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2 June, 2008
Kemianliitto, ICEM’s Finnish affiliate in the chemicals, rubber, and textile sector, held its semi-annual Union Council meetings in Helsinki on 22-23 May, and reaffirmed its position to be part of a six-union merger across Finland’s industrial sectors.
The late May conference was the Council’s first meetings since elections were held recently by Kemianliitto’s 12 electoral regions, which are organised by respective industries. Re-elected President was Timo Vallittu, who has headed the union since 1995, and elected as Union Secretary was Hannu Siltala, who comes to Kemianliitto from the Finnish Railwaymen’s Union.
Kemianliitto President Timo Vallittu
A 15-member Executive Committee also had been elected.
The Council meetings were marked by a large influx of new – and young – trade unionists that now comprise Kemianliitto’s 53-member Executive Council. Some 40 members are newly elected. The Union Council moved to continue work toward a 2010 merger of Finnish trade unions, and committed to hold a democratic referendum among all Kemianliitto members on that merger. It also adopted resolutions that included establishing two separate work groups to revise future work strategies for the union.
Kemianliitto Union Secretary Hannu Siltala
Speakers at the Council meetings included ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda, Swedish IF Metall Vice President Anders Farber, and Lauri Ihalainen, the President of the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK).
The 47,000-member Finnish trade union is composed of four sectors: shoe, leather, and rubber; glass and ceramics; textile and clothing; and chemicals. It is a product of union mergers in the 1990s, which brought together unions from the chemicals, rubber and leather, and glass and porcelain sectors. In 2004, the Finnish Chemical Workers’ Union merged with Teva, the Textile and Clothing Workers’ Union.
The proposed six-union merger in Finland is tentatively to be called TEAM, and will number 360,000 workers. Besides Kemianliitto, other unions engaged in discussions toward that merger are the Finnish Electrical Workers’ Union, the Wood and Allied Workers’ Union, the Finnish Media Union, Finnish Railwaymen’s Union, and the Finnish Metalworkers’ Union.