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Across Sweden, around seventy automotive technicians persist to challenge among the globe's richest companies – Tesla. The industrial action at the US carmaker's ten Scandinavian service centers has now reached its second anniversary, with little sign of a settlement.

One striking worker has remained on the electric car company's picket line since the autumn of 2023.

"It's a tough time," remarks the 39-year-old. With the nation's chilly winter weather sets in, it's likely to become even tougher.

The mechanic devotes every start of the week alongside a fellow worker, positioned outside an electric vehicle garage on an industrial park in Malmö. His union, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides shelter in the form of a portable construction vehicle, plus coffee & light meals.

But it remains business as usual across the road, at which the workshop seems to be in full swing.

The strike involves a matter that goes to the core of Swedish labor traditions – the authority for worker organizations to bargain for wages & working terms representing their members. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for nearly one hundred years.

Today approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's workers are members to labor organizations, and ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden are rare.

It's an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the ability to negotiate freely with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But Tesla has upset established practices. Vocal CEO Elon Musk has stated he "disagrees" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of any arrangement which creates a sort of lords and peasants sort of thing," he told listeners in New York in 2023. "In my view labor groups try to generate conflict within businesses."

The automaker came to Sweden starting in 2014, and IF Metall has long wanted to establish a collective agreement with the company.

"But they did not respond," states Marie Nilsson, the union's leader. "And we got the belief that they attempted to hide away or not discuss the matter with us."

She says the organization eventually saw no other option except to call a strike, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Typically it's enough to make a warning," says the union leader. "The company usually agrees to the agreement."

But this did not happen on this occasion.

The striking mechanic, originally of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker in 2021. He claims that wages and work terms frequently subject to the whim of managers.

He recalls an evaluation meeting where he states he was denied a salary increase on grounds that he "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a colleague was said to have been turned down for a pay rise because he had the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, some workers went out in the industrial action. Tesla employed approximately 130 mechanics employed at the time the strike was called. The union says currently around 70 of their represented workers are on strike.

The automaker has long since replaced the striking workers with replacement staff, a situation that has no precedent since the Great Depression.

"Tesla has done it [found replacement staff] openly & methodically," says German Bender, a researcher at Arena Idé, a policy organization financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It is not against the law, this being crucial to understand. But it goes against all traditional practices. Yet Tesla shows no concern for conventions.

"They aim to be norm breakers. So if anyone informs them, listen, you are breaking a standard, they perceive that as a compliment."

The automaker's local division refused requests for interview via correspondence mentioning "all-time high vehicle shipments".

Indeed, the company has given only one media interview during the entire period since the industrial action began.

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, informed a financial publication that it suited the company more to avoid a collective agreement, and rather "to work closely with the team and give workers the best possible conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision not to enter a labor contract was determined by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses authorization to take our own such choices," he said.

The union is not entirely isolated in this conflict. The strike has received backing by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in neighbouring Denmark, Nordic countries & neighboring states, are refusing to handle Teslas; rubbish is no longer collected from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; and newly built power points are not being linked to the grid in the country.

Exists an example near the capital's airport, at which twenty chargers remain unused. However Tibor Blomhäll, the president of an owner's club the Swedish Tesla association, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There exists an alternative power point 10km from here," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can maintain our cars, we can charge our cars."

With stakes significant for all parties, it's hard to envision a resolution to the deadlock. The union risks establishing a pattern if it concedes the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

"The concern is how that would spread," states Mr Bender, "and eventually {erode