Victoria Hart, safety representative.
Victoria Hart is a safety representative and worked her last shift at the battery factory on Monday. She has been working intensively with work environment issue up until the very end and is critical towards how the work environment has been handled all the way up until the winding up of production.
– We still have problems with chemical smells. The smell itself is not the problem, rather that you feel the bad air remaining in your nose and throat. We have been really worried about the smell in the last two weeks. We still don’t know what substances it is or whether it is safe. It has been said that external parties are to be brought in to make air measurements and we hope that it comes to pass, says Victoria Hart, safety representative.
Victoria describes a workplace where there have been constant communication problems from the company, including during the bankruptcy proceedings. It is the receiver who is responsible for the work environment but he is not on-site. According to Victoria the unhealthy culture has remained during the winding down phase.
– Northvolt has always been a very hierarchical workplace. If you point out a problem and don’t talk to one of the few good managers, you might as well be talking to a wall. There have been way too few good manager, Victoria says.
At the factory on Monday several workers state that communication about important events has been poor. For example that the information about who will get to continue working is given at the last minute. Instead the employees have shared information amongst themselves or got news via the media.
– It’s about being able to shut it down in a safe manner. We’re not entirely in agreement with the employer about how they have handled chemicals and we see other safety flaws. But primarily it’s about a lack in communication. Management has simply not given us enough information about the environmental situation, we don’t know what problems may arise, says Victoria Hart, safety representative.
The final salary payments have also been delayed where some have only had parts of their salary paid out. Victoria Hart herself is missing SEK 30,000 of her pay and say that some have only had half of their final salary.
The bankruptcy receiver Mikael Kubu tells Norran that he is not aware of any major payroll problems.
Mikael Kubu, bankruptcy receiver.
– There are many salaries to pay out. I don’t think it’s a major problem. If it had been a larger problem I would’ve known about it, Mikael Kubu says.
Regarding the environmental problems, Kubu says that environmental clean-up is one of the tasks for the remaining staff. In addition to that the staff will maintain the machines so that they are not ruined by being inactive.