SRF investigation finds more than 20,000 labour law violations at Securitas

Securitas recorded more than 20,000 breaches of Swiss labour law in Central Switzerland between 2023 and 2025, according to an investigation by SRF. The security company acknowledges errors but disputes the total and rejects the claim that it systematically violated the law.

SRF Investigativ and SRF Data analysed internal records from Securitas’s Lucerne regional directorate, which is responsible for Central Switzerland. The data show that more than 900 employees were affected. A single shift could account for several violations, for example if it exceeded both the maximum shift length and the permitted hours worked.

One employee, identified by the pseudonym Marvin Deck, worked a 14.5-hour shift at a prison that ended at nearly 8 a.m. on January 3, 2025. By the end of that year, he had worked around 140 night shifts that exceeded legal limits, according to the report. The legal definition of night work generally covers the hours between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.

The reported breaches included shifts that were too long, insufficient rest between shifts and too many consecutive working days. Securitas employees were assigned to guard banks, patrol near a monastery and provide security at a football stadium. One employee told SRF they had sometimes been so tired at work that they posed a security risk. Other current and former staff also described excessively long hours.

Employment law specialist Denis G. Humbert, who reviewed SRF’s findings, called the case serious and said it appeared the company had systematically violated the law. Kurt Pärli, a professor of social private law at the University of Basel, said the findings created the impression that the company’s operating model was designed to breach the law or at least accept such breaches.

Securitas said it had verified the allegations and found that some practices did not align with employment law principles or the company’s internal values. It said it could not confirm the figure of 20,000 breaches from its own data, did not rule out errors and maintained that it had not systematically violated the law as a whole.

Swiss law generally limits weekly working hours to 50, or 45 for employees in industry and offices. Under certain conditions, working hours can be extended by up to four hours a week. Overtime beyond the legal maximum is permitted only in exceptional circumstances and must generally be compensated with a 25 per cent wage premium or equivalent time off, with the employee’s agreement.