Recently redundant Saab workers who moved to Volvo’s plant in Gothenburg are facing the sack for the second time in just a matter of months, following union claims the Swedish automaker will axe 300 jobs.
Volvo is declining to confirm the job cuts ahead of its half-year results next week, but the IF Metall labour body says it will slash blue collar assembly line posts from October in response to a market slowdown.
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Nearly 4,000 Saab staff were made redundant at its Trollhattan plant, but the relative proximity to Volvo in Gothenburg, a 130km return trip, meant staff were able to commute to the western Sweden city.
“They [Volvo] announced we will have a slow-down with [the] line speed – of course when they go down they have to lay off people and we have around 400 from agencies within the plant and somewhere around 300 are having contracts terminated,” IF Metall Volvo local union president, Mikael Sällström told just-auto from Sweden.
“Some of those contract workers have come from Saab – you really feel it in your stomach this is not a good situation. When you go down and talk to them, all they want is a fixed contract of course.”
Volvo’s shock news has left IF Metall virtually powerless to help those facing redundancy as they are mostly hired by the Swedish employment agency, Lernia and the labour body can only negotiate for those on fixed contracts.

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By GlobalDataDespite its stymied position, IF Metall is nonetheless urging the Swedish government to assist those facing the axe, a situation with which Stockholm is now becoming extremely familiar, having faced a storm of protest for the way it handled Saab’s mass redundancies in Trollhattan.
“The problem for us in the union is we only negotiate locally for fixed contracts because that is the Swedish legislation,” said Sällström. But we said to the government – ‘this is 300 people losing their jobs and we want to see some action.
“IF sees the lack in demand quite clear – we follow the sales figures – but our view of this kind of flexibility – we are quite negative to it. We cannot do anything legally because that is the way the Swedish labour market functions today. It is a totally different ball game.”
Volvo declined to confirm IF Metall’s claims of 300 redundancies, insisting any further details would be unveiled at its half-year results conference in Stockholm next week.
“We will comment upon everything when it comes to volumes and reductions in staff at that [conference] occasion,” a Volvo spokesman told just-auto from Gothenburg.