Workers moved swiftly to ground a truck that had been sent to fetch welding rods and other equipment bound for the Kárahnjúkar dam construction project, welded the door shut, and parked a crane in front of it. They then closed off the entire premises and took turns standing guard in four-hour shifts.

“We stopped working on Friday morning when it became clear that we wouldn’t get our wages,” said Thorsteinn Haraldsson, a shop steward at Slippstödin. Many workers receive monthly wages, and are owed for all of September, while others get paid every two weeks.

The company had been in “moratorium” since September 13, which allows it to hold off debt payments but not take loans. Slippstödin filed for bankruptcy a few hours after the workers took action. The moratorium was due to expire October 4. “There is something wrong with laws that say a company can not go into more debt during a moratorium, but in fact allow it to pile up debts to workers,” said Haraldsson. “They knew a while ago that they weren’t going to pay us, but said nothing.”

The action ended the next day, October 1, after a meeting with Hilmir Hilmisson, the chairman of the board of Slippstödin. Workers said they became convinced that all company income will be seized by Landsbanki. They let the truck go, but kept an eye on all movement of other goods from the premises until October 3, when the North-East District Court accepted the company’s application for bankruptcy proceedings.

“About 100 people work here and we are members of several different unions,” explained Gísli Bergsson, another shop steward at Slippstödin. “That includes Eining-Idja—a general workers union—and the metal workers, carpenters, and office employees unions. About 60-70 workers have signed up to take shifts.”

A state fund that is supposed to insure employees’ back wages when a company goes into bankruptcy pays a maximum of 250,000 Icelandic kronur ($4,070) per worker. Shipyard workers who had worked a lot of overtime in September are owed more than that. And it can take weeks and sometimes months to receive payments from this fund.

On October 10 new owners announced that the company was being reopened, rehiring 45 workers and promising to hire more.

At the end of September two shrimp processing companies in the northeastern part of the country, Stryta and íshaf, announced layoffs of more than 50 workers. A third shrimp factory, Sigurdur ágústsson in Stykkishólmur in the west, announced it will be closing down at the end of the year, eliminating 25 jobs.  
 
 
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