What happened
The airline Norwegian is laying off 123 employees at Copenhagen Airport Kastrup following negotiations with the Danish trade union FPU. The redundancies include 48 pilots and 75 cabin crew members, while 17 people will receive an extended notice period over the summer. The airline is replacing just over 70 of the positions with seasonal staff based at Spanish airports to reduce its costs. Around 60 percent of Norwegian's staff at Kastrup live on the Swedish side in Skåne and commute across Öresund.
Our analysis
In the political debate, there is frequent talk of protecting the Nordic model. The blame for squeezed working conditions is almost always placed on individual workers. But when large corporations move jobs abroad to push down wages, it is instead referred to as business efficiency.
Norwegian's move shows who pays the price in today's labor market. The staff who built up the company's routes in the Nordic region are replaced with cheaper contracts offering less security. The profit goes to the company, while the bill for lost jobs and insecurity lands on the employees and society.
Politicians demand a tougher stance against ordinary people seeking work. At the same time, airlines and international corporations are allowed to drive a systematic race to the bottom without consequences.
Explained
Wage dumping means that an employer replaces employees with staff who have lower wages and worse contracts in order to lower the company's personnel costs.