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20 June, 2011
The Pulp and Paper sector of the ICEM selected Jan-Henrik Sandberg, President of Sweden’s Paperworkers Union (Pappers), as the new chairman of the global sector. Sandberg replaces Jouko Ahonen, President of Paperiliitto of Finland, who will become the head officer for the Council of Finnish Industrial Unions (TP) on 1 June.
Sandberg’s nomination came from a work group meeting of Geneva-based ICEM’s Pulp and Paper sector in late May, with the ICEM Executive Committee approving the nomination on 25 May.
Jouko Ahonen, Jan-Henrik Sandberg
Sandberg, 52, has been President of 18,000-member Pappers since 2006. Prior to that, he worked for 17 years as a recovery boiler operator in the pulp mill of Korsnäs AB in Gävle, Sweden. He served as Pappers local branch chairman at Korsnäs in Gävle from 2001 to 2006 and previously served as education director of the branch union.
Ahonen had served as President of Paperiliitto since 2003. In his new duties with TP, he will oversee collective bargaining and industrial policy for 14 Finnish trade unions. Petri Vanhala has been elected at Paperiliitto as General Secretary to succeed Ahonen.
Both Ahonen and Sandberg steered their respective trade unions through pivotal and success bearing labour disputes in their home countries, Ahonen in a 2005 industry-wide lockout in Finland and Sandberg in a 2010 strike by paperworkers across industry in Sweden.