Salmon factory in Norway-a reality check
As the summer season approaches and everyone starts heading to the factories for work, let’s talk about a wonderful factory in western Norway.
To begin with, Great Place to Work sent emails in order to conduct a survey about how employees feel working there, and the results were terrible. It got so bad that leaders inside production started going around asking workers if they were okay, what kind of problems they faced daily etc. There were meetings about this. Nothing happened.
Management is a complete disaster. Poles, Lithuanians, and other eastern Europeans trying to bring their own workplace standards into Norway instead of respecting Norwegian labor culture and standards.
The lunch breaks are ridiculously short. You barely have enough time to eat properly. To me, that alone shows a complete lack of respect for workers.
Bullying is also a problem. Not everyone participates in it, but the few who do face absolutely no consequences.
The ear protection helps to some extent inside production, but the human brain simply was not designed to endure dozens of machines and production lines generating constant noise simultaneously for hours every single day.
For anyone planning to go there whether seasonal or permanent (lol, good luck), join the union and start demanding Norwegian working standards. Not “better standards than the country you came from.” There’s a reason Norwegians avoid these places and why they are staffed almost entirely by immigrants.
Just be aware that the amount of profit you generate as a worker every single day is enough to fund billionaires’ private jets and trips to the met gala.
Learn your rights. Never attend meetings without union representation. And never let companies exploit you just because you are immigrants.
I don’t know people in every factory in Norway, and I obviously haven’t worked in all of them.
But the fact that one of the biggest factories is this bad says a lot.