Archive

Helsinki (13.09.2002 - Juhani Artto) Alarm bells are ringing in the construction industry, where the safety record has been deteriorating annually since 1996. Last year the accident rate increased by a further 6 per cent, as the number of accidents rose by 2 per cent, while the total number of working hours fell by 4 per cent.

More than 18,000 accidents were registered for compensation. The number of fatal accidents has also increased. Last year 13 construction workers died at work. In the 1990s the average was 11 fatalities in a year.

The risk of accident in construction is now three times higher than in other industries. Indeed these other industries are characterised by a general downward trend in the accident rate.

Helsinki (06.09.2002 - Juhani Artto) Since the 1980s the favoured mantra of employers in Finland, as in many other countries, has been flexibility. Employer representatives have criticised labour and the trade unions for defending "overly rigid" working hours, pay scales, social security norms and other "inflexibilities" in collective agreements and legislation. This, they say, undermines the international competitiveness of enterprises based in Finland.

A new study prepared by several reputable researchers has now refuted the main contention of this approach. The authors claim that labour flexibility was one of the key factors, if not the principal factor - that turned the deep recession of the early 1990s into a sustained period of rapid economic growth.

Helsinki (30.08.2002 - Hilkka Kotkamaa) According to a new study**, an unfair boss at the workplace poses a clear risk to employee health. Male employees who considered themselves to have been treated well had a 52 per cent lower risk of taking sick leave than those complaining of unfair treatment.

A similar disparity was also found for female employees. In respect of minor psychiatric disorders the gap was even wider, at 73 per cent. Women led by poor supervisors took one third more days in sick leave than those with better supervision. The corresponding disparity for men was 20 per cent.

The researchers noted that their findings bring an unfair boss up to the more familiar health risk levels caused by unhealthy lifestyles.

Helsinki (23.08.2002 - Juhani Artto) In October 2001 the European Commission published a draft Directive to govern carbon dioxide emission trading between enterprises within the European Union. The trade unions representing industrial workers in Finland and the country’s largest central trade union organisation SAK see major flaws in the draft.

The organisations are unable to accept the idea of not rewarding enterprises that have already voluntarily reduced their carbon dioxide emissions, or alternatively of failing to penalise enterprises that lag badly behind in their emission solutions. As Finnish enterprises have invested more than the European Union average in emission reduction, failure to recognise this achievement would distort competition conditions and be unfair to top performers.

Helsinki (16.08.2002 - Daryl Taylor) Although Trunf (Trade Union News from Finland) remains a web-based publication, many articles have also been reprinted in hard copy materials used by migrant workers in Finland, especially those organised in PAM-Lingua, the foreign language professionals section of Service Unions United.

The articles have also provided materials for English language training courses for the officials of trade unions and employers’ federations, and have been used in both public and private sector migrant worker integration and induction programmes.

Helsinki (16.08.2002 - Juhani Artto) Trade Union News from Finland (Trunf) yesterday celebrated its fifth anniversary. The existence of this unique information service is based on the firm belief that working life in Finland and the Finnish trade union movement have several features of interest to many people working and living in other countries. These include trade unionists, journalists, researchers and people in many other occupations and walks of life.

Trunf not only promotes information exchange, but also conveys research findings and new ideas. This is essential, for example, when seeking to narrow the gender disparity in working life. No country has been able to eliminate this gap, and so nobody can claim to have managed the problem and to have no need to work with others aiming to resolve or reduce the scale of this challenge.

Helsinki (08.07.2002 - Juhani Artto) The European trade union movement should have a European level collective bargaining strategy. This recent proposal was made by Lauri Ihalainen, President of SAK, the largest central trade union organisation in Finland. Ihalainen also presently leads the Council of Nordic Trade Unions. "The strategy would clarify the goals and division of labour in European level agreements made for individual industries and for several industries."

Ihalainen considers that national agreements will continue to have the main role in the immediate future, and that European bargaining will supplement national bargaining. However, he envisages that cross-border bargaining will undoubtedly increase. Progress will be made especially within multinational enterprises to unify the principles of their staff and salary policies. Common recommendations and positions by European level labour market organisations will also increase.

Helsinki (17.06.2002 - Juhani Artto) Thousands of Finnish nurses, midwives, physiotherapists and other health care professionals are currently working abroad. The Union of Health and Social Care Professionals - Tehy estimates that there are about 6,000 of these workers, which is a sizeable percentage of the total trained labour pool in the sector.

More than a third of these 6,000 work in Norway, slightly fewer in Sweden, and a growing number in the UK. Tehy information officer Katriina Vasama reports that the organisation’s rank and file are employed in some 140 countries.

Nobody knows the exact figures for Finnish health care professionals employed abroad. Even the present trends remain unknown, but Vasama believes that the number exercising this option is hardly decreasing.

Helsinki (10.06.2002 - Juhani Artto) People in Finland are keenly interested in any news about the possible cancer risks arising from the use of cellular telephones. The country’s high mobile phone density is not the only important factor explaining this interest. Nokia, the mobile phone world leader, has about 25,000 employees and its headquarters in Finland.

This enterprise plays a major positive role in the Finnish economy and in the lives of thousands of families and several municipalities.

This means that the Finns get alarmed whenever news breaks of a possible link between cellular phones and cancer or other illnesses. At the end April a group of Finnish researchers published a new study on this issue. No connection was found between mobile phone use and brain tumours or salivary gland cancers.

Helsinki (03.06.2002 - Juhani Artto) A new survey finds that as of March 2002 about 40,000 of the 1.1 million Estonians have worked in Finland. Half of these workers have experience of working illegally in the Finnish labour market. The survey was conducted by the Finland Gallup organisation and commissioned by the largest Finnish central trade union organisation - SAK.

Should Estonia become a Member State of the European Union, 48 per cent of Estonians are interested in working abroad. The most favoured host country would be Germany (17 per cent). Finland was nominated the most attractive foreign country to work in by 10 per cent of the Estonians. Sweden scored the number one position in 7 per cent of responses.