News of the week in plain Finnish | Saturday 26.9.2026

Kotka battery material factory construction site and working conditions

Listen

You can read the news simultaneously below.

Introducing the topic of the week

This time the topic of the program is the Kotka battery materials factory and the working conditions at the factory.

A large factory is being built in Kotka. Yle previously reported that there are serious problems at the factory site.

Now a new investigation has been completed into the matter. The investigation confirms that Finnish law was violated at the construction site and that the workers were treated unfairly.

We will now tell you more about the situation at the Kotka factory.

Open image viewer

The construction of the Kotka battery materials factory is a large construction site. Photo: Antro Valo / Yle

Employee intimidation

The study was commissioned by the Finnish state-owned company Finnish Minerals Group, which owns part of the factory.

The investigation was conducted by a law firm. It investigated the events at the construction site.

The report says that foreign workers have been threatened and pressured. Workers have been threatened, for example, with the possibility of losing their jobs, money or residence permits.

Some employees have had to return part of their salary to the company.

In addition, subcontractor Jiangsu Installation Finland, or JSI, found 800 working days of work that had not been recorded in the accounts. The workers carried out this work without pay.

Employees have also been charged expensive housing fees.

Returning missing money to employees

The investigation shows that the main companies were unaware of the subcontractor’s mistakes. The subcontractor is a smaller company that does work for the main company.

Matti Hietanen, CEO of the state-owned Finnish Minerals Group, says the situation does not look good. Hietanen says the company does not tolerate any inappropriate behavior.

The subcontractor JSI promises to pay the workers all the missing money. Half of the money has already been paid.

The main company, the state-owned Finnish Minerals Group, says that supervision of the construction site needs to be tightened.

Open image viewer

Finnish Minerals Group CEO Matti Hietanen. Photo: Rinna Härkönen / Yle

Trade unions

Employee organizations, or trade unions, have been closely monitoring the situation at the Kotka factory.

The Finnish Industrial Federation and the Finnish Construction Federation praise the new report. They say that the report reveals what happened on the construction site. There has been serious exploitation of labor on the site.

The unions are demanding that workers receive all the money they are entitled to. The unions also want the authorities to thoroughly investigate the events at the construction site.

Repetition

This time the topic of the program was the problems at the Kotka battery materials factory. Let’s recap the most important things.

A new investigation has confirmed that the law was broken at the construction site and workers were threatened. The subcontractor company promises to pay the workers all outstanding wages. Trade unions are praising the investigation and demanding that the authorities investigate the incidents thoroughly.

This was the news of the week in plain Finnish. See you again, bye!