IT之家 news, October 25: According to a Bloomberg report on the 23rd, the UK AI infrastructure company Nscale is being sued by an engineer. The engineer previously worked at Nscale's data center in Norway, accusing the company ofillegally using a subcontracted labor model and of improper dismissal。
The complaint states that the engineer entered the data center through the subcontractor CloudBrothers, but his actual employer was Nscale, in violation of Norwegian law. He also alleges that he wasdismissed by CloudBrothers after questioning labor management issues at the data center。
With the support of a local union, the engineer filed a lawsuit on October 16 with the Sør-Rogaland District Court in Norway, naming both Nscale and CloudBrothers as co-defendants.
The engineer contends that Nscale's data center in Stavangerillegally used subcontracted workers, and while it did not establish a direct employment relationship with him, it was responsible for arranging his daily work and shift schedule.
Norwegian law allows companies to subcontract work but requires subcontractors to independently manage their employees. Companies using subcontracted labor may not directly manage subcontracted workers as their own employees; otherwise, theymust pay wages and provide benefits in accordance with the standards for formal employees。
The lawsuit comes as Nscale is preparing for an initial public offering and accelerating the construction of data centers to fulfill contractual obligations totaling more than 100 billion US dollars (IT之家 note: approximately 668.92 billion RMB at current exchange rates).
According to the complaint, the engineer was dismissed in June this year. Before that, CloudBrothers' human resources department had warned employees thatfailure to submit leave applications on time would result in the deduction of two weeks of holiday pay. The engineer objected to this and copied his reply to the entire team: "You cannot deduct wages we have already earned。”
The engineer claims that he also reported wage and working condition issues to the Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority, and was subsequently subjected by CloudBrothers to a retaliatory dismissal. Court documents show that CloudBrothers' human resources department told him the reason for his dismissal was repeated violations of confidentiality rules.
The engineer is demanding that Nscale and CloudBrothers compensate him for his financial losses and pay damages, while also requesting that the court confirm that he should in fact be recognized as an employee of Nscale.