Published: Less than 10 minutes ago
When freelance writer Fredric Thunholm wrote a text in which he rallied over SJ, managers at the train company were upset.
Their response was to threaten with a police report and to suspend collaborations with the writer’s employer.
– A state-owned company should not get away with acting like this, says Fredric Thunholm.
For two weeks the newspaper published The business world a chronicle by the freelance writer and communication strategist Fredric Thunholm about Swedish train traffic.
In the text, the writer stated that “the best advertisement for aviation is the train” and that “the dawn pyromaniac cares more about fire safety than SJ cares about its customers”. Fredric Thunholm further wrote that SJ is a mismanaged company that “metaphorically” would need to be “burned to the ground”, in order for train traffic to improve in Sweden in the long run.
Threatened to report to the police
Fredric Thunholm’s text was not met with standing ovations from SJ’s side.
In an interview with Affärsvärlden after the text was published, Mats Almgren, sales manager at SJ, stated that the state-owned company was considering reporting the text to the police. This is because the lines about people should march to SJ’s head office with high forks and burn down the office could be considered a threat.
The SJ manager also contacted GroupM, a group company that owns the media agency Wavemaker, where Fredric Thunholm is employed, and demanded that the company’s CEO Martin Krona distance himself from his employee’s column.
If not, it could mean that the state-owned company in the future would choose not to procure GroupM’s services.
– Red eggs are everywhere The question is how do you approach it in terms of values? wrote Mats Almgren in an email to Martin Krona, states Affärsvärlden. He then urged GroupM’s executives to send an email to all SJ’s employees in which they explained that the company was not behind Fredric Thunholm’s chronicle.
Democratically unreliable
Sharp criticism has been directed at SJ after it came to light how the company has reacted to the text in Affärsvärlden.
Expressen’s leader page describes SJ boss Mats Almgren’s actions as democratically unreliable. GroupM states to Dagens Media that SJ’s handling of the situation is frightening and shameful. Olle Lundin, professor of administrative law, believes that SJ has acted in violation of the Public Procurement Act.
– They are therefore sitting and filing on a procurement document and it must be done based on objective criteria. It should not be written based on who they want to collaborate with. It is completely contrary to the procurement regulation and if they have not understood it at SJ, then they have big problems, says Olle Lundin to Affärsvärlden.
To Aftonbladet, SJ’s press manager Tobbe Lundell states that the email exchange with GroupM was not “particularly successful”. But on the other hand, he believes that many at SJ were badly affected by Fredric Thunholm’s text.
– Thunholm wrote a column where he writes that it is a good idea to gather people with pitchforks and torches and march to SJ’s head office to burn it down. We thought it was quite distasteful and the employees reacted strongly, says Tobbe Lundell.
Not SJ’s policy to threaten
However, he believes that it is not SJ’s official position to threaten columnists with a police report or by sifting out companies from future procurements.
– We as a company are not behind these threats. What we are behind is that the staff felt uncomfortable.
Will you report to the police?
– It is not relevant and will not happen. We hope that it is overplayed now, says Tobbe Lundell.
Should apologize
Fredric Thunholm himself believes that SJ takes the situation too lightly.
– I think it is strange that you do not mark more clearly against the boss who through threats tries to influence what I write and that you have still not apologized to me and Affärsvärlden and my employer, says Fredric Thunholm and continues:
– What I am most struck by is the stupidity that SJ shows. That they are unable to read a text, that they seem to understand what a metaphor is and they send emails where they threaten to break the law without understanding that the emails will remain after they have been sent.
Is it possible that you went too hard on SJ in your chronicle?
– I do not think so, but it is of course up to each reader to have an opinion, says Fredric Thunholm.