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Across Sweden, around 70 automotive technicians continue to confront one of the world's wealthiest corporations – Tesla. This industrial action targeting the American automaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has now entered two years of duration, with little indication for a resolution.

Janis Kuzma has been on the Tesla protest line since October 2023.

"It has been a difficult time," remarks the 39-year-old. With the nation's chilly seasonal conditions sets in, it's likely to become even tougher.

The mechanic spends every start of the week with a fellow worker, standing outside a Tesla service center on a business district in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides shelter in the form of a mobile builders' van, plus hot beverages & light meals.

However it remains business as usual nearby, at which the workshop appears to operate in full swing.

This industrial action involves an issue that goes to the core of Scandinavia's industrial culture – the authority of trade unions to negotiate pay & conditions representing their members. This principle of negotiated labor contracts has underpinned labor dynamics in Sweden for nearly a century.

Today approximately 70% of Scandinavia's employees belong of a trade union, while ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

This is an arrangement welcomed by all parties. "We prefer the right to bargain directly with the unions and sign labor contracts," says Mattias Dahl from the Association of Swedish Businesses business organization.

But the electric car company has upset established practices. Outspoken chief executive the company leader has stated he "opposes" with the idea of unions. "I simply don't like anything that establishes a sort of hierarchical sort of thing," he told an audience at an event last year. "I think labor groups try to create negativity within businesses."

Tesla came to Sweden starting in the mid-2010s, and IF Metall has for years wanted to secure a labor contract with the automaker.

"Yet they wouldn't reply," says Marie Nilsson, the union's president. "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 than to announce a strike, which started on 27 October, last year. "Usually it's enough to issue a warning," says Ms Nilsson. "The company usually signs the agreement."

But this did not happen in this case.

Janis Kuzma, originally from Latvia, began employment for Tesla several years ago. He claims that pay and conditions were often dependent on the whim of managers.

He remembers a performance review where he says he was refused a salary increase on grounds that he "failing to meet company targets". At the same time, a colleague was said to be rejected for increased compensation because he had the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, not everyone participated on strike. Tesla had some 130 technicians employed at the time the industrial action was called. IF Metall states currently around seventy of its members are on strike.

The automaker has long since substituted the striking workers with new workers, for which that has no precedent since the era of the 1930s.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and methodically," says German Bender, an analyst at a research institute, a think tank financed by Swedish trade unions.

"It's not against the law, this being important to recognize. However it violates all traditional norms. But Tesla doesn't care about norms.

"They want to become convention challengers. Thus when somebody informs them, hey, you are breaking a standard, they see that as a compliment."

The company's local division refused attempts for comment via correspondence citing "record deliveries".

In fact, the company has granted only one press discussion during the entire period after the industrial action started.

In March 2024, the Swedish subsidiary's "country lead", Jens Stark, informed a financial publication that it suited the organization better to avoid a union contract, and instead "to collaborate directly with employees and give workers optimal conditions".

Mr Stark denied that the decision not to enter a labor contract was determined by US leadership overseas. "Our division possesses a mandate to take independent such decisions," he said.

The union is not entirely isolated in its fight. This industrial action has received backing from several of other unions.

Dockworkers in nearby Denmark, Nordic countries & neighboring states, decline to process the company's vehicles; waste is no longer removed from Tesla's Scandinavian locations; while newly built power points remain connected to the grid in the country.

Exists one such facility close to the capital's airport, at which twenty charging units remain unused. But a Tesla enthusiast, the president of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, says Tesla owners remain unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station six miles from this location," he says. "Plus we are able to continue to buy our cars, we can service our cars, we can power our electric cars."

With stakes high on both sides, it is difficult to see an end to the stand-off. The union risks establishing a pattern if it concedes the principle of negotiated labor contracts.

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