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In Sweden, around seventy car technicians persist to challenge among the globe's wealthiest corporations – Tesla. The industrial action at the American carmaker's 10 Scandinavian repair facilities has now entered two years of duration, with minimal indication of a resolution.

One striking worker has been on the Tesla picket line starting from the autumn of 2023.

"It's a tough time," states the 39-year-old. And as Sweden's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to become even tougher.

The mechanic spends every start of the week with a fellow worker, standing outside an electric vehicle service center on an industrial park in Malmö. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies accommodation via a mobile construction vehicle, as well as coffee & sandwiches.

However it remains business as usual nearby, where the service facility appears to operate in full swing.

The strike involves an issue that reaches to the core of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to bargain for wages and working terms on behalf of their members. This principle of collective agreement has supported labor dynamics in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Today approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers belong of a trade union, while ninety percent fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes across the nation occur infrequently.

This is an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We favor the right to bargain directly with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," states a business representative from the Association of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But Tesla has disrupted the apple cart. Outspoken CEO the company leader has said he "disagrees" with the concept of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of anything that establishes a kind of hierarchical sort of thing," he told listeners in New York in 2023. "In my view labor groups attempt to generate conflict in a company."

The automaker entered Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, while IF Metall has long sought to establish a labor contract with the company.

"Yet they did not reply," states the union president, the union's president. "We formed the impression that they attempted to avoid or not discuss this with us."

She says the organization eventually saw no other option than to announce a strike, which started on 27 October, 2023. "Usually it's enough to issue the threat," comments the union leader. "Employers usually signs the contract."

However not on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, who is of Latvian origin, began employment for Tesla several years ago. He claims that wages and conditions frequently subject to the whim of managers.

He remembers a performance review at which he states he was denied a salary increase on grounds he was "failing to meet Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a coworker was said to be turned down for increased compensation because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers participated in the industrial action. Tesla had some one hundred thirty mechanics working when the strike was called. The union says that today around seventy of their represented workers are participating in the action.

The automaker has long since replaced the striking workers with new workers, for which that has no precedent since the era of the 1930s.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] openly and systematically," says a labor researcher, a researcher at Arena Idé, a think tank financed by Swedish trade unions.

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

"They aim to become norm breakers. So if somebody tells them, listen, you are breaking a norm, they see that as praise."

The company's local division declined requests for interview via correspondence mentioning "record deliveries".

In fact, the automaker has given just a single press discussion in the two years since the industrial action started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", Jens Stark, told a business paper that it suited the organization more to avoid a union contract, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and give workers the best possible conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the choice not to enter a collective agreement was one made by US leadership in the US. "We have a mandate to take our own such decisions," he stated.

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

Dockworkers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Nordic countries & Finland, are refusing to handle Teslas; waste is no longer collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and recently constructed power points remain linked to the grid in the country.

There is an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where twenty chargers stand idle. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists an alternative power point six miles from this location," he comments. "And we can continue to buy our cars, we can maintain our vehicles, we can power our cars."

With consequences high for all parties, it is difficult to envision a resolution to the deadlock. The union risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the principle of collective agreement.

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