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On Wednesday, Anna Margitin was present when managers at various levels within Volvo Cars at Torslanda in Gothenburg and in Skövde were tasked with announcing who would lose their jobs.
Five months of negotiations after the warning last spring that 1,300 civil servant and engineer jobs must be lost in a technology change ended, as DN wrote Thursday morning, at 650 people laid off.
Anna Margitin is an electrical engineer and came to Volvo when she was 25 years old.
Photo: Veronika Ljung-Nielsen
But of these 650, around nine out of ten have chosen to settle for voluntary resignation, and Anna Margitin has played a central role in what these “packages” would look like.
She is president of Akademikerna Volvo Cars, a Saco group that includes Swedish engineers but also economists and lawyers. The association has 3,300 members and eight out of ten are engineers.
That belongs of course to affirm that they have struggled to the finish line. But Anna Margitin says:
– We have actually negotiated the content of the agreements for those who choose to resign, through MBL and the. But we have made the company more flexible in voluntary solutions. Then of course it is very boring with coercive measures like layoffs.
This is what the engine compartment looks like on Volvo’s first real electric car, the XC40 from the P8 Recharge AWD model.
Photo: Carl-Johan Lejland
The transition between technicians and other white-collar workers now that the first big since 2008, when the financial crisis led to the closure of several thousand. Even then, Anna Margitin, 51, was also present, employed as an electrical engineer.
– The message that arrived then was also a black day. But we are constantly on the move, as a company we must be competitive, says the union representative, adding that in a global context Volvo Cars are not that big.
What Anna Margitin says can usually be heard from modern management gurus and hiring managers. She says:
– Although I am an electrical engineer, I have to analyze how my skills can be used. What services do we have that can change? Otherwise, someone else will come, like hotels.com. Not everyone wants to drive a car, or even get a driver’s license, today. So I as a person must also think again. I have to be in constant motion, constantly thinking critically.
It can still be easier said than done. Doesn’t it create a lot of stress among your members, constantly feeling that work can float in the air?
– If you are exposed to competition, a development occurs within you, to be constantly relevant. We as a union want the company to be relevant. The company is after all, the employees! It says “People Centric” on the walls here. So I started here when I was 25 years old. It’s up to you and in some areas things happen slowly, others quickly. Now, for example, we need to find the best batteries.
“If you are exposed to the competition, a development takes place within you, to be constantly relevant,” says specialist base Anna Margitin on the way to Volvo Cars head office in Torslanda.
Photo: Veronika Ljung-Nielsen
Anna Margitin talks about “bringing out the best in everyone” and making sure to tailor skills to needs.
Perhaps this is not the typical way that union representatives tend to express themselves?
– Well, maybe not, but should be so. If you have a solid education at the bottom, you can basically end up anywhere if you want to be on the go. We need both generalists and specialists. But it takes critical thinking. And as the former head of H&M says, you can’t just listen to those who say yes.
What you are saying now would the hiring manager say as well?
– Yes, of course, but in the union we do not want anyone to be fired.
