recently constructed charging stations remain connected to power networks in the country.

Exists an example close to the capital's airport, where 20 charging units remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point six miles from this location," he says. "And we can still purchase vehicles, we can service our cars, we can power our cars."

With consequences high on both sides, it's hard to envision a resolution to the stand-off. The union faces the danger of establishing a pattern if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

"The concern is that this could expand," says Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode