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Across Sweden, around seventy automotive technicians continue to confront one of the world's richest companies – Tesla. This industrial action at the US automaker's ten Scandinavian repair facilities has now entered two years of duration, and there is minimal indication for a resolution.

One striking worker has been at the Tesla protest line since October 2023.

"It has been a tough period," states the 39-year-old. With the nation's cold seasonal conditions sets in, it is expected to become more challenging.

The mechanic devotes every start of the week alongside a colleague, positioned outside an electric vehicle garage within an industrial park in Malmö. The labor organization, IF Metall, provides shelter via a mobile construction vehicle, plus coffee & sandwiches.

But it remains operations continue normally across the road, where the service facility appears to be in full swing.

The strike concerns a matter that goes to the heart of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to bargain for wages and working terms representing their workforce. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics across the nation for almost one hundred years.

Today some seventy percent of Swedish employees belong to labor organizations, while ninety percent fall under under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes across the nation occur infrequently.

It's an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the right to bargain directly with the unions and sign collective agreements," says a business representative from the Association of Swedish Businesses employer group.

But the electric car company has disrupted established practices. Outspoken CEO the company leader has said he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I just disapprove of any arrangement which creates a kind of lords and peasants situation," he told listeners at an event in 2023. "I think labor groups attempt to create conflict in a company."

Tesla entered Sweden back in 2014, and the metalworkers' union has for years sought to establish a labor contract with the company.

"But they wouldn't reply," says Marie Nilsson, the organization's president. "We formed the impression that they tried to hide away or evade discussing the matter with us."

She states the organization eventually found no alternative than to call industrial action, which started in late October, last year. "Typically it's enough to make a warning," says the union leader. "Employers usually agrees to the agreement."

But not in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is from Latvia, began employment with the automaker in 2021. He asserts that pay and work terms frequently subject to the whim of supervisors.

He recalls a performance review where he says he was denied an annual pay rise on grounds that he "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a coworker was said to be rejected for a pay rise because having the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, not everyone participated on strike. The company had some 130 mechanics employed at the time the industrial action was initiated. The union says currently around seventy of their represented workers are participating in the action.

Tesla has since replaced these with replacement staff, for which there is not occurred since the era of the Great Depression.

"The company has done it [found replacement staff] openly and systematically," states German Bender, an analyst at a research institute, a policy organization supported by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not against the law, which is important to recognize. However it violates all traditional norms. But Tesla shows no concern about norms.

"They aim to be norm breakers. So if somebody informs them, listen, you are violating a norm, they perceive this as a compliment."

The automaker's Swedish subsidiary declined requests for interview in an email mentioning "all-time high vehicle shipments".

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

In March 2024, the local division's "national manager, Jens Stark, told a business paper that it suited the company better not to have a collective agreement, and rather "to work closely with employees and give workers the best possible terms".

The executive denied that the choice to avoid a labor contract was determined at Tesla headquarters overseas. "We have a mandate to take independent such choices," he said.

IF Metall is not entirely isolated in its fight. This industrial action has received backing by a number of labor organizations.

Port workers in nearby Scandinavian nations, Norway and neighboring states, are refusing to process the company's vehicles; rubbish is not collected from Tesla's Swedish facilities; while newly built charging stations remain linked to power networks across the nation.

There is one such facility close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 chargers stand idle. However a Tesla enthusiast, the president of an owner's club Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There exists an alternative power point six miles from this location," he says. "Plus we are able to still buy our cars, we can service our vehicles, we can power our electric cars."

With consequences high on both sides, it's hard to see an end to the stand-off. The union risks establishing a pattern if it concedes the principle of collective agreement.

"The worry is that that would spread," says the researcher, "and ultimately {erode