Update: Notice of industrial action

Negotiations for a new, central collective bargaining agreement were broken off by Seko last week, and on May 2, Seko gave notice of a three-step industrial action with the first step entering force on May 11. The Swedish National Mediation Office appointed mediators on May 3 who have now entered the negotiation process with the aim of reaching an agreement.

1. The first step will encompass a work stoppage for certain public transport in southern Sweden and some maintenance operations. The stoppage will commence May 11 as will overtime bans for all of Seko’s members (including members employed at Green Cargo).
2. The second step will encompass commercial and regional passenger traffic operators.
3. In the event that the notice enters force, Green Cargo’s operations will be impacted. Aside from the overtime ban, the third step starting May 18 would impact Seko-affiliated train drivers and instructors stationed in Boden and Seko-affiliated train drivers in shunting services in Kville.

Potential traffic impact from May 11

Production personnel who are trade union members of Seko will be affected by the overtime ban that will commence at 3:00 p.m. on May 11.

Service for Green Cargo’s production personnel is optimized based on Green Cargo’s network, which means that our employees are not linked to any specific train assignment but could be linked to several train assignments in a chain. This means that customers would be impacted by the potential overtime ban and transportation may be canceled at short notice.

An overtime ban could lead to the schedule for some routes dissolving, in part due to the following factors:

• Acute absenteeism
• Infrastructure disruptions
• Late timetable constructions from the Swedish Transport Administration linked to the MPK planning tool
• Limited opportunity to re-prioritize drivers to new routes

The above factors restrict opportunities to work proactively and in consequence, we will not have a clear picture of how departures will be impacted until 24–48 hours beforehand.

We are following developments closely in collaboration with Almega and will provide continuous updates via our established information channels.

In the event of the labor dispute starting at 3:00 p.m. on May 11 as notified by Seko resulting in industrial action, Green Cargo will claim force majeure for all traffic that is prevented.