On Friday, five trade unions announced that they will not accept that the company FairWind has Eastern European employees under enterprise-like conditions on conditions that are otherwise only seen within horticulture and agriculture in Denmark. The work takes place behind a fence at the Port of Esbjerg.
DOI.dk tried in vain on Friday to obtain a comment from FairWind, although the trade unions Danish Electrical Workers' Union, Metal, Tin and Plumbers' Union, 3F Esbjerg and 3F Transport Esbjerg hold Ørsted primarily responsible for the working conditions.
Ørsted has chosen Siemens Gamesa, which in turn has chosen the company FairWind for the shipping projects of the German wind farms Borkum Riffgrund and Gode Wind 3 & 4. DOI.dk described FairWind as being a Polish company, as this is the trade unions' description of FairWind. DOI.dk has today received a written comment from FairWind.
- As a Danish company with headquarters in the country, FairWind is aware of and complies with all local rules and regulations for our employees, writes global head of marketing and communications at FairWind Installation Ltd, Kathryn MacKenzie in English from London.
The company also has an admission regarding salary conditions, which have since been rectified.
- We became aware of an error that led to some pension payments being temporarily incorrect. In addition, a small group of employees were missing part of their hourly wage for March. When we identified this technical error, we immediately corrected the payments and compensated all affected employees. We have also updated our internal processes to prevent similar problems in the future, it continues.
The dialogue has been ongoing
Although the unions have now united against FairWind, the company maintains that there has been a dialogue with both the union and the local authorities along the way.
- Throughout this process, we communicated with 3F and the local authorities and thank them for their cooperation in resolving the matter quickly.
DOI.dk has then been in telephone contact with Kathryn MacKenzie in the UK, who promptly returned with the following written response to whether the employees at the Port of Esbjerg pay tax in Denmark.
- With regard to the inquiry about tax payments in the country, what I have said in the comment stands, and the local rules and regulations are followed.
Whether this also means that the employees pay tax in Denmark is therefore not answered. 3F Transport Esbjerg's chairman, Jakob Lykke, had asked:
- You could also ask, do they pay tax in this country?
DOI.dk asked Ørsted for a comment on Friday, but as of today, Tuesday, there has not yet been a comment from the partly state-owned Danish company.
Text, graphics, images, sound, and other content on this website are protected under copyright law. DK Medier reserves all rights to the content, including the right to exploit the content for the purpose of text and data mining, cf. Section 11b of the Copyright Act and Article 4 of the DSM Directive.
Customers with IP agreements/major customer agreements may only share Danish Offshore Industry articles internally for the purpose of handling specific cases. Sharing in connection with specific cases refers to journaling, archiving, or similar uses.
Customers with a personal subscription/login may not share Danish Offshore Industry articles with individuals who do not themselves have a personal subscription to Danish Offshore Industry.
Any deviation from the above requires written consent from DK Medier.
