Northvolt expects to soon reach an agreement with IF Metall regarding the mass layoff from September, and it is expected to affect significantly more employees.
"We also hope that the union negotiations for the workers' side in Skellefteå can be concluded shortly. Our goal is to be able to inform the staff as soon as possible", writes Nathalie Bruno from Northvolt's press department in an email to TT.
"It's clearly not fun for anyone to have these discussions. Everyone would rather focus on continuing to develop our facilities and batteries", she adds.
Unclear financing
In parallel, financing negotiations are underway with owners, lenders, and customers. The situation is unclear to the very end, although it has been reported in business media that the company has received oral commitments of support of around two billion kronor, citing sources.
"We are in a strategic review where we focus on our core business and cost savings. That's what defines the way forward right now", writes Bruno.
She describes the financing negotiations as intense work.
"They are progressing in a constructive manner", she adds.
Both Unionen and Sveriges Ingenjörer see the agreement in Skellefteå, which was reached on Tuesday, as somewhat better than how it looked when the negotiations began.
It's slightly fewer than we saw ahead of us. It's about finding places where employees could be redeployed, which affected the total number, says Shaneika Jeffreys, vice chairman of Unionen at Northvolt One in Skellefteå.
Tight deadline
She adds that the negotiations took place under tight deadline pressure.
But I can assure you that we've done everything we can to make this happen correctly: quickly but well. These are important decisions and we've been very careful to follow all laws and regulations, says Jeffreys.
She feels that the Northvolt management is now making an effort to secure jobs for those who remain.
Financially, the company is working very hard to ensure that the remaining employees feel secure – all of them. The company is doing everything it can to maintain our trust in the workplace, says she.
Corrected: An earlier version contained an incorrect summary of the number of layoffs.
Northvolt announced in September that it would be forced to lay off 1,600 employees and review operations at several facilities around the world. The company has also put its subsidiary Northvolt Expansion – which built a second battery factory in Skellefteå – into bankruptcy with debts of several billion kronor.
According to Tuesday's agreement, 180 officials, engineers, and leaders at the subsidiary Northvolt One in Skellefteå will be let go. In addition, 158 employees will be laid off, who worked in operations related to Northvolt Expansion – of these, 20 are in Stockholm, 14 in Västerås, and 124 in Skellefteå.
Most of those affected are members of the Unionen trade union, but more than a fifth are members of Sveriges Ingenjörer and Ledarna.
Earlier in October, Northvolt also agreed on layoffs of over 200 officials in Stockholm and Västerås.
A notice agreement with IF Metall, with thousands of members at Northvolt, has not yet been reached.
