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5 November, 2007
The ICEM has joined its Nordic affiliates trade unions to insist that pulp and paper giant Stora Enso take more time to consider its recently announced restructuring plan. The 20-million-member ICEM joins Finnish and Swedish affiliates, Paperiliitto and Svenska Pappers, in calling on the company to engage in serious and meaningful talks to reduce the social impact of the proposed restructuring.
Stora Enso abruptly announced, on 25 October, that 1,400 family-sustaining jobs would be cut in Finland and Sweden, with another 300 white-collar jobs to be eliminated in both countries, the UK and Germany. Stora will shut its Summa, Finland, newsprint and book papers mill, and one machine at its Anjala fine papers mill. It will also close a pulp mill in Kemijärvi, Finland. In Sweden, the company intends to close its Norrsundet pulp mill, idling 350 Swedish workers.
In a letter to the affected local branch unions in the two counties, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda said, “The strike action in Finland recently sent a strong message. We must and we will unite to make this company justify what it is doing. The ICEM family of unions fully supports you in making Stora Enso honour its social obligations in meaningful dialogue. We will do whatever is necessary.” (The ICEM letter can be found here.)
In the two Nordic countries, Paperiliitto Presidents Jouko Ahonen and Pappers President Jan-Henrik Sandberg have already met since the 25 October news to shape a common strategy. The company now must enter mandatory discussions with workers. More strikes are likely, particularly considering the short period that the discussion window is open to discuss effects of the restructuring.
Stora Enso’s announcement caught Nordic paperworkers and their workplace representatives by surprise. Union leaders were in a state of disbelief, mostly because mills already had undergone – some jointly and relatively painlessly – cost-cutting programmes, and now they face more further insecurity on the part of workers. The company also said that closure of its Kotka, Finland, paper mill is possible in line with shedding its laminated paper and coated magazine papers businesses.
Paperiliitto President Jouko Ahonen
Finnish staff immediately took 24-hour strike action on 26-27 October. Two-thirds of the company’s 12,000 workers in Finland stayed home. Paperiliitto members began systematically shutting down paper operations on 25 October, the day of the company announcement. In Finland, a short six-week period for negotiations now starts.
And the way in which those talks play out, said Paperiliitto President and ICEM Pulp/Paper Sector Chair Ahonen, “will show whether these are just empty words, or whether caring for employees really is a core value for the company.
“This will now influence the spirit and motivation of the company’s entire personnel,” said Ahonen. The ICEM has assured Nordic paperworkers that Ahonen’s message, and a full account of the coming negotiations, will find its way into all global pulp and paper mills.
In Stora Enso’s view, the 1,700 job losses loom because of a possible 80% hike in tariffs on Russian wood exports. The company also says the “outlook” for the paper industry remains dim. In demanding more time for consultations, Ahonen stated, “This reorganisation plan at present is an effort to make Finnish workers pay for the mistakes “made by the industry and even partly by society.”
The factors considered by Stora Enso, adds Ahonen, are ill-advised and not the reality. Rampant paper industry consolidation over the past several years, many feel, will have a steadying effect on the industry, with demand returning and higher paper prices sticking to help corporate financial ledgers.
Ahonen also said reports indicate that the Russian raw wood issue in Finland can be avoided through negotiations, something that surely will “ease the situations at (Finnish) paper and pulp mills, and reduce domestic price pressures.” The proposed added duties of Russian wood exports are not expected to occur until January 2009.
Paperiliitto in Finland has begun organising and establishing a social needs networks in the mill towns that possibly will be affected. The union has demanded that the Government of Finland, a minority shareholder in Stora Enso, begin immediate activities to create new jobs to replace Stora Enso jobs.
The government did that, on the union’s call, by authorising an initial amount for job start-up programmes on the same day that the company made the announcement. Paperiliitto is also prepared to use a paper industry jobless fund the union maintains to assist families and laid-off workers victimised by Stora Enso’s layoffs.