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In Sweden, around 70 car mechanics persist to challenge among the world's wealthiest corporations – Tesla. The industrial action targeting the American carmaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has currently entered its second anniversary, and there is little indication of a resolution.

One striking worker has been at the Tesla picket line starting from October 2023.

"It has been a difficult period," remarks the 39-year-old. With Sweden's cold seasonal conditions sets in, it is expected to grow even tougher.

Janis devotes every start of the week with a fellow worker, positioned outside a Tesla garage within an industrial park located in southern Sweden. His union, IF Metall, provides shelter via a portable builders' van, as well as coffee and light meals.

But it's business as usual nearby, where the workshop seems to be at full capacity.

The strike involves an issue that reaches to the core of Swedish labor traditions – the right for worker organizations to bargain for pay and working terms on behalf of their members. This concept of collective agreement has underpinned industrial relations across the nation for nearly a century.

Currently some 70% of Scandinavia's workers are members to labor organizations, and 90% are covered by a collective agreement. Labor stoppages across the nation occur infrequently.

This is a system supported across the board. "We prefer the ability to negotiate directly with worker representatives and establish collective agreements," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses employer group.

However Tesla has upset the apple cart. Outspoken chief executive the company leader has said he "disagrees" with the concept of unions. "I just don't like any arrangement that establishes a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he told listeners in New York in 2023. "In my view the unions try to create negativity in a company."

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

"But they did not reply," says the union president, the union's president. "We formed the belief that they attempted to hide away or evade discussing the matter with us."

She says the organization ultimately saw no other option except to announce a strike, beginning in late October, 2023. "Typically the threat suffices to make a warning," says the union leader. "Employers usually signs the contract."

However this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, began employment for Tesla several years ago. He claims that pay and conditions frequently dependent on the discretion of supervisors.

He remembers an evaluation meeting at which he states he was refused an annual pay rise on grounds that he "failing to meet company targets". Meanwhile, a coworker was said to have been 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 when the industrial action was called. The union says that today around 70 of its members are participating in the action.

Tesla has since replaced the striking workers with replacement staff, for which there is no precedent since the Great Depression.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly and methodically," states German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not against the law, which is important to understand. But it goes against all established practices. Yet the company doesn't care for conventions.

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

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

Indeed, the automaker has granted only one press discussion during the entire period after the industrial action started.

Earlier this year, the local division's "country lead", Jens Stark, informed a business paper that it benefited the organization more to avoid a union contract, and rather "to work closely with the team and give them the best possible conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the decision to avoid a labor contract was determined by US leadership overseas. "We have authorization to make independent such choices," he said.

IF Metall is not entirely alone in this conflict. This industrial action has received backing by a number of other unions.

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Norway and neighboring states, decline to handle Teslas; rubbish is not removed from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; while recently constructed charging stations remain connected to the grid in the country.

There is one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where 20 charging units remain unused. But Tibor Blomhäll, the president of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There's an alternative power point 10km from this location," he comments. "Plus we are able to still purchase vehicles, we can maintain our vehicles, we can charge our electric cars."

With consequences significant for all parties, it is difficult 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 this could expand," says the researcher, "and ultimately {erode