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In Sweden, around 70 car mechanics persist to confront one of the globe's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action targeting the US carmaker's ten Swedish service centers has now entered two years of duration, and there is little sign of a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has remained on the Tesla protest line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a difficult time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. And as Sweden's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to become more challenging.

The mechanic devotes every start of the week alongside a colleague, positioned outside a Tesla garage within a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, IF Metall, provides shelter in the form of a mobile builders' van, plus coffee and light meals.

However it remains business as usual nearby, at which the service facility seems to be in full swing.

The strike involves an issue that reaches to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the right of trade unions to bargain for wages & working terms on behalf of their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Currently some 70% of Swedish workers are members of a trade union, and ninety percent are covered by a collective agreement. Strikes in Sweden occur infrequently.

This is a system supported by all parties. "We prefer the right to bargain directly with the unions and sign collective agreements," states Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But Tesla has upset the apple cart. Vocal CEO the company leader has said he "disagrees" with the idea of unions. "I simply don't like any arrangement that establishes a kind of hierarchical situation," he told listeners in New York in 2023. "I think labor groups attempt to generate conflict in a company."

Tesla entered the Scandinavian market back in 2014, and the metalworkers' union has for years sought to establish a collective agreement with the automaker.

"Yet they did not reply," states Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "And we got the belief that they tried to hide away or evade discussing the matter with our representatives."

She states the union eventually found no alternative except to call industrial action, beginning on 27 October, last year. "Typically the threat suffices to issue a warning," says the union leader. "The company usually signs the agreement."

But this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker several years ago. He claims that pay & conditions were often subject to the discretion of supervisors.

He recalls a performance review at which he states he was denied a salary increase because he was "not reaching company targets". Meanwhile, a coworker was reported to have been turned down for a pay rise due to he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers went out on strike. Tesla employed approximately one hundred thirty mechanics employed at the time the industrial action was called. The union says that today around 70 of its members are participating in the action.

Tesla has since substituted the striking workers with new workers, for which there is no precedent since the 1930s.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] openly and systematically," states a labor researcher, an analyst at a research institute, a policy organization supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, which is crucial to recognize. However it goes against all traditional practices. Yet the company doesn't care about norms.

"They aim to be convention challengers. Thus when somebody tells them, hey, you are violating a norm, they see that as praise."

The company's local division refused requests for comment via correspondence mentioning "record vehicle shipments".

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

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", Jens Stark, informed a business paper that it benefited the company better to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with employees and provide workers the best possible conditions".

The executive rejected that the decision not to enter a labor contract was one made at Tesla headquarters overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to make independent such decisions," he stated.

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

Dockworkers in nearby Denmark, Norway and Finland, decline to process the company's vehicles; rubbish is no longer collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and newly built charging stations remain connected to power networks in the country.

Exists an example close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 chargers stand idle. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There exists an alternative power point six miles from here," he comments. "And we can still purchase vehicles, we can service our vehicles, we can power our cars."

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

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