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In Sweden, approximately 70 automotive mechanics continue to challenge one of the globe's richest companies – Tesla. This labor strike targeting the US automaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has now entered its second anniversary, with minimal sign for a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has been at the Tesla picket line since the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a difficult time," states the 39-year-old. And as Sweden's chilly winter weather arrives, it's likely to become even tougher.

Janis spends every start of the week with a colleague, standing near a Tesla garage within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation in the form of a portable builders' van, plus coffee and sandwiches.

However it's business as usual across the road, where the workshop seems to operate at full capacity.

The strike concerns an issue that goes to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the right of trade unions to negotiate pay & conditions on behalf of their members. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported industrial relations in Sweden for almost a century.

Currently approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers are members to labor organizations, while 90% fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes in Sweden occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement supported across the board. "We favor the ability to negotiate directly with the unions and establish collective agreements," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses employer group.

However Tesla has upset established practices. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has said he "disagrees" with the concept of labor organizations. "I simply don't like anything which creates a kind of hierarchical situation," he told an audience in New York last year. "I think the unions attempt to create negativity within businesses."

Tesla entered the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has for years wanted to establish a collective agreement with the company.

"But they did not respond," says Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "And we got the belief that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing this with us."

She states the organization eventually found no alternative except to announce a strike, beginning in late October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to issue the threat," comments the union leader. "Employers typically signs the contract."

But not on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, who is of Latvian origin, began employment for Tesla in 2021. He claims that wages and conditions frequently subject to the discretion of supervisors.

He remembers a performance review at which he says he was denied a salary increase on grounds that he "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a colleague was said to have been rejected for a pay rise because having the "wrong attitude".

However, some workers participated on strike. Tesla had some 130 mechanics employed at the time the industrial action was initiated. IF Metall says currently around 70 of its members are participating in the action.

The automaker has long since replaced these with replacement staff, a situation that has not occurred since the 1930s.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & methodically," states a labor researcher, an analyst at a research institute, a think tank financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not illegal, this being important to understand. However it goes against all traditional practices. Yet Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They aim to be convention challengers. So if somebody tells them, listen, 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 just a single media interview during the entire period after the strike started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", Jens Stark, informed a financial publication that it suited the organization more not to have a union contract, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and provide them the best possible conditions".

The executive denied that the choice not to enter a labor contract was determined by US leadership overseas. "We have authorization to make independent such decisions," he said.

The union is not entirely isolated in this conflict. This industrial action has received backing from several of other unions.

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries & Finland, are refusing to process Teslas; rubbish is not removed from Tesla's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed charging stations remain linked to the grid across the nation.

Exists one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where twenty charging units stand idle. But Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, states 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 buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can power our cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it's hard to envision an end to the deadlock. IF Metall faces the danger of setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The concern is how this could expand," says the researcher, "and eventually {erode