IPS-Journal (Helsinki 10.12.2019) On Tuesday, 10 December 2019, Sanna Marin succeeded Antti Rinne to become Finland’s youngest Prime Minister.

What began as a dispute of the collective agreement of 700 parcel sorting offices workers at the state-owned postal service company Posti ended with the resignation of Antti Rinne, the Finnish Prime Minister, and his government. What happened?

The roots of the events go back to June 2017. The Centre Party Prime Minister Juha Sipilä and his right-wing government passed new legislation, opening the distribution of mail to private competition.

Helsinki (04.12.2019 - Heikki Jokinen) The Industrial Union has announced a strike from 9 to 11 December. It will cover 35,000 employees from the technology, chemical, wood product and special branches sectors.

Negotiations for a new collective agreement for technology industry faltered on the question of pay rises. Other issues in the agreement are more or less agreed upon.

Even the hard question of the 24 unpaid annual extra working hours, forced on employees by the right-wing Government of PM Sipilä in 2016, is now resolved. These hours will disappear in the technology sector agreement.

The National Conciliator made a proposal in respect of a pay rise, 1.6 per cent as part of a two years agreement.

Helsinki (29.11.2019 - Heikki Jokinen) A new collective agreement for postal workers ends the escalating strike wave.

The employer agreed to move 700 workers back to their previous collective agreement which is negotiated by the Finnish Post and Logistics Union PAU and employers association Palta. And they quickly reached a new collective agreement.

The core issue at the root of the dead-locked negotiations was the fate of 700 workers employed at postal service company Posti’s parcel sorting offices.

Helsinki (20.11.2019 - Heikki Jokinen) There is no solution yet in the postal services strike.

The National Conciliator Vuokko Piekkala put forward, on 18 November, a proposal for an agreement. Surprisingly, it completely failed to address the core issue of the conflict, the fate of the 700 state owned postal service company Posti employees which the employer unilaterally transferred to another company and another collective agreement.

"There was not a word about these employees in the National Conciliator’s proposal", says Heidi Nieminen, President of the Finnish Post and Logistics Union PAU.

Helsinki (19.11.2019 - Heikki Jokinen) Many unions have announced plans to take industrial action in support of the collective bargaining process in the ongoing postal strike. The Finnish Post and Logistics Union PAU strike in the state owned postal service company Posti began on Monday 11 November.

The Service Union United PAM will stop handling of parcels and letters between 25 November and 8 December in some 750 Post-in-Shop services. These are located among others in grocery stores, cafes and service stations.

"PAM does not accept employer attempts to weaken the terms of employment for those working at Posti. We see it as vitally important that terms of employment and business are developed jointly", says PAM President Annika Rönni-Sällinen.

Helsinki (13.11.2019 - Heikki Jokinen) The strike at Posti, the government owned postal services company is set to escalate. The reason for this strike is the employer's decision to force some 700 Posti employees into another collective agreement.

The Finnish Post and Logistics Union PAU is determined to resist this move claiming that this would mean a serious cut in pay for their members. Negotiations failed to reach a mutually satisfactory outcome and so strike action commenced on Monday 11 November.

Now several other unions say that they are ready to support the strike with further strikes unless there is real progress this week in negotiations on a new collective agreement.

Helsinki (12.11.2019 - Heikki Jokinen) The Industrial Union says that it has decided to stop negotiations with regard to collective bargaining in the chemical sector.

The reason for this is that the Chemical Industry Federation of Finland demanded - as a part of the new collective agreement - to end the practise whereby the employer facilitates the paying of union dues when paying salaries. This practise has been in widespread use in Finland since the late 1960s.

The Union calls employers action flagrant and says it will not return to the negotiation table before the demand is withdrawn.

Helsinki (30.10.2019 - Heikki Jokinen) Several important collective agreements in the technology industry are nearing their expiry date at the end of October. Altogether these agreements cover 296,000 employees. In spite of the tight schedule no results are anywhere near in sight during this current round of collective bargaining.

As predicted, the most difficult question is the fate of the 24 unpaid annual extra working hours, forced on employees by the right-wing Government of PM Sipilä in 2016. The unions say this is something that must come to an end, while the employers are equally adamant that it should continue .

What makes the situation even more difficult is that the unpaid extra hours have been turned into practise in very different ways. In some cases these do not exist, or are used for well-being activities like voluntary motion. However, in many working places extra hours are firmly fixed in shift rosters.

Helsinki (23.10.2019 - Heikki Jokinen) Engineers have now been organised in Finland for one hundred years. The first association of engineers was established in Tampere in 1919. Now the Union of Professional Engineers in Finland IL celebrates its first centennial.

The 70,000 members are engineers, other technical experts and engineering students. IL is the second largest member union of Akava, the Confederation of Unions for Professional and Managerial Staff in Finland. It joined Akava in 1976.

In this year of celebration the Union has organised more than forty events around the country. The main theme is Creating the future, complemented by five sub themes: Fall in love with an engineer, Becoming an engineer, Family and feelings, Challenge and the Wind of history.

Helsinki (10.10.2019 - Heikki Jokinen) Tehy and JHL, the unions in the field of health care and public services demand a targeted pay rise in the forthcoming collective bargaining round. This would to a large extent be a gender equality allowance as the workforce in these sectors is primarily made up of women.

In the last collective bargaining round the agreement for the technology industry gave a 3.2 per cent pay rise as part of a two year agreement. Due to the employers' strict coordination this become the basis for almost all collective agreements.

Tehy - The Union of Health and Social Care Professionals in Finland propose together with the Super - the Finnish Union of Practical Nurses a ten-year salary programme for health and social care professionals. It would offer an annual 1.8 percentage point higher pay rise as in the male-dominated technology industry sectors.