Helsinki (15.08.2012 - Juhani Artto) Fifteen years ago, when beginning to publish this web publication, my motivation was to serve both the Finnish and the global trade union movements.
I firmly believed then that there were many things happening, and of relevance, in Finnish working life and in Finnish trade unions worthy of reports, in a language widely understood around the world.
This motivation and this belief have not waned in the past fifteen years. Rather the contrary. And, very briefly, I would like to outline some of the reasons why I have remained steadfast and optimistic about Finland and the worldwide labour movement.
In these insecure times it may be of interest to readers to know that in a developed country (Finland) real incomes have continuously grown with very few exceptions.
Real incomes of wage and salary earners have risen steadily (13.07.2010)
The continuous rise of real incomes has to be the best evidence of how the Finnish trade union organizations have managed to take care of their core tasks.
Another example: In these times of "rapid increase in number of precarious jobs" - a throwaway phrase and something that has been reported frequently and repeatedly over the last years - it may be good to know that in Finland the number of continuous full-time jobs remained from 2000 to 2010 unchanged at 65.4 per cent.
A tripartite task force in search of ways to improve the unfair status of atypical labour force (28.05.2012)
Also, here in Finland, trade union organizations have played a major role in defending continuous and permanent full-time jobs.
Judging by the number of visits to the website I am encouraged to believe that in many countries, union activists - both leaders and rank and file members - also like to read this kind of news:
Finns' support for organizing remains very high (04.05.2012)
Being based in a wealthy country that has a long and strong, but hard fought, labour movement tradition, the Finnish union movement takes its international responsibilities very seriously. In January, I felt proud when publishing a summary of the 25-year history of the Trade Union Solidarity Centre of Finland SASK.
SASK has multiplied its reach during its first 25 years of action (17.01.2012)
However, most of the news and stories in the past fifteen years have concerned unresolved problems relating to wage and salaried employees, employer intransigence and attacks on the labour movement, gross injustices or, generally speaking, various negative phenomena from the employee and union perspective.
Fortunately, as the Finnish unions are very active in defending the rights of their rank and file members, Trade Union News from Finland has, for all these years, been able to inform, and hopefully, encourage its readers by reporting on activists' and unions' resistance against injustices.
After the pilot period of the publication, from August to December 1997, the Finnish trade union organizations have made it financially possible to publish Trade Union News from Finland regularly. Currently all three union confederations (SAK, STTK and Akava), eight national unions and the union solidarity centre SASK sponsor the publication.