Google, Microsoft EU data center builds tied to worker harm

Sandu Dumitrescu, a 34-year-old electrical tester, was hit in milliseconds by 400 volts and 12,000 amps while finishing a shift at a Google data center in Saint-Ghislain, Belgium. Hospital records showed the arc flash burned 12 percent of his body, with second-degree burns to the face and neck and third-degree burns across his right shoulder and fingers; he spent five days in an induced coma. Belgium's federal labor inspectorate closed its investigation at the end of October and found no wrongdoing.

His case anchors a long Tech Policy Press investigation into the subcontracted labor force that Google, Microsoft and Amazon rely on to build their European estate. The continent hosts over 2,300 facilities with hundreds more planned, and the industry forecasts €100 billion of investments by 2030. At Microsoft's 130-hectare, 33.7 billion Swedish kronor (€3 billion) Gävle expansion, begun in June 2024, the main contractor Collen sits atop 148 firms, with 28 direct subcontractors.

The money that reaches the bottom of that stack tells its own story. Days before publication, Solidariska byggare, the union representing 78 Romanian workers at the Gävle site, brokered a 15 million Swedish Krona (€1.3 million) settlement with the Irish-owned contractor Benbau. "Some people [in the construction industry] are working five months for €500, with physical and verbal violence," says Pelle Sunvisson, a union leader at Solidariska byggare.

Union representatives repeatedly say they cannot get through the gates. "The sites are more closed than a state prison," said Christian Foli Jensen, a 3F union consultant in Denmark. When FNV organisers tried to enter a Winthrop site at Schiphol-Rijk in September, a Winthrop employee refused them, telling them, "Beyond this gate, it's not the Netherlands." James McCabe of Unite told the reporters, "Everywhere we've encountered Irish data center contractors at tech giant data center sites, we've learned of lack of normal and meaningful union access… and serious concerns of labor crimes and exploitation of workers."

Google said its "supplier code of conduct and contracts require all suppliers to comply with local labor laws and uphold safe, healthy working conditions." A report on regulating subcontracting chains by MEP and rapporteur Johan Danielsson was recently adopted by the European Parliament. Lotta Sjölander, a representative at Byggnads, framed the choice differently: "As a person, you have to decide: how do you want your data… based on dignity or built off human lives?"