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Across Sweden, approximately 70 car technicians persist to challenge among the world's richest companies – Tesla. The industrial action at the American carmaker's ten Swedish service centers has now entered its second anniversary, and there is little sign of a settlement.

One striking worker has remained at the electric car company's protest line since October 2023.

"It has been a difficult time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. With the nation's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it is expected to grow even tougher.

Janis devotes every start of the week with a colleague, standing near an electric vehicle garage on a business district located in southern Sweden. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides accommodation in the form of a portable construction vehicle, as well as hot beverages and sandwiches.

However it's operations continue normally across the road, where the service facility seems to be in full swing.

The strike involves an issue that goes to the core of Swedish labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for pay & working terms on behalf of their members. This concept of collective agreement has supported labor dynamics in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Today some 70% of Swedish employees are members of a trade union, while 90% fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

It's a system welcomed by all parties. "We favor the ability to negotiate freely with the unions and establish collective agreements," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But Tesla has upset the apple cart. Outspoken chief executive the company leader has stated he "disagrees" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of anything which creates a sort of lords and peasants situation," he told an audience at an event last year. "I think labor groups try to generate negativity in a company."

Tesla entered the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, while IF Metall has long sought to establish a collective agreement with the automaker.

"But they wouldn't reply," says the union president, the union's president. "And we got the impression that they tried to hide away or not discuss this with us."

She states the union ultimately saw no alternative than to call a strike, beginning on 27 October, last year. "Usually the threat suffices to issue a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company usually signs the agreement."

But not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally from Latvia, began employment for Tesla several years ago. He claims that wages and work terms were often subject to the whim of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting where he says he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds he was "failing to meet Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a coworker was said to have been rejected for a pay rise because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, not everyone participated on strike. The company had some 130 mechanics working when the strike was called. IF Metall says that today around 70 of its members are on strike.

The automaker has long since replaced these with replacement staff, a situation that has not occurred since the era of the Great Depression.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and methodically," says a labor researcher, a researcher at a research institute, a policy organization financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not illegal, this being important to understand. But it goes against all established practices. But Tesla shows no concern for conventions.

"They aim to become convention challengers. Thus when somebody informs them, listen, you are breaking a standard, they see that as a compliment."

The automaker's local division refused attempts for interview in an email mentioning "all-time high vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the company has granted only one press discussion in the two years since the industrial action started.

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

Mr Stark denied that the decision to avoid a collective agreement was one made by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses a mandate to take our own such decisions," he said.

The union is not entirely isolated in its fight. This industrial action has received backing from several of other unions.

Dockworkers in nearby Denmark, Nordic countries and neighboring states, are refusing to process the company's vehicles; waste is not removed from Tesla's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed charging stations remain connected to the grid across the nation.

Exists an example near the capital's airport, where 20 chargers stand idle. But Tibor Blomhäll, the president of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states Tesla owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from here," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to purchase vehicles, we can service our cars, we can charge our electric cars."

With stakes high for all parties, it's hard to envision an end to the deadlock. The union risks setting a precedent should it surrender the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is that this could expand," states Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode