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In Sweden, approximately 70 car mechanics continue to challenge among the globe's richest companies – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike targeting the US automaker's ten Swedish service centers has now entered two years of duration, with minimal indication for a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has been on the electric car company's protest line starting from October 2023.

"It's a tough time," states the 39-year-old. And as Sweden's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it is expected to grow more challenging.

The mechanic spends each Monday with a colleague, positioned outside an electric vehicle service center on a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation in the form of a portable construction vehicle, as well as hot beverages and sandwiches.

However it's business as usual across the road, where the workshop appears to be in full swing.

This industrial action concerns a matter that goes to the heart of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the right of trade unions to bargain for wages and conditions on behalf of their members. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics across the nation for nearly a century.

Currently some 70% of Swedish workers are members to labor organizations, and ninety percent fall under by a collective agreement. Strikes across the nation are rare.

It's a system welcomed across the board. "We prefer the ability to bargain freely with the unions and establish labor contracts," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

However Tesla has upset established practices. Vocal CEO Elon Musk has said he "disagrees" with the concept of unions. "I simply disapprove of any arrangement that establishes a sort of hierarchical situation," he informed listeners in New York in 2023. "In my view labor groups try to create conflict within businesses."

The automaker came to the Scandinavian market back in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has long wanted to secure a collective agreement with the automaker.

"But they wouldn't reply," states Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "And we got the belief that they attempted to avoid or not discuss the matter with our representatives."

She states the organization eventually found no other option except to call a strike, which started on 27 October, last year. "Usually it's enough to issue the threat," says the union leader. "Employers usually agrees to the contract."

But not in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, started working for Tesla in 2021. He claims that pay & work terms were often subject to the discretion of managers.

He remembers a performance review at which he states he was denied an annual pay rise because that he "not reaching company targets". At the same time, a colleague was reported to be rejected for a pay rise because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers went out on strike. The company employed approximately 130 mechanics working when the strike was called. IF Metall says that today around seventy of its members are participating in the action.

Tesla has long since substituted these with new workers, a situation there is no precedent since the era of the Great Depression.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] openly and systematically," says a labor researcher, a researcher at a research institute, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not illegal, which is crucial to understand. However it goes against all traditional norms. Yet Tesla shows no concern for conventions.

"They aim to be convention challengers. Thus when anyone informs them, hey, you are violating a standard, they see this as a compliment."

The company's local division refused attempts for comment in an email citing "record deliveries".

In fact, the company has granted only one media interview during the entire period after the strike started.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, the executive, informed a business paper that it suited the company more not to have a union contract, and rather "to collaborate directly with employees and provide workers optimal conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the decision not to enter a labor contract was one made at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have a mandate to take our own such decisions," he said.

IF Metall is not completely isolated in this conflict. The strike has received backing by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Scandinavian nations, Norway & Finland, decline to handle Teslas; rubbish is no longer removed from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and newly built power points are not being connected to the grid in the country.

There is one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 chargers stand idle. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There exists another charging station six miles from here," 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's hard to envision an end to the stand-off. The union risks setting a precedent should it surrender the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

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