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Across Sweden, approximately 70 automotive mechanics continue to challenge among the globe's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike at the US automaker's 10 Swedish repair facilities has now entered its second anniversary, with minimal indication for a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has been at the Tesla protest line starting from October 2023.

"It has been a difficult time," remarks the 39-year-old. And as the nation's cold seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to grow even tougher.

Janis devotes every start of the week with a colleague, positioned near a Tesla service center on a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, IF Metall, provides shelter in the form of a mobile builders' van, as well as hot beverages and light meals.

However it's operations continue normally nearby, where the service facility appears to operate at full capacity.

The strike concerns a matter that goes to the core of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to negotiate wages & conditions representing their workforce. This concept of collective agreement has supported labor dynamics in Sweden for almost a century.

Today approximately 70% of Swedish employees belong to labor organizations, and ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden occur infrequently.

It's a system supported by all parties. "We prefer the right to negotiate directly with the unions and establish collective agreements," says Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Businesses employer group.

But Tesla has disrupted established practices. Vocal CEO Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the idea of unions. "I just disapprove of any arrangement which creates a sort of lords and peasants situation," he told listeners at an event last year. "I think labor groups try to generate negativity within businesses."

Tesla came to Sweden starting in 2014, while IF Metall has for years wanted to secure a labor contract with the company.

"But they wouldn't respond," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "And we got the belief that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing the matter with us."

She says the organization ultimately found no other option except to announce a strike, which started on 27 October, last year. "Typically the threat suffices to issue a warning," comments the union leader. "Employers usually signs the agreement."

But this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, who is from Latvia, began employment with the automaker in 2021. He asserts that pay and conditions frequently subject to the whim of managers.

He remembers a performance review where he says he was refused a salary increase on grounds he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was reported to be rejected for increased compensation because having the "wrong attitude".

However, some workers went out in the industrial action. Tesla employed some one hundred thirty technicians employed at the time the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall states currently approximately seventy of their represented workers are on strike.

Tesla has since replaced these with new workers, a situation there is not occurred since the Great Depression.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and methodically," states a labor researcher, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not illegal, which is important to recognize. But it goes against all established norms. Yet Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They want to become norm breakers. So if anyone tells them, listen, you are breaking a standard, they see that as a compliment."

The company's Swedish subsidiary declined attempts for comment via correspondence citing "record deliveries".

In fact, the company has given just a single press discussion in the two years after the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, told a business paper that it suited the company more not to have a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with employees and provide workers the best possible conditions".

The executive denied that the choice not to enter a labor contract was one made by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to take independent such decisions," he said.

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

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Norway and Finland, decline to handle the company's vehicles; waste is no longer collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed charging stations are not being linked to the grid across the nation.

There is an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where 20 charging units remain unused. But Tibor Blomhäll, the president of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point six miles from here," he says. "Plus we are able to still purchase vehicles, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With consequences high for all parties, it's hard to see an end to the stand-off. IF Metall faces the danger of setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is how that would spread," states the researcher, "and ultimately {erode