JHL (26.08.2013 - Heikki Jokinen) The battle over ownership of the wholly state owned company Destia is still in the balance. Destia is a major road and railway construction and maintenance company with a market share of some 60 per cent of road-building work in Finland.
According to the newspaper Kauppalehti, the government is now planning to sell Destia and the sale price is estimated at anything between 150 and 200 million euro. Destia’s turnover in 2012 was over 500 million euro.
JHL’s Chief Executive Officer Päivi Niemi-Laine is strongly opposed to the idea and says it cannot be allowed. "Selling the company is being justified by the state’s need for money. To sell a profit making company that takes care of Finland’s basic infrastructure defies common sense. To sell off a state owned company would not bring in any new money, it would just move it from one pocket to another", she says.
By selling Destia the state would lose complete control of road building in Finland, and we would be fully dependent on the major road-building companies, Niemi-Laine stresses. "The desire to build cartels and maximise profits at the tax-payers expense is big. In the worst case scenario the building and maintenance of our roads would soon be in the hands of international investors, as happened with vehicle inspection. Prices skyrocketed and now we are thinking about how to get real competition in the branch." The big market share of Destia is living proof of its ability to compete with private companies in terms of both quality and price. Moreover, Destia’s very existence has ensured moderate price levels and guaranteed that the state still has the know-how when it comes to building roads and other infrastructure.
"To rebuild such a major public company once it has been sold off is an impossible task if and when the long developed know-how is sought thereafter."Destia has 1,600 employees and some 650 of them are JHL members. The company roots go back to the end of the 18th century.
Another struggle is going on in the city of Pori. Pori plans to outsource the maintenance of its eastern Pori roads and parks despite strong opposition by JHL. The issue was suddenly withdrawn from the agenda of the city Technical Services Committee just before the meeting at the end of August. According to the JHL local shop steward Timo Muukkonen, the reason was simple: the city’s own tender was the cheapest one out of the four tenders received.