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21 October, 2011
ICEM affiliate Ammattiliitto Pro, the trade union of salaried workers in Finland, and Metalliliitto, the country’s Metalworkers’ Union, began a first wave of strike action this morning across Finland. Some 32,000 workers – 25,000 metalworkers and 7,000 represented by Ammattiliitto Pro – are on full work stoppages at 45 targeted companies.
If national conciliation again fails next week and the days that follow, metalworkers and salaried staff at another 35 companies will join the strike on 7 November. Overtime bans are now in effect across Finland’s metal and technology sector covering 200,000 workers, including 10,000 members of the Federation of Professional and Managerial Staff (YTN). That union of top-level supervisors is expected to join the strike on 1 November if no deal is accomplished.
“The strike is running well so far,” said Pro Vice President for the Industrial Sector Markku Polokangas, the salaried staff’s lead negotiator. “The amount of pressure on employers will increase in the coming days, we are certain.” Polokangas also said the union is organising support strikes among Pro’s membership in other sectors, such as telecommunications and chemicals.
The two unions and the Federation of Finnish Technology Industries, or Teknologiateollisuus, the employers’ federation, were in marathon mediation sessions with National Conciliation Esa Lonka throughout the week. The latest session broke off last night and Metalliliitto's 38-member Council gave a near-unanimous mandate to begin the strike.
Ammattiliitto Pro’s membership had earlier given leadership of the union a mandate for strike action.
Although the two sides are in general agreement with the 4.3% wage increase over two years that Finnish social partners agreed to on 13 October, major discord in metal and tech negotiations center on how that amount will be split. Finnish employers want discretion on paying some workers far less than the 4.3%, while the unions want the increase given to everyone across the board.
Another difference is over a three-day yearly training and education period. Employers seek the discretionary right to award it, while the unions want it across the board. Tied to that is the manner in which workers age 55 and above will receive the three-day training allocation.
Among just some of the 45 corporations that saw strike action taken against them this morning at 06h00 were ABB, Boliden, Kone elevators and Kone cranes, the mining concern Talvivaara, the Metsa set of engineering companies, iron and steel maker Rautaruukki, Sandvik Mining and Construction, Valmet Automotive, Outotec, Patria aerospace and land companies, and Ruukki Metals and Engineering.
On 7 November, among 35 other companies expected to join the strike will be a large number of workers employed by the Nokia-Siemens joint venture called NS Network.