• Analysis
Datacentre Workers Exploitation in Europe: Electrocutions, Tuberculosis and Unpaid Overtime
A five-month investigation by Investigate Europe and the Guardian has documented datacentre workers exploitation across Europe, from a March electrocution at a Google site in Saint-Ghislain, Belgium, to a tuberculosis case among migrant workers near Microsoft's Gävle site in Sweden.
An electrocution at the end of a shift
Sandu, a 34-year-old electrical tester, was electrocuted in March while winding down the final minutes of a shift lasting nearly 10 hours at a Google datacentre site in Saint-Ghislain, Belgium. The findings come from a five-month investigation by Investigate Europe and the Guardian into conditions for migrant workers on datacentre sites in Sweden, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands.
According to Sandu, he skipped retrieving a protective suit from an equipment room because the round trip would have added another 15 minutes and people were waiting. He says managers in the voltage room confirmed the lines had been de-energised, but on his second test the lines were live.
In milliseconds, 400 volts and 12,000 amps hit Sandu's face and across the right side of his body. Hospital records from Grand Hôpital de Charleroi show the arc flash burned 12% of his body, with second-degree burns to his face and neck and third-degree burns to his right shoulder and fingers; doctors placed him in an induced coma for five days.
"It was so much pain. The human heart cannot comprehend it."
He says last-minute jobs were a normal part of the site.
"I had no choice. People have been fired after saying no."
No one held liable
Sandu says a Google regional director, a representative of Dornan Engineering and his recruiter visited him in hospital, and that the Google director told him he was lucky to be alive.
The aftermath of the accident, as the investigation records it:
- •The local labour inspectorate closed its investigation in late October and found no wrongdoing; no company or contractor appears to have been found liable.
- •Dornan Engineering, the Irish company that oversaw Sandu's contractor, said it was "committed to maintaining safe working conditions, complying with applicable labour laws".
- •Google said its supplier code of conduct and contracts require all suppliers to comply with local labour laws and uphold safe working conditions, with active dialogue with union leaders.
Tuberculosis and crowded housing at Gävle
Outside Gävle, Sweden, Microsoft is scaling up its AI datacentre infrastructure through a 130-hectare, €3bn expansion plan begun in June 2024. Irish-owned BenBau is one of 148 firms working under Collen Construction at the site, which includes 28 direct subcontractors.
Workers described crowded quarters: 24 people to a kitchen and 14 men to a single bathroom, plus vermin, broken ventilation and no heating in sub-zero winters.
In February, one Romanian worker tested positive for active tuberculosis, according to medical records, and others in the same housing showed similar symptoms. Workers say BenBau informed only a few close contacts, called testing optional, and moved another worker into the infected worker's bedroom after he left for hospital. Freedom of information requests to Sweden's national work authorities and the Public Health Agency show no outbreak had been reported.
BenBau said it "takes all concerns regarding the welfare, health and safety of our people extremely seriously".
Unpaid hours, accidents and union access
More than 30 workers showed investigators hundreds of payslips indicating weeks of up to 50 or 60 hours with no overtime pay and missed holiday pay.
The investigation recorded wider datacentre safety accidents and regulatory findings:
- •Europe has more than 2,300 datacentres, at least 500 of them in the UK, with hundreds more under construction.
- •In the UK, a general contractor died on a datacentre site last year, and another fatality was reported in 2024 at an electrical substation being built for a Microsoft datacentre.
- •Serious accidents were recorded this year at datacentre projects in Italy, Sweden, Norway and Belgium.
- •Since 2021, Sweden's Work Environment Authority has opened 50 cases into working conditions at datacentre sites involving Microsoft and several Irish firms.
- •Earlier this month, a contractor fell through a roof hatch during maintenance work on a ventilation system at the Microsoft site in Gävle, according to a freedom of information request.
- •In October 2021, a forklift allegedly ran over the foot of a Collen supervisor at Gävle, who needed surgery; Collen's report said the wrong machine was used, the driver had no formal certificate for it and the lift plan was incomplete. The Work Environment Authority saw no grounds to report the employer to prosecutors.
James McCabe of Unite the Union, which represents more than 1.2 million workers, said union access is lacking wherever Irish datacentre contractors work at tech-giant sites.
"Everywhere we've encountered Irish datacentre contractors at tech-giant datacentre sites we've learned of lack of normal and meaningful union access."
Johan Danielsson, European parliament rapporteur on regulating subcontracting chains, warned about companies bringing anti-union models into Europe.
"If people let these big American multinationals come here and import their anti-union business models, then it becomes a problem."
Microsoft said it sets clear requirements on health and safety, working conditions and freedom of association, with robust processes in place, including audits. Days before publication, the union Solidariska Byggare, representing the 70 Romanian workers at Microsoft's site in Gävle, brokered a settlement with BenBau providing back pay and union site access. The investigation was led by Lorenzo Buzzoni, Jan Daalder, Pascal Hansens, Ella Joyner, Chris Matthews, Nico Schmidt and Astri Thunold.
