24 March, 2011Nokia announced it will begin talks in Finland on potential job cuts in late April; workers fear drastic cuts following the company's decision to change operating system.
FINLAND: Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone producer by volume, announced on March 23 that it will begin negotiations with unions in late April regarding restructuring of the company.
The announcement came after Nokia decided it will replace the Symbian operating system in its mobile phones with Microsoft's software.
The talks concern 16,000 employees in Finland and elsewhere who fear that the change could result in many job cuts. The company stated that product development will now be restructured globally, not only in Finland.
More than a month ago IMF-affiliated trade union Pro demanded that Nokia pay proper compensation to all those who will lose their jobs. Antti Rinne, the President of Pro, said that individual compensation sums should be around EUR100,000 in order to reach the same level that Nokia applied when serving notice on a large number of employees in Bochum, Germany back in 2008. (See Metal World No. 2, 2008 for more details.)
Independent trade union journalist Juhani Artto reports that last autumn Nokia paid out almost EUR5 million to its CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo when he was sacked. And Stephen Elop, the new and current CEO, was welcomed to Nokia with an entry bonus of over EUR5 million.