In May, it was revealed that several Espresso House employees had not been paid for several months. Now a former manager says they have also seen their hourly pay reduced.

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says the manager that the coffee chain has asked her to remove the recorded working hours, so that the employees are paid less. When she herself was ill, tens of thousands of dollars were deducted from her for a vacation she did not have.

– We were understaffed and overworked, so it was not uncommon for employees to work extra to get everything done. But I was told to only approve wages for the scheduled hours, she told the newspaper.

– If the shift ended at 4 p.m. and they logged off half an hour later, I was told to delete that from the system, she said.

The newspaper also spoke to employees whose hours were approved, while others say they were only paid for extra work after rounds of talks and complaints.

The company’s Norwegian director, May-Britt Østby, apologized in May for the lack of salary payments and explained that it was due to a combination of routines, communication breakdowns and system errors.

Østby does not respond directly to accusations about the overtime cut, but points out that the registration of employees’ time is not approved without further delay.

– If, for various reasons, an employee sees the need to work beyond the fixed time, this must be approved by a manager and explained with a comment in the time recording system. The time worked must therefore be compensated according to the routines described in our staff manual, she wrote in an email to the newspaper.

(© NTB)