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Across Sweden, around seventy automotive technicians continue to confront among the world's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This industrial action targeting the US carmaker's ten Scandinavian repair facilities has now reached its second anniversary, and there is minimal indication of a settlement.

One striking worker has been at the Tesla picket line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a difficult time," states the worker in his late thirties. And as Sweden's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it is expected to become more challenging.

Janis devotes each Monday with a colleague, standing outside a Tesla service center on a business district in Malmö. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation via a mobile builders' van, as well as coffee & sandwiches.

But it's business as usual nearby, where the service facility seems to operate in full swing.

The strike concerns a matter that reaches to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to bargain for wages & working terms representing their members. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned labor dynamics across the nation for nearly one hundred years.

Today approximately 70% of Swedish employees are members to labor organizations, and ninety percent are covered by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the right to bargain directly with the unions and sign labor contracts," says a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses employer group.

But Tesla has upset the apple cart. Vocal CEO the company leader has said he "disagrees" with the idea of unions. "I simply disapprove of anything that establishes a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he informed an audience at an event last year. "In my view the unions try to generate conflict within businesses."

Tesla entered Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has long sought to establish a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they did not reply," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's president. "We formed the belief that they attempted to avoid or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She states the organization ultimately found no other option than to announce a strike, beginning on 27 October, last year. "Typically it's enough to make the threat," comments the union leader. "The company usually agrees to the agreement."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, started working for Tesla in 2021. He claims that pay and work terms frequently dependent on the whim of managers.

He recalls a performance review where he says he was denied a salary increase on grounds he was "failing to meet company targets". Meanwhile, a coworker was said to be rejected for increased compensation because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone went out in the industrial action. Tesla employed some 130 mechanics working when the strike was initiated. The union states that today approximately 70 of its members are participating in the action.

Tesla has long since replaced these with replacement staff, for which that has not occurred since the Great Depression.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & systematically," states German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not illegal, which is crucial to recognize. However it violates all established practices. Yet Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They aim to be convention challengers. Thus when anyone informs them, hey, you are breaking a standard, they see this as praise."

The company's local division refused requests for interview via correspondence mentioning "record deliveries".

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

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, informed a business paper that it suited the organization more not to have a collective agreement, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and provide workers optimal conditions".

The executive rejected that the decision to avoid a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters in the US. "We have a mandate to make our own such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not entirely isolated in this conflict. This industrial action has received backing by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & Finland, are refusing to process the company's vehicles; rubbish is no longer collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed charging stations remain linked to the grid across the nation.

There is an example near the capital's airport, where 20 charging units remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There exists another charging station 10km from here," he comments. "Plus we are able to still buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can power our cars."

With stakes significant on both sides, it is difficult to see an end to the stand-off. The union risks setting a precedent should it surrender the principle of collective agreement.

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