Saab postpones report as pay doubts remain

Saab Automobile, the owner of cash-strapped Swedish car maker Saab, has decided to postpone the presentation of its interim report as problems regarding the payment of staff wages persist.

• WyWallet cancels mobile payment policy (1 Jun 13)
• Tie-up with Pipavav puts India on Saab's radar (28 May 13)
• Tax probe forces ex-Saab CEO from Vattenfall (27 May 13)

Saab Automobile announced on Friday that it has postponed the presentation of its report to August 31st. The firm was supposed to have presented its figures for the first six months of 2011 on Friday.

The firm explained in a statement that it was busy working on putting together the report.

Meanwhile cashflow problems continued to affect the Swedish car maker, whose Trollhättan factory has stood still for several months.

Blue-collar workers were left out of pocket on Thursday when their wages were delayed and the firm's white collar staff are expected to also be without their salaries on Friday as additional financing has still not been secured.

"We have not received any new information on the financing solution so we have to assume that wages will not arrive in time," said Gunilla Gustav at Saab Automobile's communications department on Friday morning.

The delays follow similar salary problems for the respective groups in June and July.

Saab released a statement earlier in the week saying that it was continuing strenuous efforts to obtain fresh interim financing to meet its staff salary obligations.

Cecilia Fahlberg, trade union Unionen’s chairwoman, was highly critical of Saab's announcement.

“If salaries are delayed for the third time this summer, it’s obviously completely unacceptable. We know there’s a strong sense of loyalty among employees, but the question is if the boundary for this loyalty hasn’t been reached,” said Fahlberg.

If the union’s 1,000 members don’t receive their wages on Friday, Unionen will once again begin work to collect wages on members’ behalf.