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In Sweden, around 70 automotive mechanics persist to challenge among the globe's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This industrial action at the US automaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has now reached its second anniversary, with little sign for a settlement.

One striking worker has remained on the electric car company's protest line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It's a tough time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. With Sweden's chilly winter weather arrives, it is expected to become even tougher.

Janis devotes every start of the week with a colleague, standing near an electric vehicle garage on an industrial park in Malmö. His union, IF Metall, provides accommodation via a portable construction vehicle, plus coffee and sandwiches.

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

This industrial action concerns an issue that goes to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to negotiate wages & working terms representing their members. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for nearly a century.

Today approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers belong to labor organizations, and 90% are covered by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages across the nation are rare.

It's an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We favor the ability to negotiate freely with worker representatives and establish collective agreements," says Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Businesses employer group.

But the electric car company has upset established practices. Outspoken chief executive Elon Musk has said he "disagrees" with the concept of unions. "I simply don't like anything which creates a sort of lords and peasants situation," he informed an audience in New York in 2023. "In my view labor groups try to generate negativity in a company."

Tesla came to Sweden back in 2014, and the metalworkers' union has long sought to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"But they wouldn't reply," states Marie Nilsson, the organization's leader. "And we got the belief that they tried to hide away or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She states the organization eventually found no other option except to announce industrial action, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Usually the threat suffices to make the threat," says the union leader. "Employers typically signs the agreement."

But not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker several years ago. He asserts that pay and conditions frequently subject to the discretion of supervisors.

He remembers a performance review at which he says he was refused an annual pay rise on grounds that he "failing to meet Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a colleague was reported to be rejected for a pay rise because having the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, some workers went out on strike. Tesla employed approximately 130 technicians employed when the strike was initiated. IF Metall says currently around 70 of their represented workers are participating in the action.

The automaker has long since substituted the striking workers with replacement staff, for which that has not occurred since the 1930s.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and methodically," states a labor researcher, an analyst at a research institute, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not against the law, which is crucial to understand. But it goes against all established norms. But the company shows no concern about norms.

"They aim to be convention challengers. Thus when somebody informs them, hey, you are violating a standard, they perceive that as a compliment."

The automaker's local division declined requests for comment via correspondence citing "record deliveries".

In fact, the company has given just a single media interview in the two years since the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the local division's "country lead", the executive, told a financial publication that it benefited the company better to avoid a union contract, and instead "to work closely with employees and provide workers the best possible terms".

The executive rejected that the choice to avoid a collective agreement was determined at Tesla headquarters overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to make independent such decisions," he stated.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in this conflict. The strike has received backing from several of other unions.

Port workers in nearby Denmark, Norway and neighboring states, decline to handle the company's vehicles; rubbish is not collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; and newly built charging stations remain connected to the grid across the nation.

Exists an example close to the capital's airport, at which twenty chargers stand idle. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the strike.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from this location," he says. "And we can still purchase vehicles, we can maintain our vehicles, we can charge our cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it's hard to envision an end to the deadlock. The union faces the danger of setting a precedent if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

"The concern is how this could expand," says Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode