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In Sweden, approximately 70 car mechanics persist to confront one of the globe's richest companies – Tesla. The industrial action at the US automaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has now entered its second anniversary, and there is minimal indication for a settlement.

One striking worker has been on the electric car company's picket line since October 2023.

"It's a tough period," states the 39-year-old. With the nation's chilly winter weather arrives, it's likely to grow even tougher.

Janis spends every start of the week with a fellow worker, positioned near a Tesla garage on a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation in the form of a mobile builders' van, plus coffee and light meals.

But it's business as usual nearby, at which the service facility seems to operate at full capacity.

This industrial action involves an issue that goes to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to negotiate pay and conditions representing their workforce. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported industrial relations in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Currently some seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers belong to labor organizations, and 90% are covered by a collective agreement. Strikes across the nation are rare.

This is an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We favor the right to bargain freely with the unions and sign labor contracts," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

However the electric car company has upset the apple cart. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of anything that establishes a sort of lords and peasants situation," he informed listeners at an event in 2023. "In my view labor groups attempt to generate negativity within businesses."

Tesla entered the Scandinavian market starting in 2014, while the metalworkers' union has long sought to secure a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they wouldn't respond," says Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "And we got the impression that they attempted to avoid or not discuss the matter with us."

She states the union eventually saw no alternative except to call industrial action, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to issue the threat," comments the union leader. "The company typically agrees to the contract."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, who is of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker in 2021. He asserts that wages and conditions frequently dependent on the whim of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting at which he states he was refused a salary increase on grounds that he "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a colleague was reported to be turned down for increased compensation because having the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, not everyone went out on strike. Tesla had approximately one hundred thirty mechanics employed at the time the strike was called. The union says that today approximately seventy of its members are participating in the action.

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

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly & systematically," states German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not illegal, which is important to understand. However it goes against all established practices. Yet Tesla shows no concern about norms.

"They aim to become convention challengers. So if somebody tells them, hey, you are breaking a standard, they perceive that as a compliment."

The company's Swedish subsidiary refused attempts for interview in an email mentioning "record deliveries".

Indeed, the company has granted only one media interview during the entire period after the industrial action started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", Jens Stark, informed a financial publication that it benefited the company better not to have a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with employees and give them optimal conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was determined by US leadership in the US. "We have a mandate to make independent such choices," he said.

The union is not completely alone in its fight. The strike has received backing by a number of other unions.

Dockworkers in nearby Denmark, Norway & Finland, decline to handle the company's vehicles; waste is not collected from Tesla's Swedish facilities; while newly built charging stations remain linked to the grid in the country.

There is one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where twenty charging units stand idle. But Tibor Blomhäll, the president of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There's another charging station 10km from this location," he comments. "And we can still buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can charge our cars."

With stakes high for all parties, it's hard to envision a resolution to the stand-off. The union faces the danger of establishing a pattern if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

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