SVT has revealed how SAS fired a cabin employee after he followed the company's own safety routines. SAS denies that there is any connection, but according to several sources, there are other, similar cases - and SAS's internal culture has been described by critical employees as "management by fear".
In December 2017, the Swedish Work Environment Authority conducted an inspection at SAS. The shortcomings in the company's work environment work were several.
In September 2019 - almost two years later - SAS had still not solved the problems. Now the authority has issued an injunction on fines if SAS will not correct its shortcomings.
- It's a very, very long time. But it's hard for me to say anything more about it. We want it to be good, says Kerstin Waldenström, responsible inspector at the Swedish Work Environment Authority.
An imposition of a fine is an unusual measure and intended to pressure employers who for some reason do not rectify the deficiencies discovered. If SAS misses even the next deadline, it may be relevant to actually extort the fine, which is a kind of fine.
"Enthusiasm and focus"The Swedish Work Environment Authority's report, written in September this year, shows that the organization's shortcomings are serious:
"We have not been able to see that you have a system that results in us as regulators, your security agents, pilots and others involved in your organization being able to follow the logic that should exist between risk identification, documentation, analysis of necessary countermeasures".
Can't you expect SAS to be able to have a systematic and logic in its work environment work?
- Yes, you can. You don't really get it, ”says Kerstin Waldenström.
The authority also writes that SAS "does not have sufficient competence at present to address the above shortcomings and needs to use an external resource".
You also require SAS to take external help with these questions. What does that mean?
- Based on what we have seen so far, we believe that they need specialist resources from the outside to get to their systematic work environment work.
From SAS you certify that you are working hard to get the measures in place.
- This is a work we do with both enthusiasm and focus, says SAS Flight Manager Rolf Bakken to SVT.