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Helsinki (11.08.2000 - Juhani Artto) At the end of June there were 326,000 unemployed job-seekers registered at employment offices in Finland. Despite rapid economic growth since 1994 the unemployment rate still exceeds ten per cent.

Recently the Ministry of Labour published a study estimating that society loses FIM 36 billion (EUR 1 = FIM 5.95) annually due to unemployment. This figure comprises public financial support to the unemployed and lost tax revenues.

In Spring 1995 the newly appointed government of Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen set itself the target of halving the unemployment rate. When the Lipponen government began its second term of office in Spring 1999 it still had a long way to go before reaching this objective. The number of unemployed workers must still be reduced by a further 100,000.

Helsinki (25.07.2000 - Juhani Artto) As the practice of competitive tendering for public services has increased, experience of its mixed results have made a large majority of Finns doubt the wisdom of such arrangements. According to a recent opinion poll, 84 per cent of the Finns think that competitive tendering goes too far when it reduced the pay of employees and undermines their job security. However one third of respondents felt that competitive tendering of public services was inevitable.

Another topic of concern is subcontracting. Almost one half of the Finns (49 per cent) regard increased subcontracting as a move in the wrong direction. Opinions are nevertheless divided, as 37 per cent are favourably disposed towards increased subcontracting. 52 per cent believe that subcontracting improves the proifitability of enterprises, but 67 per cent fear that it weakens the position of employees.

Helsinki (11.07.2000) Collective agreements signed this year awarded a 3.1 per cent pay rise to more than 90 per cent of Finland's 2.2 million wage and salary earners. A few industrial unions have also been able to squeeze slightly higher increases through strikes and strike threats and by accepting two and three year agreements instead of the one year agreements signed by others.

Finland's Labour Research Institute estimates that the increases based on the new collective agreements and sliding scales mean an average four per cent rise in wages and salaries. While this is above the EU average, it poses no threat to the competitiveness of Finnish industry which is exceptionally strong at the moment. The downward slide of the euro against the US dollar, the pound sterling and the Swedish crown is one of the factors underlying this strength.

In 1998-1999 Finnish wages and salaries increased at a rate which was clearly lower than the European Union average.

Helsinki (14.06.2000 - Juhani Artto) Last year multinationals based in Finland employed more than 200,000 people in other countries. This is about the same number of employees as the subsidiaries of foreign multinationals have in Finland and three times more than just five years ago.

The limits of this kind of globalisation, however, are still obvious as the figures represent less than ten per cent of the jobs in Finland.

It was not before the 1960s that the first Finnish enterprise seriously began to internationalise the geographical division of its production sites. The company concerned was Kone, a manufacture, developer and servicer of lifts and cranes. Today, 93 per cent of its total work force of 23,000 work outside of Finland.

(29.05.2000 - Juhani Artto) The proportion of working hours other than regular Monday to Friday day work increased clearly in Finland in the 1990s. This is shown by a 1997 study conducted by Statistics Finland.

Wage and salary earners working between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., or on Saturdays and Sundays at least once during the last four weeks.

According to the study, more than one fifth of wage and salary earners worked in shifts, men more than women and younger employees more than those over 45 years of age.

29 per cent of all employees were engaged in shift work or in other forms of work with unsociable hours.

(Durban 07.04.2000 - Juhani Artto) In the industrialised countries, statutory social security covers practically 100 per cent of the population. In sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, which together include almost one third of the world population, such coverage is estimated at five to ten per cent and falling. In other parts of the world the coverage lies somewhere between these two extremes and is mainly decreasing.

A recent report by the ILO indicated that half of the world's people are excluded from any type of statutory social security protection.

This is the social character of our world, where the number of people living on an income of less than one or two US dollars a day increased drastically in the 1990s.

At the same time the traditional third world extended family pattern of social protection is showing signs of rapid disintegration.

(Durban 07.04.2000 - Juhani Artto) The 17th ICFTU Congress ended today in Durban. The extensive preparations and a whole week's work by 1,200 delegates and others involved in the event produced a remarkable success for the international trade union movement. Social movements on all continents, focusing on a large variety of problems of working men and women, may well count on the ICFTU as a strong and constructive partner in the common struggle.

"At earlier Congresses the ICFTU used to be content to define the goals sought by the global trade union movement. This time we went further. The Congress launched a process which will make the entire ICFTU family a more effective tool in the hands of those whose share of the world's enormous wealth is not a fair one," commented Turo Bergman, Secretary for International Affairs at Finland's largest central trade union organisation, SAK.

(Durban 06.04.2000 - Juhani Artto) Like ICFTU, the ILO places a strong emphasis on core labour standards. This was felt strongly this week at the Durban International Convention Centre, where the 17^th ICFTU Congress is in progress.

Two years ago the ILO leadership established a new mechanism allowing the organisation to gather information in countries that have not ratified the ILO Conventions on fundamental labour rights. In March, the organisation published its first annual synthesis on the situation in countries that have ratified none of these eight Conventions.

"The report shows that our policy and the work of ICFTU have led to a series of important positive steps," says Kari Tapiola, who is Assistant General Secretary of the ILO and former Secretary for International Affairs at Finland's largest central trade union organisation, SAK.

"Information was received from 60 governments. 41 of these admitted their problems and expressed their willingness to work with the ILO to find solutions to them. This is a promising start to the new mechanism."

(Durban 06.04.2000 - Juhani Artto) ICFTU General Secretary Bill Jordan was asked in the pre-Congress on Sunday about his organisation's relationship with Chinese, Russian and Palestinian organisations and with the French federation CGT, which is known to be dominated by the French Communist Party.

Jordan told the journalists that the Russian federation FNPR is "in the process of applying for membership". At the Congress itself the FNPR delegation, headed by FNPR President Mikhail Shmakov, has observer status. The FNPR delegation spent part of the Congress week making observations in Cape Town.

Two other Russian organisations, the Russian Labour Confederation (KTR) and the All-Russia Confederation of Labour (VKT), also have observer status at the Congress. So do the Yugoslavian CATYU, the Ukrainian FTUU and several federations from other former socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

(Durban 05.04.2000 - Juhani Artto) ICFTU leaders and delegates at the 17th Congress are justifiably proud of the progress made over the last few years by trade union demands to condition international trade with core labour standards. Not long ago such demands had hardly any support outside of the trade union movement, and even the movement itself was split with a large number of third world unions labelling the demands as protectionist.

In Durban the ICFTU has found a single voice for the inclusion of core labour standards in world trade regulations.

At the December 1999 WTO Seattle negotiations, the European Union and the United States were already in favour of adopting core labour standards as part of the international trade regime. This is clearly a triumph for the international trade union movement.

The ICFTU is now ready to increase the pressure to get its demand implemented. Delegates at the 17th Congress are specifying the necessary control and other mechanisms needed to realise core labour standards in practice.