Helsinki (05.04.2007 – Juhani Artto) Over EUR 700,000. - That’s the amount of money the Finnish Electrical workers’ union was able to secure to some 90 Polish electricians who had worked in Finland for only about EUR5 hourly wages.

The blockade and other means, applied by the union, compelled the Polish company MSB to agree on hourly wages from EUR12.30 to EUR14.00. The agreed wages are based on the collective agreement, applicable for electricians at construction sites.

Helsinki (10.02.2007 / edited 12.02.2007 - Juhani Artto) The Electrical workers’ union has succeeded in compelling the Polish company MSB to pay wages in Finland in line with Finnish collective agreements. This is good news for the 88 Polish electricians who worked at the construction site of the huge shopping complex, Ideapark, near Tampere. The centre was opened in December 2006.

The parties have agreed not to publicly disclose the total amount owed in arrears. However, in its press release, the Finnish union describes the arrears as ’large’. In Finland, an electrician usually earns about EUR14 per hour. This is almost three times more than the EUR5 per hour the Polish electricians were originally paid, as the current affairs programme Ajankohtainen kakkonen, in November 2006, claimed when exposing this serious dumping case.

Helsinki (29.12.2006 - Juhani Artto) Efforts to develop cooperation between six industrial trade unions have advanced to a new phase. In mid- December the unions chose SAK’s bargaining department head, Lauri Lyly, to examine the options for future relations between the six unions.

The main alternatives lie between a full merger and closer cooperation. Lyly has been asked to produce his analysis and findings by the end of March 2007. The unions did not in any way impose preconditions on Lyly’s challenge.

The six unions involved are
The Chemical Workers' Union
The Electrical Workers' Union
The Media Union
The Paper Workers' Union
The Wood and Allied Workers' Union
The Metalworkers’ Union

Helsinki (04.12.2006 / edited 06.12.2006 – Juhani Artto) MSB, a company based in Gdansk in Northern Poland, is seriously in breech of labour legislation rules in regard to its work sites in Finland in what amounts to dumping working conditions. Polish electricians have been paid only 5 hours per hour, a third of the hourly rate laid down by the Finnish collective agreement.

The latest case of dumping was exposed, a couple of weeks ago, by the current affairs programme Ajankohtainen kakkonen (www.yle.fi/a2) on TV2. The Electrical workers’ union asked the MSB for information about the working conditions of its electricians in Finland but the company failed to provide satisfactory explanations.

Helsinki (04.09.2006 - Juhani Artto) Before the year is out, five industrial trade unions may be on the way to far closer cooperation than has existed up until now. The unions, all of them SAK affiliates, are

The Chemical Workers' Union
The Electrical Workers' Union
The Media Union
The Paper Workers' Union
The Wood and Allied Workers' Union

According to the Electrical Workers' Union president Martti Alakoski the five unions may even assimilate all functions of organisation other than collective bargaining.

Helsinki (09.01.2006/edited 11.01.2006 – Juhani Artto) The Nordic countries are well-known for their high rate of trade union membership and the essential role collective agreements play in the labour market. Nordic companies have a long tradition of dealing constructively with union organisations. Therefore one would assume that Nordic companies would apply the same pattern in their operations in the Baltic States.

However, ground-breaking studies by the Finnish researcher Markku Sippola, show that another company policy towards trade unions also exists.

Helsinki (22.11.2004 – Juhani Artto, Daryl Taylor) A strike by bus drivers over the rapidly growing use of part-time drivers ended yesterday after the Finnish Transport Workers' Union approved an offer by the employers to give full-time jobs to all part-timers who prefer to drive full-time. The proposal also includes a promise not to increase the use of part-time drivers before the present collective agreement expires in January 2006.

The strike lasted for almost two weeks.

The problem concerned two foreign-owned transport companies. Connex, with 56,000 employees, is Europe's largest private passenger transport company. The Connex Group is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the global corporation Veolia Environment (formerly Vivendi Environnement), which is listed on the stock exchanges of Paris and New York.

Helsinki (21.11.2004 – Juhani Artto) At the end of October there were hundreds of angry and disappointed timber and plywood workers around Finland. The forest industry giant UPM-Kymmene – a company with a long history of socially responsible behaviour – had announced a decision to eliminate 672 permanent jobs in Finland. The contracts of some 50 temporary employees would also not be renewed.

This reduction includes the closure of one sawmill and two plywood factories, together with significant downsizing of certain other mechanical woodworking facilities.

Anger ran especially high when the workers learned how little this Finnish-based, financially successful forest industry giant was ready to invest in severance packages. The packages offered were next to nothing, the workers commented.

Helsinki (04.11.2004 – Asko Laitinen) Erik Holmén, 44, is safety representative at the Fincoil mechanical workshop, which has been owned for about a decade by the US multinational Carrier.

Holmén is unhappy with the current setup: “It is very difficult to influence matters in a businesslike manner here. Duties are really dictated to us, and control is tight. The atmosphere is unpleasant. The dialogue that occupational safety work normally entails is lacking.”

The occupational safety system at Fincoil is based on the corporation's own Environment & Safety statute (EHS). Holmén's experience suggests that the joint safety committee has lost its purpose, as Carrier’s European management dictates regulations from its headquarters in France. The French management reports in turn directly to the USA, where the corporation’s Safety Director holds the reins.

(Helsinki 25.10.2004 - Juhani Artto) In April 2001 almost half (46 per cent) of the Finnish public entirely or at least broadly accepted the claim that "enterprises feel genuine responsibility for employees and their jobs". This is no longer the case. By September 2004 only just under one third (31 per cent) of survey respondents in Finland were still of this opinion.

This dramatic change was one finding of a Gallup Finland survey commissioned by SAK, the largest central trade union organisation in Finland. 1,000 people aged 15 years and over were interviewed in Finland for this survey.

A similar negative trend was shown in attitudes to the claim that "nowadays enterprises only defend their own interests without concern for the public interest". Almost three out of four (72 per cent) interviewees agreed either wholly or partially with this claim in 2004, compared to two thirds (66 per cent) of respondents in April 2001.