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2 October, 2006
UPM, formerly called UPM Kymenne, the global, Finnish-based wood products company, has angered the Wood and Allied Workers’ Union of Finland by announcing it will sack its remaining 300 forestry workers. The company announced last month that it will restructure its forestry work by seeking “prospective partners and assess their ability to offer different types of forestry work services.”
UPM, which owns 920,000 hectares of timberlands in Finland, said its objective is that workers would be taken on by companies providing forestry work services. But according to the Trade Union News of Finland, the Wood and Allied Workers’ Union believes the real result will be the hiring of low-wage workers from other countries.
“Never before have employees been contracted out to companies that do not even exist,” said the union. The Wood and Allied Workers’ Union, an affiliate of the Building Workers’ International, added that the plan is unrealistic and potentially damaging to UPM. “It risks damaging UPM’s quality system” and threatens the company’s accreditation under the social clauses of Finland’s state forestry certification system, said the union in a statement to Trade Union News.
The Finnish experience in forestry, the union adds, is that there are not enough forest service companies to handle the work, thus the belief that UPM is gearing to acquire such services from abroad. The union is convinced that UPM’s plan, expected to be implemented this fall, would violate the corporate social responsibility principles that UPM is signatory to.