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Across Sweden, approximately 70 car mechanics continue to confront among the world's wealthiest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This labor strike targeting the US carmaker's ten Scandinavian repair facilities has currently entered its second anniversary, with little sign of a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has been on the Tesla protest line since the autumn of 2023.

"It has been a difficult time," states the 39-year-old. And as the nation's cold seasonal conditions sets in, it is expected to grow even tougher.

The mechanic spends every start of the week alongside a colleague, standing near an electric vehicle service center within a business district in Malmö. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides shelter in the form of a portable construction vehicle, as well as coffee & light meals.

But it remains operations continue normally across the road, where the service facility seems to be at full capacity.

The strike involves an issue that goes to the heart of Scandinavia's labor traditions – the authority of trade unions to negotiate wages and conditions representing their members. This concept of collective agreement has supported industrial relations across the nation for almost a century.

Today approximately seventy percent of Swedish employees are members of a trade union, and 90% fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

This is a system welcomed across the board. "We favor the right to negotiate freely with worker representatives and establish labor contracts," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses employer group.

But the electric car company has upset the apple cart. Vocal chief executive the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the concept of labor organizations. "I simply disapprove of anything which creates a sort of hierarchical situation," he informed listeners in New York in 2023. "In my view labor groups attempt to create negativity in a company."

Tesla came to the Scandinavian market starting in 2014, and IF Metall has for years sought to secure a labor contract with the automaker.

"But they did not reply," says the union president, the organization's president. "We formed the impression that they attempted to hide away or not discuss this with us."

She says the organization ultimately found no alternative than to announce a strike, beginning in late October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to make the threat," comments the union leader. "Employers usually signs the contract."

But not in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, started working for Tesla in 2021. He claims that wages & conditions were often dependent on the whim of managers.

He remembers an evaluation meeting at which he says he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds that he "failing to meet Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a colleague was said to be turned down for a pay rise due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers went out on strike. The company employed some 130 technicians employed at the time the strike was called. IF Metall says currently approximately 70 of its members are on strike.

The automaker has long since replaced these with replacement staff, for which there is no precedent since the Great Depression.

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

"It's not illegal, which is crucial to recognize. However it violates all traditional practices. Yet Tesla doesn't care for conventions.

"They want to be norm breakers. Thus when anyone tells them, listen, you are breaking a norm, they see that as praise."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary declined requests for interview in an email citing "record vehicle shipments".

In fact, the company has granted just a single media interview in the two years after the strike started.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", the executive, told a financial publication that it suited the company more to avoid a collective agreement, and instead "to collaborate directly with employees and give workers the best possible terms".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision not to enter a collective agreement was one made at Tesla headquarters in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to make independent such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not entirely alone in its fight. The strike has received backing by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries & Finland, decline to handle Teslas; rubbish is not collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and newly built charging stations remain connected to power networks across the nation.

Exists an example near the capital's airport, at which 20 charging units remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from here," he comments. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our vehicles, 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 establishing a pattern if it concedes the fundamental concept of negotiated labor contracts.

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