Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.10.2014, Síða 18

So when Vísir announced this spring
that it would be shutting its operations
in Djúpivogur, as well as in Þingeyri
in the West Fjords and Húsavík in the
North, it put Angelica in a tight spot.
She could either choose to take a job at
the company’s main factory in Grin-
davík, on the other side of the country,
or she could stay behind and look for
new work—which can be hard to come
by in a village of only 500 people. “If
I can keep the same job, I don’t have
to be worried about the future,” she
said. “But I’m starting to get worried
because of what’s happening now. We
didn’t expect this, and it’s all coming
so quickly.”
Indeed, few foresaw Vísir’s actions.
The company has always prided itself
on being an attractive, stable employer
for its workers, many of them immi-
grants like Angelica. In recent years it
has grown on multiple fronts, buying a
fishing company in Canada, establish-
ing facilities in Germany and even ex-
panding its Djúpivogur plant. That era
of expansion, it seemed, was coming to
an abrupt close.
Angelica was not sure if she would
relocate with the company, but she
was certainly sure about one thing:
her sense of belonging in Djúpivogur.
“Why do I have to go?” she asked. “I
love the people here, I love the place.
It’s the situation that’s forcing me to
go.”
The market speaks
According to Pétur H. Pálsson, Vísir’s
general manager and the son of its
founder Páll H. Pálsson, the consoli-
dation of the company’s fish process-
ing facilities is the result of economic
ripples coming from southern Europe.
The region has always been the larg-
est market for Vísir’s highly profitable
salted fish products, but as a result
of the continuing recession in Italy,
Greece and Spain, the prices have
dropped somewhere between 20-30%.
As demand for Vísir’s product went
down, so too did the company’s incen-
tive to produce it in more than one fac-
tory.
In order to strengthen the com-
pany’s position in the shifting export
market, all signs pointed toward con-
solidation. Pétur was adamant, how-
ever, that the transition could be made
with minimal disruption to the lives
of Vísir employees. Though it stopped
short of guaranteeing jobs in the new
Grindavík factory for all its workers,
the company intended on making place
for as many of them
as possible, knowing
that some—mostly
homeowners and
those with children—
would choose to stay
behind. Twenty out of
a total of fifty workers
from Djúpivogur will
make the move, as will forty-two out
of the sixty workers in Húsavík.
Vísir also planned on finding buy-
ers for the three factories that it was
leaving, in order to secure jobs for the
communities. “We are not closing the
factories in Þingeyri or Djúpivogur;
that’s a big misunderstanding,” Pétur
said. “We are moving our production
out and are finding new owners to
come in with their own fishing quota
and continue running the factories.”
Though buyers have not yet been
found for those two locations, Pétur
is optimistic about an eventual sale,
especially for the Djúpivogur plant,
since it will retain the production lines
for fresh and frozen fish.
Meanwhile, the factory in Húsavík
has already been sold. For a while Ví-
sir floated the idea of having it con-
verted into a hotel—its location on the
village’s waterfront would have been
ideal for whale-watching tourists—but
eventually sold it to a meat processing
company owned by Norðlenska, which
could provide jobs to the twenty-odd
Vísir employees there who don’t move
to Grindavík.
Pétur even saw a silver lining
to the consolidation. The company
didn’t own enough quota to keep all
four factories run-
ning year round, so as
fisheries shifted and
seasons changed fish
would wind up at cer-
tain factories; the oth-
ers, meanwhile, would
temporarily have to
halt production. Pétur
thought that by concentrating quota
in Grindavík, employees would have
steadier work. If true, it’s sure to be
good news for those who relocate, and
cold comfort for those who don’t.
Pétur’s father Páll founded Vísir
in Grindavík in 1965, and his grandfa-
ther, Páll Jónsson, operated a fishing
company out of Þingeyri from 1932 un-
til he drowned on a fishing expedition
in 1943. So Pétur spoke with the pride
of a third-generation fishing business-
man when reflecting on the changes
at Vísir. “We know this is a difficult
case,” he said, “but there’s no reason to
make it more difficult than it already
is.”
Headquarters:
Grindavík
On the cafeteria wall of Vísir’s Grin-
davík factory hang four photographs,
beautiful aerial shots of the Icelandic
villages out of which the company
has operated until now. Vísir’s facto-
ries are plainly visible in each photo,
tucked at the heart of their respective
towns, right next to the glinting blue
ocean. It’s a sad reminder of economic
reality with the daily meal. But for Sig-
urður Jónsson, a foreman at the Grin-
davík plant, there’s nothing to mope
about. “This is a situation we didn’t
see coming,” he said, shortly before
providing a tour of the facilities. “But
if it’s going to happen, it’s going to hap-
pen. We will gladly take in the other
employees here.”
The factory in Grindavík can pro-
cess up to 40 tons of fish per day, ac-
cording to Sigurður. In addition to
producing salted fish, it has recently
added lines for fresh and frozen fish
products.
Though the town’s population will
certainly swell with the relocated em-
ployees, Sigurður still thought Grin-
davík could absorb everyone. The com-
bination of the town’s harbour and its
proximity to the international airport,
along with the abundance of fish in the
waters off Iceland’s southwest coast,
make it ideal for expansion. Sigurður
also said the company would pay for
the employees’ moving costs. “Some
people are a bit pleased because they
were thinking about moving closer
to Reykjavík anyway,” he said. “Now
they see the opportunity to move and
not have to pay.”
Like his boss, Sigurður neither
wanted to overplay nor understate
what these changes mean to the com-
pany’s employees. “We are very sorry
Angelica Aquino moved from the Philippines to the East
Iceland fishing hamlet of Djúpivogur over a decade ago.
Enticed by a job in a factory owned by a fishing and fish
processing firm called Vísir, Angelica, whose name has
been changed for this article, immediately put down roots
in her new home, starting a family and integrating herself
into the community.
Change
18
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 16 — 2014
Sea The fishing industry is the base on which the villages that dot Iceland’s coastline are built. What happens when it leaves town?
Words by Jonathan Pattishall
Photos by Yasmin Nowak
“It’s all political.
I think it’s mostly
because we’re not
friends with people
in high places.”