Archive

Helsinki (19.02.2003 - Juhani Artto) Despite the massive human and material investments in occupational safety and health made in the 1990s, there has been no decisive improvement in occupational safety. This conclusion may be drawn from statistics for the period 1992-2000 shown below:

Table 1. Compensated industrial accidents
   and occupational diseases, 1992-2000  

Helsinki (08.02.2003 - Juhani Artto) In late January some 60 representatives of trade unions and NGOs gathered at the Parliament of Finland. They were there to voice their demands, proposals and questions about the international service trade negotiations that seek to reform the global service trade rules expressed in the 1995 General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).

Minister for Foreign Trade Jari Vilén, the Members of Parliament responsible for monitoring GATS issues, and civil servants specialising in trade questions were all present to outline recent developments in the negotiations and to respond to the questions posed by the activists.

Less than a year ago barely anybody could have envisioned such a meeting taking place so soon. Only a handful of experts and activists in trade unions and NGOs had any better knowledge of the many and complex issues of the GATS arrangement. Since then several public sector unions and NGOs have worked actively on GATS. This activity has included studying, educating, publishing and lobbying.

Helsinki (05.02.2003 - Juhani Artto) The Wood and Allied Workers’ Union is threatening a strike in the mechanical forest and carpentry industry. Industrial action of 10,500 workers will begin 24 February if the current round of negotiations for a collective agreement fail. When announcing the strike threat the union also declared an overtime ban in the industry with immediate effect.

About 18,000 workers in the mechanical forest industry and 12,000 in the carpentry industry are organised in the Wood and Allied Workers' Union.

Helsinki (01.02.2003 - Juhani Artto) The Belorussian journalist Aliaksandr Starykevich visited Helsinki in January, just a few months after his previous visit. Developing co-operation with the Finnish trade union movement has been high on the agenda of these visits. In his home country of Belarus the independent, democratic trade union movement faces a difficult situation that deserves urgent and effective international solidarity.

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko governs this country of ten million people in the style of a dictator, with elections serving merely as a smoke screen barely concealing the undemocratic reality. Aliaksandr Starykevich himself has been one of the victims of Lukashenko's rule. The opposition candidate in the 2001 presidential election was Vladimir Gontsharik, who at that time led the major union federation FTUB (FPB in Belorussian).

An Indian journalist approached me as the publisher of Trade Union News from Finland inquiring about job opportunities for migrant journalists writing in English. As Daryl Taylor with whom I co-operate in producing Trade Union News from Finland is very active with immigrants in Finland, I asked him to reply to the journalist. Here are some excerpts from Daryl's reply. - Juhani Artto 

Helsinki (30.01.2003 - Daryl Taylor) On a brief perusal of your letter and CV I got the feeling that you aren't likely to find much work in Finland. There are only just over 7,000 native speakers of English here, and the home market for English language media as such is otherwise fairly marginal. Some of the mainstream media run English language services on a small scale, but I don't get the feeling that it's much of an industry financially speaking.

Trade Union News from Finland (19.01.2003 - Erkki Laukkanen*) The Finnish State Auditors’ report on State finances in 2001, published in late November 2002, includes an estimate that about EUR 5 billion circulates annually in the grey economy in Finland. The corresponding loss in tax revenues is approximately EUR 2.5 billion. This makes the grey economy a significant threat to the welfare state.

SAK favours more effective measures to combat the grey economy in order to reduce these losses. This requires more human and other resources to be allocated in the State budget to the fight against the grey economy and economic crime. Both domestic and foreign experience indicates that the rewards to be gained from investing in measures to combat the grey economy exceed the costs of so doing many times over.

Helsinki (10.01.2003 - Daryl Taylor) With particular reference to the situation of migrant workers, SAK is proposing that trade unions should have locus standi to defend employees whose rights have been infringed. A parallel proposal has also recently been debated in ethnic relations, whereby organisations would be entitled to file and pursue legal claims on behalf of the victims of ethnic discrimination. The main argument for these proposals is that the situation of the victim may, for practical or psychological reasons, be so disadvantaged that the victim is either unable or unwilling to initiate and carry through a difficult legal process.

The SAK proposal involves a significant shift in current procedures for settling legal issues arising from employment in Finland. These issues divide into questions of public and private law. On the one hand, employers are criminally liable for certain aspects of employment. The State authorities can prosecute an employer for defaulting on such liabilities, whether or not any worker was injured by the default, and even if the employees concerned oppose the prosecution.

Helsinki (10.01.2003 - Juhani Artto) In the praxis of the Finnish political system post-election government program negotiations play an exceptionally significant role. This is because of the peculiar character of the Finnish political scene. About ten political parties share the 200 seats in Parliament, with none of them anywhere near to holding an absolute majority. The only way to establish a stable majority government is thus for coalition partners controlling a secure parliamentary majority to agree upon an extensive and detailed government program for the entire four-year electoral period.

After the government program has been approved and the cabinet appointed, the partners must then focus on implementing the programme rather than engaging in party politics that run beyond the limits of this programme or contradict it.

This system has operated with complete consistency since 1983. The present government of Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen is the fifth consecutive government to function for the entire four-year term. (1)

Helsinki (05.12.2002 - Tiina Ritala) What can a Western consumer do if a worker at a Vietnamese shoe factory has to sniff chemicals for 15 hours a day? Not much, but importers and buyers working in enterprise purchasing departments can influence such matters. This is one of the main conclusions of a reportage book published in Finland in November and written by the Finnish freelance journalist Elina Grundstöm.

Winter is a quiet period at the Vietnamese shoe factory. This Taiwanese owned facility in Ho Chi Minh City employs over 2,000 people. Its entire output is exported. In Finland the shoes are sold by retail outlets such as those supplied by Kesko, the country’s leading marketing and logistics company.

In Winter Hoa, 19, and Huong, 32, work about 48 hours a week, which is within the legal limits. They then earn EUR 38 to 45 a month. But from June to September the women spend daily about 15 hours in the factory. This means months with an average week of more than 70 working hours.

- speech by SAK President Lauri Ihalainen at an Executive Board meeting of the Council of Nordic Trade Unions, 2 December 2002, Helsinki

Helsinki (02.12.2002 – Juhani Artto) Nordic co-operation has long traditions. Existing co-operation structures, wide-ranging skills and a Nordic culture emphasising negotiation and agreement are assets worth defending. At their best, these ensure economic growth, security and solidarity. Such a social environment is a great competitive asset.

In a globalising world, however, the Nordic countries depend increasingly on development elsewhere. The current round of EU enlargement will have a significant impact on development in the Nordic countries and the entire Baltic Sea region.