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Across Sweden, approximately 70 car mechanics persist to challenge one of the world's richest companies – Tesla. The industrial action at the American carmaker's ten Swedish repair facilities has currently entered two years of duration, with little sign for a resolution.

One striking worker has been on the Tesla protest line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It's a difficult period," remarks the 39-year-old. With Sweden's chilly winter weather sets in, it is expected to grow more challenging.

Janis devotes every start of the week alongside a colleague, standing outside a Tesla garage on an industrial park in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation in the form of a portable construction vehicle, plus hot beverages and sandwiches.

But it remains operations continue normally across the road, where the workshop appears to operate at full capacity.

The strike concerns a matter that goes to the heart of Swedish industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to bargain for wages & working terms representing their members. This concept of collective agreement has supported industrial relations across the nation for nearly one hundred years.

Currently approximately 70% of Swedish employees belong to labor organizations, and 90% are covered by a collective agreement. Strikes across the nation are rare.

It's an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We prefer the ability to bargain freely with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

However Tesla has disrupted the apple cart. Outspoken chief executive Elon Musk has stated he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of any arrangement which creates a sort of lords and peasants situation," he informed an audience at an event last year. "In my view labor groups attempt to generate conflict within businesses."

The automaker came to Sweden back in the mid-2010s, while IF Metall has long wanted to secure a labor contract with the automaker.

"But they wouldn't respond," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "And we got the belief that they attempted to hide away or not discuss this with our representatives."

She states the organization eventually found no other option than to call a strike, beginning on 27 October, last year. "Usually it's enough to make the threat," comments the union leader. "Employers typically agrees to the contract."

However this did not happen on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally of Latvian origin, started working for Tesla in 2021. He asserts that wages & work terms frequently dependent on the whim of managers.

He recalls a performance review at which he says he was refused a salary increase because he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was reported to be rejected for a pay rise due to he had the "wrong attitude".

However, some workers participated in the industrial action. Tesla had some one hundred thirty mechanics working at the time the strike was called. IF Metall says currently approximately 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

The automaker has since substituted these with replacement staff, for which there is no precedent since the 1930s.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," says German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not illegal, which is important to recognize. However it violates all traditional norms. But the company doesn't care about norms.

"They want to become norm breakers. Thus when anyone informs them, listen, you are breaking a standard, they see this as a compliment."

The company's Swedish subsidiary declined attempts for interview in an email mentioning "all-time high vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the company has given just a single press discussion during the entire period since the industrial action began.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, Jens Stark, told a financial publication that it benefited the company more not to have a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with employees and provide them the best possible terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision to avoid a labor contract was one made at Tesla headquarters in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to make our own such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in its fight. The strike has received backing from several of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries and neighboring states, decline to handle Teslas; waste is not collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed charging stations remain linked to power networks across the nation.

There is an example close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 charging units stand idle. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from here," he says. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our vehicles, we can power our cars."

With consequences high for all parties, it's hard to envision an end to the stand-off. IF Metall risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The worry is that that would spread," says the researcher, "and eventually {erode