In Sweden 70 car mechanics are continuing to take on one of the world's richest companies – Tesla. The strike at the US carmaker's 10 Swedish service centres has now reached its second anniversary, and there is little prospect of a resolution.

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

"It's a tough time," says the 39-year-old. And as Sweden's cold winter weather sets in, it's likely to become tougher.

Janis spends each Monday with a colleague, standing outside a Tesla garage on an industrial park in Malmö. His union, IF Metall, provides accommodation in the form of a mobile builders' van, as well as coffee and sandwiches.

But it's business as usual across the road, where the workshop appears to be in full swing.

The strike concerns an issue that goes to the heart of Swedish industrial culture - the right of trade unions to negotiate pay and conditions on behalf of their members. This concept of collective agreement has underpinned industrial relations in Sweden for nearly a century.

Today some 70% of Swedish workers are members of a trade union, and 90% are covered by a collective agreement. Strikes in Sweden are rare.

It's an arrangement welcomed across the board. "We prefer the right to negotiate freely with the unions and sign collective agreements," says Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise business organisation.

But Tesla has upset the apple cart. Outspoken chief executive Elon Musk has said he "disagrees" with the idea of unions. "I just don't like anything which creates a kind of lords and peasants sort........

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