Published: Less than 20 min ago
Facebook promised payment for the work.
But after seven months, the guest workers are still unpaid – and now the online giant cannot be reached.
– We workers are too small for them. It is always those who have the money who decide the rules, says electrician Emanuel Smaranda, 40.
Aftonbladet has previously told about the chaos at the major construction of Facebook Meta’s third server hall in Luleå, where around sixty electricians from Romania and Poland have been missing their last month’s salary and holiday pay since last summer. The guest workers were employed by Scan Facility Service, a Danish staffing company that had fallen into financial difficulties.
Scan Facility Service was contracted by the company Mercury, which in turn was contracted by Facebook’s main contractor – the Irish construction company Sisk.
In order to protect workers from unscrupulous actors, special rules apply, which state that the main contractor is responsible for the payment of wages. But despite the passage of time, the workers saw no sign of any money.
– They just wanted us away from Luleå. And when we were no longer in Sweden, they ignored us completely, an employee told Aftonbladet in November.
Promised a solution
Facebook Meta is one of the world’s most profitable companies and made hundreds of billions of kroner in profit in 2021. After Aftonbladet’s article, the internet giant stated that it would now act so that the employees would get their money:
“We have raised it with our main contractor Sisk, who is responsible for the construction and everything related to its completion. (…) We will continue to closely follow the case”.
Shortly before Christmas, around two-thirds of the money was paid out, through Mercury. But several guest workers that Aftonbladet has been in contact with state that between SEK 10,000 and 20,000 are still missing.
“Everyone lacks money”
The Romanian electrician Emanuel Smaranda, 40, says that he never hesitated to take the job in Luleå because it felt safe that the client was Facebook. Now, seven months after completing the work, he says he is still missing just over SEK 14,000.
– I keep in touch with 20 people, all of whom are in the same situation. Everyone lacks money, he says.
Together with several other workers, he has sought representatives for Mercury as well. No one has chosen to return.
“My money”
Nor has Facebook Meta, the contractor or the subcontractor chosen to return to Aftonbladet.
– We workers are too small for them. It is always those who have the money who decide the rules and everyone else is forced to follow them, says Emanuel Smaranda.
He says that he is doing decently because he has now got a new job, in another part of Europe.
– It is a bit frustrating. It’s still my money and my work, says Emanuel Smaranda, who is a cancer-stricken mother at home in Romania.