Samhall employed people from out-of-competition cleaning companies - were suddenly classified as disabled

Samhall's mission is to employ people with disabilities who are far from the labor market.

The jobs must be adapted to the worker's reduced ability to work.

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This is how Samhall sifts out "weak" people with disabilities

In 2015, Samhall wins a prestigious procurement: to be allowed to clean Sweden's largest airport, Arlanda. 

But the task becomes more difficult than first thought.

Over the years, Samhall will pay around one million kronor in fines for not meeting the quality requirements, Assignment review can tell.

"Nothing was taken into account"

The staff at Arlanda will not only clean, they also need to be able to pass security classification of Säpo and help evacuate the airport in an emergency. 

Jimmy Wallmo, former area manager for Samhall in Stockholm, says that he received clear messages that the best and strongest staff would go to the assignment at Arlanda. 

- There were also demands that they should walk maybe several miles a day, clean and things like that.

They can not walk with a walker, they must be able to speak the Swedish language, be security-classified and everything.

They also had various disabilities with working socially or that they could not cope with large groups, but nothing was taken into account, he says.

To solve the staffing, the company bypasses the Swedish Public Employment Service in 2015 and directly employs 28 people from a cleaning company that previously cleaned at the airport. 

Samhall then uses an exception in the collective agreement which means that under “special circumstances” and for a limited time, they can employ people without disabilities.

From regular employment to Samhall

Three years later, in 2018, Samhall also wins the procurement for cleaning of terminal 5, Arlanda's large international terminal.

Now, about 450 employees will work at the airport, but just as before, Samhall will find it difficult to manage the staffing.

During the same period, a cleaning company that has previously cleaned at Arlanda for many years is forced to fire its staff.

According to sources for Assignment review, several are then classified with a disability and get a job with Samhall. 

The staff must therefore have gone from regular employment to being considered to have a disability with no opportunity to get another job - and thus the right to a place at Samhall.

Samhall: Few have worked in the cleaning industry

Samhall says that they cannot find out where their employees have previously worked and that it is the Swedish Public Employment Service that decides who will get a job. 

They write in an email that it has emerged that a few employees have previously worked in the cleaning industry.

They also write:

"One of these has a wear injury in the shoulder, another is blind in one eye.

We do not recognize that we would have employees with a background in the cleaning industry who have no disability in sheltered work ”

The Swedish Public Employment Service says that, for reasons of confidentiality, they cannot say whether they have assigned staff from the cleaning company to Samhall.

Both Samhall and the Swedish Public Employment Service reject the information that people without disabilities would work at Samhall.

The report "Too weak for Samhall" can be seen on SVT Play.