Archive

Helsinki (26.03.2013 – Heikki Jokinen) The mining industry is increasingly becoming an important sector of the Finnish economy. This is felt also in the Metalworkers' Union where some 1,500 miners are organised.

Last year the Association of the Finnish Extractive Resources Industry (FinnMin) conducted a survey concerning future prospects among 58 companies working in mining. Among the survey’s findings it is estimated that within the next ten years, along with expansion, a total number of 5,600 people will be employed in mining - an increase of 150 per cent in comparison with the existing situation in the 48 companies that replied to the survey.

JHL (25.03.2013 - Heikki Jokinen) The government is preparing new legislation requiring municipalities to establish companies instead of public enterprises. The Act is based on European Union competition legislation, which sees public enterprises as a form of public support and thus serve to distort competition. Public enterprises must now be re-established as companies if they operate in a field where private competition also exists.

Director Päivi Niemi-Laine from JHL claims that there is no need to corporatize a municipal enterprise if it only sells services to its owners or to the municipalities it is serving. "It is important to consider, too, the possibility that the enterprise will withdraw from the market. In this case there is no need to corporatize it", she says.

(21.03.2013 - link to the web site of Yle News)

(20.03.2013 - link to the web site of SAK)

Helsinki (13.03.2013 – Heikki Jokinen) Finland is producing bicycles again. The traditional bicycle factory Helkama Velox moved the production line of its Jopo bicycles back from Taiwan to Finland in 2010. Since then the sale of Jopo bikes has doubled.

About 24,000 bicycles will be manufactured this year, which amounts to eight per cent of total annual bicycle sales in Finland. Many components are still produced abroad, but more than 50 per cent is Finnish work. The original Jopo first made its appearance in 1965 and continued in production until 1974. With the retro boom in vogue Helkama began to make it again in 2002 and moved production to Taiwan three years later.

Helsinki (05.03.2013 - Heikki Jokinen) The Prime Ministers' Office published last Friday a report demanding more low-pay work in Finland. The report is drafted by Juhana Vartiainen, the Director General of the Government Institute for Economic Research and Osmo Soininvaara, the Green Party MP and one of the party’s chief ideologists.

They propose that those under 25 years should receive salaries 20 per cent below what is set out in the collective agreements, with the sweetener of a reduction in the tax rate for those affected.

JHL (05.03.2013 - Heikki Jokinen) The unions representing municipal employees are ready to agree, even at short notice, to a centralized labour market agreement, if the terms and goals set by the unions are achieved.

A centralized agreement would pave the way for the planned local government reform, the unions believe. The Finnish government’s reform plans include several mergers of municipalities, which is a major and controversial issue in Finnish politics at the moment. It is proving to be very difficult to implement.

Helsinki (01.03.2013 - Heikki Jokinen) The Finnish Electrical Workers´ Union recently disclosed how Estonian electrical workers were underpaid on a major construction site (car park P-Hämppi) in the city of Tampere. After the visit of the union representatives some of the Estonian electricians joined the union and asked for help.

"There are many new companies in this branch and it can happen that they just simply do not know the rules. In most cases everything is ok", says ombudsman Jari Ollila in Vasama, the magazine of the union.

JHL (25.02.2013 - Heikki Jokinen) It is unhelpful and biased to view public and private sector jobs as being somehow in conflict or competing with each other, says the JHL president Jarkko Eloranta. He finds, however, clear evidence of this negative adversarial attitude in a fresh report by the Ministry of Employment and the Economy, called Industrial Competitiveness Approach.

The ministry report summarises: "Economic growth demands the work input of private sector workers be raised to a sufficient level in relation to the size of the population". Eloranta stresses that it is damaging to undervalue public sector jobs and imagine they merely drain resources from the private sector.

Helsinki (22.02.2013 - Heikki Jokinen) The threat of violence is often present for those working in small shops and kiosks. In 2012 a total of 312 robberies were reported to the police, and the year before 332.

Shoplifting is not classed as a robbery, though such cases may also involve the threat of violence. In 2012 a total of 47,360 shoplifting cases were reported to the police, several thousand less than the year before.