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Across Sweden, around 70 car mechanics persist to challenge among the globe's wealthiest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. This industrial action at the US carmaker's ten Swedish service centers has now entered two years of duration, and there is little sign of a resolution.

One striking worker has remained at the electric car company's protest line since October 2023.

"It's a difficult time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. And as the nation's chilly winter weather arrives, it's likely to grow more challenging.

The mechanic devotes every start of the week alongside a fellow worker, positioned outside an electric vehicle garage within a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides shelter in the form of a portable construction vehicle, plus coffee and light meals.

But it's business as usual nearby, at which the workshop seems to be in full swing.

This industrial action concerns an issue that reaches to the core of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the right for worker organizations to bargain for wages and working terms representing their members. This principle of collective agreement has underpinned industrial relations in Sweden for almost one hundred years.

Currently approximately 70% of Swedish employees belong to labor organizations, while ninety percent are covered by a collective agreement. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

It's an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We favor the ability to bargain directly with the unions and establish collective agreements," states a business representative of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise employer group.

But Tesla has disrupted the apple cart. Outspoken chief executive Elon Musk has said he "disagrees" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply don't like anything that establishes a sort of hierarchical situation," he informed listeners at an event in 2023. "In my view labor groups try to generate negativity within businesses."

Tesla entered the Scandinavian market starting in the mid-2010s, while the metalworkers' union has long sought to establish a collective agreement with the company.

"But they wouldn't respond," states Marie Nilsson, the union's leader. "And we got the impression that they attempted to hide away or not discuss this with our representatives."

She states the organization ultimately saw no alternative except to call industrial action, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Typically the threat suffices to make a warning," says Ms Nilsson. "Employers usually agrees to the contract."

However this did not happen on this occasion.

Janis Kuzma, originally of Latvian origin, started working with the automaker several years ago. He asserts that wages and conditions frequently subject to the whim of supervisors.

He recalls a performance review where he states he was denied a salary increase on grounds he was "not reaching Tesla's goals". At the same time, a coworker was reported to have been turned down for increased compensation because having an "inappropriate demeanor".

Nevertheless, some workers participated on strike. The company had approximately 130 mechanics working at the time the industrial action was initiated. The union says currently approximately 70 of its members are participating in the action.

Tesla has long since substituted the striking workers with replacement staff, for which that has not occurred since the 1930s.

"The company has accomplished this [found replacement staff] openly & systematically," states German Bender, an analyst at Arena Idé, a think tank financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It is not against the law, which is important to recognize. However it goes against all traditional norms. But Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They want to become convention challengers. Thus when anyone informs them, hey, you are breaking a norm, they see this as a compliment."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary refused requests for comment in an email citing "record deliveries".

Indeed, the company has granted just a single media interview during the entire period after the strike started.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, informed a financial publication that it suited the company better not to have a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with the team and provide workers optimal conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the decision not to enter a labor contract was determined by US leadership in the US. "We have authorization to make our own such decisions," he stated.

The union is not entirely alone in this conflict. The strike has received backing from several of other unions.

Dockworkers in nearby Denmark, Norway and neighboring states, decline to handle the company's vehicles; rubbish is not collected from the automaker's Scandinavian locations; and newly built power points are not being connected to power networks in the country.

There is an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which twenty charging units stand idle. But Tibor Blomhäll, the president of enthusiasts group the Swedish Tesla association, says vehicle owners remain unaffected by the strike.

"There exists another charging station 10km from here," he says. "Plus we are able to still purchase vehicles, we can service our cars, we can power our electric cars."

With consequences high on both sides, it is difficult to envision an end to the deadlock. IF Metall faces the danger of establishing a pattern if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

"The concern is that this could expand," says the researcher, "and ultimately {erode