Helsinki (06.09.2004 – Juhani Artto) Last month the Court of Appeal of Turku confirmed that the HGV drivers’ collective agreement has been of generally binding character for several years. The decision was a major victory for the Transport Workers’ Union, which had campaigned for this outcome since the mid-1990s.
During the long drawn-out process various public authorities cited statistics that did not accurately reflect the real situation. When this was even done by the Chancellor of Justice, challenging a decision of then Minister Terttu Huttu-Juntunen to confirm the generally binding character of the agreement, the union had to do a great deal of hard work to secure reliable figures.
The union gathered staffing data from 5,343 enterprises. This required co-operation between union officials and hundreds of rank-and-file activists. It took two years to complete the work.
A summary of the data demonstrated that a majority of HGV drivers work for organised employers. These findings convinced the District Court, and although the employers appealed against this judgement, the appeal Court of Turku upheld the same conclusion.
This means that the union now has strong legal backing when challenging employers that have failed to apply the minimum conditions of the HGV drivers’ collective agreement in previous years.
Transport Workers’ Union President Timo Räty comments in the union’s newspaper that the laborious process of confirming the generally binding character of the drivers’ collective agreement has seriously undermined the confidence of the union in public authorities.