Investigation finds exploitation risks for workers building Europe's datacentres: electrocution, disease and unpaid wages
As thousands of datacentres are built across Europe, some of the workers building them face dangerous conditions, according to a five-month joint investigation by the Guardian and Investigate Europe into migrant workers on datacentre sites in Sweden, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands. The investigation said it found evidence of debilitating injuries, squalid living conditions, an unreported infectious outbreak, unpaid wages and exploitative employment practices.
Sandu (name changed), a 34-year-old electrical tester, worked at a vast Google datacentre site in Saint-Ghislain, Belgium. In March, after working almost 10 hours, he was given another job in the last 15 minutes of his shift. The task involved tests measuring the safety and integrity of electrical wiring. He says the protective suit was locked away in an equipment room, and managers confirmed the lines had been de-energised. The first round went as planned; on the second test, the lines were live.
Sandu says the blast was immediate and catastrophic. In milliseconds, 400 volts and 12,000 amps hit his face and the right side of his body. “I went completely blind,” he says. He says he was placed in an induced coma for five days after doctors received him at the Grand Hospital de Charleroi. Hospital records seen by the Guardian and Investigate Europe show the arc flash electrocution burned 12% of his body, with second-degree burns to the face and neck and third-degree burns across his right shoulder and fingers.
Sandu says the regional director of Google, a representative from Dornan Engineering, the Irish company that oversaw his contractor, and his recruiter visited him while he lay bandaged in hospital, and the Google director told him he was lucky to be alive. To date, no company or contractor appears to have been found liable for the accident. The local labour inspectorate closed its investigation in late October and found no wrongdoing. A Dornan Engineering spokesperson said the company was committed to maintaining safe working conditions, complying with applicable labour laws and continually learning to help prevent incidents like this from happening again.
According to the investigation, Europe has more than 2,300 datacentres, at least 500 of them in the UK, with hundreds more under construction. Unions say the push for tech sovereignty in Europe is becoming increasingly reliant on the exploitation of migrant workers. In the UK, a general contractor died while working on a datacentre site last year, while another fatality was reported in 2024 at an electrical substation being built for a Microsoft datacentre. Serious accidents have also been recorded this year at projects in Italy, Sweden, Norway and Belgium.
On the outskirts of Gavle, a city two hours north of Stockholm, a 130-hectare, 3-billion-euro expansion plan begun in June 2024 is scaling up Microsoft's AI datacentre infrastructure. One subcontractor at the site is the Irish-owned construction company BenBau, among 148 firms working under Collen Construction at the Gavle site, including 28 direct subcontractors.
Adrian (name changed), 45, and his colleagues working for BenBau showed evidence of crowded living quarters — 24 people to a kitchen, 14 men to a single bathroom — and say they reported vermin infestations, broken ventilation systems and lack of heating during sub-zero Swedish winters, but the problems remain.
In February this year, one Romanian worker tested positive for active tuberculosis, medical records show. Shortly after, others living in the same shared housing showed similar symptoms. According to workers, BenBau initially informed only a few men who shared close quarters with the infected worker and told them testing was optional. After the first worker left for hospital, BenBau moved another worker into his bedroom. Freedom of information requests to Sweden's national work authorities and its Public Health Agency say no outbreak had been reported.
More than 30 workers showed hundreds of payslips that appear to show some working up to 50 or 60 hours a week with no overtime pay and missed holiday pay. Days before publication, the union Solidariska Byggare, representing the 70 Romanian workers at Microsoft's Gavle site, brokered a settlement with BenBau which it says will give workers back pay and allow unions access to sites. A BenBau spokesperson said the company takes all concerns regarding the welfare, health and safety of its people extremely seriously and has stringent procedures for reporting, investigating and addressing workplace concerns.
Since 2021, Sweden's Work Environment Authority has opened 50 cases into working conditions at datacentre sites involving Microsoft and a number of Irish firms, according to a freedom of information request. Earlier this month, a contractor fell through a roof hatch while carrying out maintenance work on a ventilation system at the Microsoft site in Gavle. In October 2021, a forklift allegedly ran over the foot of a supervisor working for Collen at the site; the worker subsequently needed surgery. An incident report submitted by Collen says the wrong machine had been used, the driver had no formal certificate and the lift plan was incomplete, yet it had been signed off. The Work Environment Authority saw no grounds to report the employer to prosecutors. A Collen spokesperson said the company is committed to ensuring every Collen site is a safe, healthy and respectful place to work.
James McCabe from Unite the Union, an Irish-UK group representing more than 1.2 million workers, said: “Everywhere we've encountered Irish datacentre contractors at tech-giant datacentre sites we've learned of lack of normal and meaningful union access, as well as serious concerns of labour crimes and exploitation of workers.” Johan Danielsson, a European parliament rapporteur in charge of regulating subcontracting chains, said: “If people let these big American multinationals come here and import their anti-union business models, then it becomes a problem. Because behind the fence they are abusing workers, and they don't want anyone to know it.”
A Google spokesperson said its supplier code of conduct and contracts require all suppliers to comply with local labour laws and uphold safe, healthy working conditions. A Microsoft spokesperson said that in its datacentre construction it works with contractors and suppliers with whom it sets clear requirements on health and safety and working conditions.
