6 October, 2011For the first time the Finnish IMF affiliates presented their national collective bargaining demands together. On October 4, after negotiations broke down, they declared an overtime ban in the metal industry. The Metalworkers' Union and Pro have given notice for a strike beginning October 21.
FINLAND: The Finnish member unions of the IMF, the Finnish Metalworkers' Union, the salaried employees union Pro and the Federation of Professional and Managerial Staff YTN (Academic Engineers and Architects TEK and Union of Professional Engineers UIL) have issued an immediate overtime ban in the whole Finnish metal industry. It covers in total about 200 000 employees.
The strike warning from the private sector salaried employees union Pro and the Finnish Metalworkers' Union concern 32,000 workers in 44 major companies in the Finnish exporting sectors, and collective agreements for more than 200,000 workers. The industrial action would start in all units of these 44 companies on October 21 and continue to November 7 if no agreement is reached before that.
The bargaining organization for senior salaried employees YTN shares the goals of the metalworkers unions. YTN has indicated it will join the common front if larger industrial action is needed.
At the end of September the unions rejected the employers' pay offer of a raise of 2.4 per cent for the first year and 1.9 per cent for the second year. Since then there have been no negotiations, but it has became clear that the three national union confederations (Akava, SAK and STTK) are far from an agreement with the two Employer Confederations EK and KT.