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In Sweden, around 70 automotive mechanics persist to challenge one of the world's richest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The labor strike at the American carmaker's 10 Swedish repair facilities has now entered two years of duration, and there is minimal sign of a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has remained on the Tesla protest line starting from October 2023.

"It's a difficult time," remarks the 39-year-old. And as Sweden's chilly winter weather arrives, it's likely to become more challenging.

Janis spends every start of the week with a fellow worker, standing near a Tesla garage on a business district located in southern Sweden. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, supplies shelter in the form of a portable construction vehicle, as well as coffee and light meals.

However it's business as usual across the road, where the service facility seems to operate in full swing.

This industrial action involves a matter that reaches to the heart of Swedish labor traditions – the authority of trade unions to bargain for pay and conditions representing their workforce. This concept of collective agreement has underpinned industrial relations in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Today approximately seventy percent of Swedish employees belong to labor organizations, while ninety percent fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

It's a system welcomed across the board. "We favor the ability to bargain freely with worker representatives and sign collective agreements," states Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

However Tesla has upset the apple cart. Outspoken chief executive the company leader has stated he "disagrees" with the concept of unions. "I just disapprove of anything which creates a kind of lords and peasants sort of thing," he told listeners at an event last year. "In my view the unions try to generate conflict in a company."

The automaker entered Sweden back in the mid-2010s, and the metalworkers' union has for years sought to establish a collective agreement with the automaker.

"But they wouldn't respond," states Marie Nilsson, the union's leader. "We formed the belief that they tried to hide away or not discuss this with our representatives."

She says the organization eventually saw no other option than to announce industrial action, which started in late October, last year. "Typically it's enough to issue a warning," says the union leader. "The company usually agrees to the contract."

However not in this case.

Janis Kuzma, who is of Latvian origin, began employment with the automaker several years ago. He claims that pay & work terms frequently subject to the discretion of managers.

He remembers a performance review at which he states he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds he was "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a coworker was said to be turned down for a pay rise due to having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers went out in the industrial action. Tesla had some one hundred thirty technicians employed at the time the industrial action was initiated. The union states that today approximately 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

The automaker has since replaced these with replacement staff, for which that has not occurred since the 1930s.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly and methodically," says a labor researcher, an analyst at Arena Idé, a think tank supported by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not against the law, which is crucial to understand. But it goes against all established practices. Yet the company shows no concern for conventions.

"They want to be convention challengers. Thus when somebody tells them, listen, you are violating a standard, they perceive that as a compliment."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary declined requests for comment via correspondence citing "all-time high deliveries".

In fact, the automaker has granted only one media interview in the two years after the strike started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, told a business paper that it benefited the organization more not to have a collective agreement, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and provide them optimal conditions".

The executive denied that the choice to avoid a labor contract was determined by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses authorization to take our own such choices," he stated.

The union is not entirely alone in this conflict. This industrial action has been supported by a number of other unions.

Port workers in nearby Denmark, Norway and neighboring states, decline to process Teslas; waste is no longer removed from Tesla's Swedish facilities; and recently constructed charging stations remain linked to the grid across the nation.

There is one such facility near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 chargers stand idle. But Tibor Blomhäll, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says vehicle owners remain unaffected by the strike.

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

With stakes high on both sides, it is difficult to see a resolution to the stand-off. The union faces the danger of establishing a pattern if it concedes the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The concern is how that would spread," says Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode