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In Sweden, approximately seventy automotive mechanics continue to challenge one of the world's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action targeting the American carmaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has now entered its second anniversary, with minimal sign of a resolution.

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

"It has been a difficult time," remarks the 39-year-old. And as the nation's chilly winter weather sets in, it's likely to become more challenging.

The mechanic spends each Monday alongside a colleague, standing outside an electric vehicle garage within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies accommodation via a mobile builders' van, as well as coffee and light meals.

But it remains business as usual across the road, at which the workshop seems to be at full capacity.

The strike involves a matter that reaches to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to bargain for wages and working terms on behalf of their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned industrial relations in Sweden for nearly a century.

Currently some 70% of Scandinavia's workers belong to labor organizations, while ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes across the nation occur infrequently.

This is a system welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the right to bargain freely with worker representatives and sign collective agreements," says Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses employer group.

However Tesla has upset established practices. Vocal CEO Elon Musk has said he "disagrees" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply disapprove of any arrangement which creates a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he told listeners at an event last year. "In my view labor groups try to create negativity in a company."

Tesla entered Sweden back in 2014, and IF Metall has for years wanted to establish a labor contract with the company.

"But they wouldn't reply," states Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "And we got the impression that they tried to avoid or evade discussing the matter with us."

She states the organization eventually found no other option except to call industrial action, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Typically the threat suffices to issue a warning," says the union leader. "The company usually agrees to the agreement."

However this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, who is from Latvia, started working for Tesla several years ago. He asserts that pay & work terms were often dependent on the whim of supervisors.

He recalls an evaluation meeting where he states he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds that he "failing to meet Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a coworker was said to be rejected for a pay rise due to he had an "inappropriate demeanor".

However, not everyone went out on strike. The company employed some one hundred thirty mechanics employed at the time the industrial action was called. The union states currently around 70 of their represented workers are participating in the action.

The automaker has long since replaced the striking workers with replacement staff, for which that has no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] publicly & methodically," says German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not illegal, this being important to recognize. However it goes against all traditional practices. Yet the company shows no concern for conventions.

"They aim to be norm breakers. Thus when anyone informs them, listen, you are breaking a standard, they perceive that as praise."

The automaker's local division declined requests for comment via correspondence citing "all-time high deliveries".

Indeed, the automaker has granted just a single media interview in the two years after the strike began.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, the executive, informed a financial publication that it benefited the company more to avoid a collective agreement, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and provide workers optimal conditions".

The executive denied that the choice not to enter a labor contract was determined at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have authorization to make independent such choices," he stated.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in its fight. This industrial action has been supported from several of labor organizations.

Dockworkers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries and neighboring states, decline to handle the company's vehicles; waste is not collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; and newly built power points are not being connected to power networks in the country.

There is one such facility close to the capital's airport, where twenty charging units stand idle. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There's an alternative power point six miles from this location," he says. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it's hard to envision an end to the deadlock. IF Metall risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

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