"We have to get the results more quickly!"

Text / Alex Ivanou

A quick glance at Jyrki Raina's CV reveals a person with lots of experience in a rich variety of jobs including newspaper deliverer, carpenter's assistant, journalist and even court assistant (Raina was awarded Master of Laws in 1985). Jyrki, whose mother tongue is Finnish, also has impressive language skills covering English, Swedish, French, German and Russian. One of his hobbies is political and labour history.

With great enthusiasm, Jyrki describes his favourite period of labour history, the time when the trade union movement first began. He cites as an example a story of London journeymen bookbinders who in the mid-1780s decided that their 14 hour working day was too long and should be shortened. "The bookbinders met in pubs discussing the situation. Later, five of the leaders were arrested and one of them even died in prison before the story went up to King George III who, surprised with the length of working hours, agreed to the world's first reduction in working hours to 12.5 hours a day," he recounts.

Jyrki is fascinated with this period of history and that of the more recent labour movement born in the late 19th century, a time when people found their courage and continued fighting despite being beaten, thrown into prison and even killed.

Jyrki believes that we can learn many lessons from the past when considering how to assist unions fighting for their rights in developing countries today. Taking the example of Nordic countries, where the trade union movement developed into its present form within a century, Jyrki underlines that, "unfortunately we don't have the luxury of a hundred years now in developing and emerging-economy countries, here we have to get the results more quickly."

While keen on history, Jyrki is also fond of new technologies and sees their potential in bringing improvements to the IMF. One of his first steps as IMF General Secretary was to restart his account on Facebook in order to communicate with unionists all over the world in an open way. Jyrki believes that Facebook is a tool for IMF trade union work, where groups can be formed and one can share information and direct people to the IMF website for more information.

In his address to the IMF Congress, Jyrki stressed that it is "important to review the working methods of the IMF. A dynamic and results-oriented IMF has to be visible, transparent, and offer all affiliates the possibility to influence decision-making both globally and in the regions, and engage affiliates in joint action."

The IMF is not Jyrki's first job with a Global Union Federation. In 1991 he worked for the International Chemical and Energy Workers' Federation as a researcher. Later, in 1995, he became the Energy Officer for the International Chemical, Energy and Mine Workers Federation (ICEM). In 2000 he was Director of Organisation at ICEM. Then in 2001 Jyrki moved back to Helsinki where he worked for Finnish industrial trade unions. In 2003 he was elected General Secretary of Nordic Metal coordinating activities of 14 Nordic (Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland) trade unions with the European Metalworkers' Federations and the IMF.

In 2006 Jyrki was elected as General Secretary of the newly formed trade union federation Nordic IN, coordinating the activities of 22 Nordic unions in three European and three Global Union Federations. From 2005, Jyrki was a substitute member of the IMF Executive Committee and took an active role in the IMF Action Programme committee, elaborating IMF's main policy that gives direction to the work of the organisation and its affiliates for the next four years.

Jyrki is married. His wife, Jaana, also a Finn, is working in Sweden for the German company Bosch/Siemens and is a member of the Swedish trade union Unionen. He has a 14 year old daughter, Daniele. Aside from political and labour history, Jyrki's hobbies include philosophy, sports, chess, cooking and music.

Find Jyrki on Facebook by searching for Jyrki Raina.