If they don't get court approval, Spotify threatens to move the emergency response offshore.
In Sweden, the Working Environment Act states that working at night is not permitted.
In workplaces where there is a collective agreement, you can negotiate an exemption for night workers.
Spotify does not have a collective agreement.
The company must therefore apply to the Swedish work environment authorities to allow employees to work at night.
The process has proven difficult. The company now writes that it is looking abroad Industry today.
Apply for exemption
About a year ago, the company's application for night workers was rejected.
Spotify appealed the rejection to the Administrative Court. The appeal ended with another rejection.
The court held that the work at Spotify was not “of such a socially significant nature that it would in itself justify an exemption,” the ruling said, according to Dagens Industri.
The ruling was appealed again. This time to the Court of Appeal.
Meanwhile, Spotify has applied for an exemption to hire night workers until a court decision.
If they don't get an exemption, the company says they will have to move emergency services offshore to continue operations.
Dagens Industri asked Spotify whether they had considered entering into collective agreements to resolve the dispute. Spotify did not respond to this.
Between 00:00 and 05:00
– We will fight, I hope we will win, but if we don't, we will probably have to move some of these jobs instead, Daniel Ek said in a meeting with employees last week, Dagens Industri wrote.
Spotify wanted the night-time exception to include a total of 250 engineers.
Four to five of them were scheduled to be on alert between midnight and five in the morning.
They had to receive overtime pay and shorter working hours as compensation for working at night.
Spotify said these people will only be called in when their colleagues in the US or in other time zones around the world cannot resolve issues themselves or have sufficient experience to handle these cases.
– Duty to prepare
Spotify believes it is absolutely essential that the company has expertise from Stockholm on standby around the clock.
Spotify believes there are employees with very advanced and specialized expertise who can solve acute problems such as IT attacks and operational disruptions, writes Dagens Industri.
– As a global audio and technology platform, our engineers' duty of readiness is essential to ensuring uninterrupted availability for millions of creators and listeners around the world, Spotify wrote in a commentary reproduced by Dagens Industri.
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