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13 May, 2011
ICEM affiliate Ammattiliitto Pro advanced more strikes in Finland’s pulp and paper industry to respond to strike-breaking and illegal coercion to a lawful overtime ban by industry management. The escalation by Pro comes after government mediation again failed on Tuesday, 10 May, to resolve the two-month-old bitter dispute.
Seventy-five percent of 4,000 white-collar, technical, and clerical workers in Finland’s paper sector are now on strike. Strikes have been extended at UPM, the Metsäliitto companies (Metsä-Botnia, M-real, Metsä Tissue), and Stora Enso and its contracting company Efora. A strike by Sappi workers at the Kirkniemi mill in southern Finland started a day early this week because of brazen management moves to break it.
The dispute is grounded in principle that reduced workforces must not take on increased workloads without fair compensation. Because of redundancies and speed-ups across Finnish pulp and paper, Pro members have been asked to do more without pay and without recognition of higher job competencies. The dispute sees the employers’ grouping, the Finnish Forest Industries Federation (FFIF), refusing to agree on a national across-the-board fair wage increase.
But that’s hardly the worst of their conduct. Employers have used threats, bullying tactics, and abuse to break the strike. (See earlier ICEM report here.) At Sappi Kirkniemi prior to this week’s walkout, Pro members were pressured to train summer job workers, presumably to train a scab workforce. Ammattiliitto Pro believes UPM will bring workers from Central Europe to Finland to do financial and purchase chain administration. Metsäliitto also is looking at its outsourcing options.
The Pro strike in Finland needs support and attention. The blatant and illegal tactics managers are using to break the strike are unfit for Finland, and unfit in any social economy.