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Across Sweden, approximately 70 car technicians persist to challenge one of the globe's wealthiest companies – Tesla. The industrial action at the US carmaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has now reached two years of duration, and there is minimal sign of a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has remained on the electric car company's protest line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a tough period," remarks the 39-year-old. With the nation's cold seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to grow more challenging.

Janis spends each Monday alongside a fellow worker, standing outside a Tesla garage within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. His union, IF Metall, provides accommodation in the form of a mobile construction vehicle, plus hot beverages & sandwiches.

However it remains business as usual nearby, where the workshop appears to be at full capacity.

The strike concerns a matter that reaches to the core of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the right for worker organizations to negotiate pay and working terms on behalf of their workforce. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for almost a century.

Today some 70% of Swedish employees are members of a trade union, while 90% fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes across the nation occur infrequently.

This is an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We favor the right to negotiate freely with the unions and sign collective agreements," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise business organization.

But the electric car company has disrupted established practices. Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just don't like anything which creates a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he told listeners at an event in 2023. "In my view the unions try to generate negativity within businesses."

The automaker entered Sweden back in 2014, and the metalworkers' union has for years wanted to establish a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they wouldn't respond," states the union president, the union's president. "And we got the impression that they attempted to avoid or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She states the organization ultimately saw no other option than to announce a strike, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to issue a warning," comments the union leader. "The company typically signs the contract."

But not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally of Latvian origin, started working for Tesla in 2021. He asserts that wages and work terms frequently subject to the discretion of supervisors.

He recalls an evaluation meeting at which he says he was denied a salary increase on grounds that he "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a colleague was reported to be turned down for increased compensation because he had the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, not everyone went out on strike. Tesla had some 130 technicians employed at the time the strike was initiated. IF Metall says currently around seventy of its members are participating in the action.

The automaker has since replaced these with new workers, a situation that has no precedent since the 1930s.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly & systematically," says German Bender, a researcher at a research institute, a policy organization supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, which is important to understand. But it goes against all traditional practices. Yet Tesla shows no concern for conventions.

"They aim to be convention challengers. Thus when anyone tells them, listen, you are breaking a standard, they perceive that as a compliment."

The company's Swedish subsidiary declined requests for comment via correspondence mentioning "record deliveries".

Indeed, the company has given just a single press discussion during the entire period since the strike started.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, informed a business paper that it suited the company more not to have a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with employees and provide workers optimal conditions".

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

The union is not completely isolated in this conflict. The strike has received backing by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries and neighboring states, are refusing to handle the company's vehicles; waste is not removed from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and newly built power points are not being connected to the grid across the nation.

There is an example close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 chargers stand idle. However Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station six miles from this location," he says. "And we can still purchase vehicles, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our cars."

With stakes high for all parties, it's hard to see a resolution to the deadlock. IF Metall risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

"The worry is that this could expand," says Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode