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Across Sweden, around seventy automotive mechanics persist to confront among the globe's richest corporations – Tesla. This labor strike targeting the American carmaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has currently reached two years of duration, with minimal indication of a settlement.

One striking worker has been on the electric car company's protest line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It's a tough time," remarks the 39-year-old. With Sweden's chilly seasonal conditions arrives, it is expected to become even tougher.

Janis spends each Monday with a fellow worker, positioned outside a Tesla service center within a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides shelter in the form of a mobile builders' van, plus coffee and light meals.

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

This industrial action concerns a matter that goes to the core of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to negotiate pay & conditions representing their members. This concept of collective agreement has supported industrial relations in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Currently some seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers belong to labor organizations, while 90% are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes across the nation are rare.

This is a system welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the right to bargain freely with worker representatives and establish labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But Tesla has disrupted established practices. Vocal CEO Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just don't like anything that establishes a kind of hierarchical situation," he told an audience in New York last year. "I think labor groups try to generate negativity within businesses."

The automaker came to Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has long sought to secure a labor contract with the company.

"But they wouldn't reply," states the union president, the organization's president. "And we got the impression that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing this with us."

She states the union ultimately saw no alternative than to call industrial action, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Usually the threat suffices to make the threat," says Ms Nilsson. "Employers typically agrees to the contract."

But this did not happen in this case.

The striking mechanic, originally of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker in 2021. He claims that pay & work terms were often subject to the discretion of supervisors.

He recalls a performance review at which he says he was denied a salary increase on grounds that he "failing to meet company targets". Meanwhile, a colleague was reported to be turned down for a pay rise due to he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers went out on strike. The company employed approximately one hundred thirty technicians employed at the time the strike was initiated. The union says that today around seventy of their represented workers are participating in the action.

The automaker has long since replaced the striking workers with new workers, a situation there is no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

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

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

"They aim to become convention challengers. Thus when anyone informs them, hey, you are violating a norm, they see that as a compliment."

The automaker's local division declined requests for comment via correspondence citing "all-time high vehicle shipments".

In fact, the company has given only one media interview in the two years after the industrial action began.

Earlier this year, the local division's "country lead", the executive, informed a business paper that it suited the company better to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and provide them the best possible conditions".

The executive rejected that the choice to avoid a labor contract was one made by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses a mandate to make our own such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not entirely alone in this conflict. The strike has received backing from several of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries and neighboring states, decline to process Teslas; waste is not removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed charging stations are not being linked to the grid in the country.

There is an example near the capital's airport, at which 20 chargers stand idle. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, states vehicle owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists an alternative power point 10km from this location," he comments. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can power our cars."

With stakes significant for all parties, it is difficult to envision a resolution to the deadlock. The union faces the danger of setting a precedent should it surrender the principle of collective agreement.

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