Archive

Helsinki (15.12.2003 - Juhani Artto) The Finnish campaign to reform export credit agencies (ECA) organised a seminar in September on the social and environmental impact of Finnish enterprises exporting to and manufacturing in China. At this event the campaign published a pioneering study* on the subject by Chinese researcher Ge Yun.

The study includes a great deal of material to help the reader understand the Chinese situation and ask the right questions about the role of Finnish enterprises and Finnish ECAs. However, lack of transparency in the enterprises and ECAs leaves many questions unanswered concerning the true social and environmental impacts of Finnish businesses.

With the largest level of investment and personnel in China, Nokia was invited to send a representative to the seminar. However, the Finnish multinational declined this invitation and limited its participation to a written document: "Nokia's Comment on Corporate Social Responsibility and Trade in China".

Helsinki (07.12.2003 - Juhani Artto) In the last few months China has hit the headlines in Finland as a threat to the employment of Finnish workers. This concern is not without foundation, as industrial jobs have been transferred to China and many investments that create new jobs, including those demanding higher qualifications, have favoured China over Finland. The media has dubbed this the "China phenomenon" or "new China syndrome".

Nowadays the trend is no longer documented merely in the news, but also in broader examinations of current affairs and in efforts to analyse how Finland should respond to the China phenomenon. Business community representatives have been quick to cite the China phenomenon as a new argument in support of their familiar calls for greater labour flexibility and lower labour costs.

Finland's trade unions have yet to take an active role in the new debate on the China phenomenon. They have mainly chosen merely to highlight the lack of trade union freedoms in China, with all of the negative repercussions of this for the working conditions of Chinese labour and its lack of fairness in global competition. Even when considering this burning issue, however, the Finnish unions have kept a fairly low profile.

Helsinki (01.12.2003 - Leena Seretin) The Finnish labour market consensus is the envy of many other countries in Europe. "The centralised collective bargaining model is quite alive and well," says research manager Timo Kauppinenof the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions in Dublin.

The labour market organisations in Finland reached a calm accord on the future of the pension system, which the national government then approved. At the same time future pensioners have quite often taken to the streets in massive rallies and fiercely opposed pension reforms in the older European countries such as Germany and France, even though here, too, such adjustments must be made.

Timo Kauppinen regards the pension reform as an excellent example of the vitality of the Finnish labour market model, and of how well it is able to guide progress to satisfy future needs.

Helsinki (22.11.2003 - Juhani Artto) Finland is tightening its measures to control the abuse of migrant labour. This is largely due to the demands made in recent years by the trade union movement. The movement has fought for reforms that will help to prevent the creation and growth of a grey labour market. Many responsible employers have also echoed the calls to combat migrant labour abuse in the form of substandard working conditions and denial to workers of even the most elementary rights. Law-abiding employers regard such abuse as unfair competition that impairs the competitiveness of their own businesses.

Cases of abuse have so far mainly been exposed in the construction, hotel and catering industries, but cases have also occurred in several other industries, such as road haulage, engineering workshops and harbours. Most of the abused workers have been either Estonians or Russians. These two nationalities also form the largest groups in the legal migrant labour force.

Helsinki (17.11.2003 - Juhani Artto) In early November Finland's largest trade union confederation SAK submitted a new initiative to expand the scope of the Finnish consensus policy. SAK proposes that the labour market organisations in various industries should prepare common survival and growth strategies. The goals would be to bring the country into a phase of rapid economic growth, create new jobs and prevent mass redundancies and the loss of jobs to other countries.

"The strategies must ensure that Finland remains a good place for wage and salary earners to live and a good place for investors to operate their production and services," SAK observes. The organisation points out that Finland will need more rapid growth than the rest of the euro zone, as the ageing of the population structure is set to progress more steeply in Finland than elsewhere in Europe, and as the country's unemployment rate remains high:

"The loss of almost 25,000 industrial jobs in only one year and the modest increase in service jobs require a new kind of co-operation."

Helsinki (14.11.2003 - Juhani Artto) Businesses and many other organisations regularly outsource the cleaning services for their offices and other operating points. It is common to award the contract to the cheapest tender. In a recent statement Finland's largest trade union confederation SAK warns of the negative consequences of this practise.

Experts agree that this approach has led to lower standards of cleanliness at places of work. This is not the most economic way to manage property, but there are worse consequences beyond this in terms of employee health.

According to the Finnish Allergy and Asthma Association, some 15 to 20 per cent of Finns suffer from allergic head colds, and 5 per cent of these develop into asthma when left untreated. Lower standards of cleanliness at places of work increase this risk. Failure to clean higher levels and ventilation ducts has become commonplace, which increases the concentration of dust and dirt in breathing air.

Helsinki 22.10.2003 (VATT NYT 1-2003) Compared to other industrialised countries, productivity growth in Finland has been very rapid indeed. Productivity in industry rose in the late 1990s to a level almost equal to that of the USA. Productivity in other branches of the private sector also grew more rapidly than in comparable countries. In transport and communications, for example, Finland already surpassed the USA in the late 1990s.

Over the period from 1975 to 2000 the productivity of Finland's national economy grew by an average of 3.1 per cent annually. The average annual rise in productivity during the era of comprehensive incomes policy agreements from 1966 to 2000 was 3.5 per cent.

This growth was especially marked in industry, with an average of 5.6 per cent annually between 1975 and 2000. The rapid rise in industrial productivity growth in the latter half of the 1990s was mainly due to expansion of the electronics industry. Annual productivity in this sector grew by almost 20 per cent between 1996 and 2000. Other industrial sectors recorded average annual growth in productivity of only 2.6 per cent.

Helsinki (18.09.2003 - Eeva Simola) Finnish engine manufacturer Wartsila Ltd is caught up in Sweden's largest ever bribery prosecution, local dailies report. According to the public prosecutor, "it is clear that Wartsila offered bribes to secure orders". Wartsila admits the payments but says these were for consulting services. Finland's public prosecutor is now considering the case.

The Swedish shipping line Rederi AB Gotland operates ferries between Gotland island and mainland Sweden. This company recently commissioned two superfast ferries from a Chinese shipyard. Wartsila supplied a total of eight main engines and six auxiliary engines for these vessels, together with propellers for one of them. The orders totalled EUR 25-30 million. The M/S Visby began operating this year.

Wartsila concluded two brokerage agreements with Euro Marine Ltd. This company was represented and partly owned by the main suspect in the corruption case, Bo Pettersson, who served as Technical Director at the shipping company. Wartsila paid some EUR 1.1 million in two instalments in 2000 and 2001 to Pettersson's private Swiss bank account.

Helsinki (11.09.2003 - Juhani Artto) About 4,000 people work in Finnish laundries, but many of these jobs are now under threat. The low wages in Estonia, which is just across the Gulf of Finland and only a few hours sailing from Helsinki, pose a difficult challenge to Finnish workers.

Recently one of the biggest users of laundry services, the Silja Line passenger ferry company, relocated its laundry services from Finland to the Estonian capital Tallinn. This followed a successful tender from the Granlund laundry service. Dozens of jobs may be lost in Finland because of this.

In autumn several large hotel chains will negotiate new laundry service contracts. Finnish workers now fear the loss of more work to competitors in Estonia. Some of these competitors are subsidiaries of enterprises based in Finland.

Helsinki (04.09.2003 - Juhani Artto) The proportion of part-time workers has slowly increased in Finland. Over the period from 1989 to 2002 it grew from 8.9 per cent of all wage and salary earners to 12.6 per cent. Among women the proportion increased from 12.6 per cent to 17.2 per cent, and among men from 5.2 per cent to 7.7 per cent.

Among women part-time work is more common in the private sector than in the public sector. One fifth of private sector female employees work part-time.

In commerce 33.4 per cent of female employees worked part-time in 2002. In the hotel and catering industry 32.7 per cent of women had a part-time job, while the corresponding figure for cleaning and other property maintenance services was 31.0 per cent. The corresponding figures for men were 9.7, 24.0 and 14.1 per cent.