Zara denies clocked bathroom breaks - employees: ”Like cattle"
Uppdaterad 2024-04-23 15.51 | Publicerad 2024-04-18
Zara states in an email to its staff that they have never allowed managers to time employees' bathroom visits.
However, six out of 39 interviewed employees and ex-employees claim that they have either been timed or monitored during restroom breaks.
"The manager said, 'Now we're going to the bathroom.' Then we went in a group, like cattle. If it took too long, they knocked on the door," explains a former employee.
After Aftonbladet/200 sekunders revealing program about Zara last Tuesday – where the clothing company only provided a general response in an email to Aftonbladet – Zara's Nordic Manager Eirik Steen sent an email to all Zara employees.
In the email, he stated that "the information 200 seconds provided us when they contacted us about the report was unfortunately vague," and therefore the company could not "give a concrete answer."
In the email to the employees - which has not been sent to Aftonbladet - the company states, among other things:
"Zara has never allowed and does not allow managers to clock employees when they use the toilets."
Went to the toilet together
However, six out of the 39 employees and former employees in the investigation made by 200 Seconds state that they have either been clocked in the toilet, called over the loudspeaker when the toilet visit took too long, heard the manager running outside the toilet and shouting "why are you one minute late?", were only allowed to go to the toilet during lunch, or that "one had to hurry".
After the program was published, Aftonbladet 200 Seconds has received even more testimonies. One of them comes from a woman who worked at Zara's warehouse on Hamngatan in Stockholm:
"The manager gathered us, ten people, and just said 'now we're going to the toilet'. We walked in a group to a toilet on another floor. There, you were clocked to see if you took too long. If it took too long, they knocked and said 'now we have to go back'. Those who were menstruating got a little more time. You felt like an animal, it was humiliating. We were like cattle," says the woman, who worked at Zara for 1.5 years through a staffing agency.
The email to the employees also states that "Zara has never delivered a termination or dismissal via email".
That is also not true, according to two testimonies. Una Subotic, who Aftonbladet wrote about last Thursday, received her termination via email in March 2024. In the email, it states, among other things, that "attached is your termination effective as of today, today marks your last day of employment with the company." It also states that she should "kindly return the document to me with a signature confirming that you have received it".
"I work in hell"
On several points, the information in Zara's email is contradicted by the accounts of the employees and former employees in 200 Seconds investigation. Zara claims for example that reporting errors in employees' work hours is not allowed, that floor markings were only used during the COVID-19 pandemic to maintain "safe distance from other employees," and that wage issues have "always been treated as a high priority."
Now, several employees tell Aftonbladet that they absolutely do not dare to use the whistleblower service that Zara refers to in the email if they want to make an anonymous complaint about misconduct in the company:
"No one dares to contact them," says one employee.
"I don't think many feel comfortable actually expressing how they feel. It's that kind of environment," says another.
Since 200 Seconds published the investigation of Zara last week, many additional testimonies about the working environment at the company have been sent to Aftonbladet:
"I work in hell. This modern slavery must come to an end," writes one employee.
* This text has been translated with support of ChatGPT and reviewed by Aftonbladet.
Zara's email to the employees:
Una Subotic was sacked via email:
