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Across Sweden, around 70 car technicians continue to challenge among the globe's richest corporations – Tesla. This industrial action at the American carmaker's 10 Swedish service centers has currently reached two years of duration, and there is little indication for a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has remained at the electric car company's picket line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a tough time," states the 39-year-old. With the nation's chilly winter weather sets in, it's likely to grow more challenging.

Janis devotes each Monday alongside a colleague, standing outside an electric vehicle service center within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides shelter via a mobile construction vehicle, plus coffee and light meals.

However it's business as usual nearby, where the workshop appears to operate in full swing.

The strike concerns an issue that reaches to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the authority for worker organizations to negotiate wages and working terms on behalf of their workforce. This concept of collective agreement has supported labor dynamics in Sweden for almost a century.

Currently some seventy percent of Swedish employees belong of a trade union, while ninety percent are covered by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages in Sweden are rare.

This is an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the right to negotiate directly with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," says a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But the electric car company has upset the apple cart. Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of anything which creates a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he informed an audience at an event last year. "In my view labor groups try to create negativity in a company."

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

"But they wouldn't respond," says the union president, the organization's leader. "We formed the impression that they attempted to avoid or evade discussing the matter with us."

She states the union eventually found no other option than to announce a strike, which started in late October, last year. "Usually it's enough to issue the threat," comments Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually agrees to the contract."

However this did not happen 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 discretion of supervisors.

He recalls an evaluation meeting at which he says he was denied a salary increase on grounds he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was reported to have been turned down for a pay rise due to he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone went out in the industrial action. The company employed approximately 130 technicians employed when the strike was called. IF Metall states that today approximately seventy of its members are participating in the action.

The automaker has long since substituted these with new workers, a situation that has not occurred since the Great Depression.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] publicly and systematically," states German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not illegal, which is crucial to understand. However it violates all traditional norms. Yet the company shows no concern about norms.

"They want to be convention challengers. Thus when anyone tells them, hey, you are breaking a standard, they see this as a compliment."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for comment in an email mentioning "record deliveries".

Indeed, the company has given only one press discussion during the entire period since the strike began.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it benefited the company more to avoid a union contract, and rather "to work closely with the team and give them the best possible terms".

The executive denied that the decision to avoid a labor contract was determined by US leadership overseas. "We have a mandate to make our own such choices," he stated.

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

Dockworkers in nearby Denmark, Nordic countries and neighboring states, are refusing to handle Teslas; rubbish is not collected from Tesla's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed charging stations remain linked to the grid in the country.

Exists an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 chargers stand idle. However Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists another charging station 10km from this location," he says. "Plus we are able to still purchase vehicles, we can service our cars, we can power our electric cars."

With consequences high on both sides, it's hard to see 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 eventually {erode