Archive

(29.01.2013 - link to the web site of Yle News)

(25.01.2013 - link to the web site of University of Helsinki) Abstract of Petteri Raito's thesis; Raito is the editor of Särmä, the magazine of the Wood and Allied Workers' Union.

JHL (24.1.2013 - Heikki Jokinen) JHL is highly critical of the Ministry of the Interior’s plan for legislation on the private security sector. According to the union the new Private Security Services Act would infringe on citizens’ fundamental rights and allow tasks designated for public authority to glide into private hands.

The aim of the proposal is to clarify legislation concerning the private security sector and to uniform the authorisation of those working in this branch. Ari Huuskonen, the JHL police administration shop steward, sees the proposal going even further.

Helsinki (24.01.2013 - Heikki Jokinen) The number of redundancies grew by almost 50 per cent last year, according to statistics from the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions SAK. The number of people who lost their jobs in 2012 was 15,800, whereas the same figure in 2011 was 10,600. Last year's figure is the second highest recorded since 2006, the year in which SAK began collecting this information. In 2009 some 19,700 people lost their jobs.

Last year the number of employees to get a taste of mandatory consultation with regard to possible personnel cuts was 104,000. In 2011 it was 56,000. The Act of Co-operation stipulates that in all undertakings with more than 20 employees any planned redundancies are subject to mandatory consultation with personnel representatives.

Helsinki (23.01.2013 - Juhani Artto) The Finnish watchdog Finnwatch has uncovered serious cases of human and labour rights abuse at three Thai companies supplying tuna and fruits to the Finnish and European markets. Thanks to information furnished by factory workers in Thailand Finnwatch was able to expose the use of both forced labour and child labour.

The companies involved pay illegally low wages and make employees work excessive overtime hours. - Read the English language summary (13-page pdf-file) of the report and the two Finnwatch press releases on the report: Finnwatch reveals serious human rights violations behind European food brands

Helsinki (15.01.2013 - Heikki Jokinen) The Union of Professional Engineers in Finland (UIL) are the latest union to join the group of union organizations that have agreed to sponsor Trade Union News from Finland, signing up at the beginning of the year. UIL organizes engineers and other technical experts. It has 70,000 rank and file members of whom 87 per cent work in the private sector. UIL belongs to Akava, the Confederation of Unions for Professional and Managerial Staff in Finland.

"The most crucial issue for the union right now and that facing our members is the economic insecurity prevailing in Finland and Europe", says Ismo Kokko, the director of collective bargaining. "There has been an inevitable scaling back of the workforce - leading to more unemployment - as a result of the downturn. Export companies have been the first to feel this." A great number of UIL members are working in the export industry.

Fipsu (10.01.13 - Heikki Jokinen) The Finnish public service trade unions have added their voice to the Water is a human right -campaign. Its aim is to collect one million signatures for a European Citizens' Initiative to be put before the European Union. The initiative is a new mechanism designed to ensure a genuinely popular public proposal gets placed on the political agenda of the Union.

The campaign’s goal is to guarantee water and sanitation for Europe as a whole, and seeks to counter liberalisation and privatisation of water services and to advance the right to water as a global human right. The campaign is run and supported by many European organisations with strong trade union participation and backing.

Helsinki (09.01.2013 - Heikki Jokinen) The trade union confederations SAK and STTK have published their own programme for economic growth. "High salaries are not the reason for problems in the Finnish economy, there are other reasons behind it", is how SAK president Lauri Lyly views the situation.

Lyly and STTK president Mikko Mäenpää see the real problems afflicting the Finnish economy lie in the too low value of added production. The key sectors of our economy, namely the paper and electronics industry have concentrated far too much and for far too long in bulk products.

The solutions offered by the confederations are aimed at guaranteeing a high level of education, building and maintenance of a working infrastructure and supporting new innovations.

JHL (8.1.2013 - Heikki Jokinen) At the turn of the year JHL opened a special information exchange channel on their web pages for their members working in the municipal sector. It collects information on what kind of plans the municipalities have regarding the reorganising of their services. The idea is to involve union activists in gathering relevant and useful information, which can then be made available to other activists.

 "At the moment there is a lot happening in the municipalities and JHL wants to be able to influence decision making within these municipalities", says planning officer Leena Peltoniemi from the JHL office. The new information channel seeks to collect information on what happens and where. "The goal is to be able to influence municipal service production at as early a stage as possible."

Helsinki (04.01.2013 - Heikki Jokinen) Relations between trade unions and the employers' confederation are exceptionally tense at the moment in Finland. This friction between the two parties had already become evident in September. Then the board of the Confederation of Finnish Industries EK did not accept an agreement which its representatives had already negotiated with trade union confederations concerning legislation to guarantee employees three days professional education a year.

Within the EK clear opposition against the Director General of EK Mikko Pukkinen had grown towards the end of 2012. He was seen as being too soft and was blamed for both the rejected education agreement and the national level salary framework agreement 2011-2013. Many employers see the framework agreement as a wrong move - they prefer to decide salaries at union or preferably at company level.