Trade Union News from Finland
Tekijä (16.08.2023 - Heikki Jokinen) Solidarity is an important part of the trade union movement DNA. Not only for members in their own countries, but also for the poor and exploited people throughout the world.
Trade union activity can be dangerous. According to the global trade union movement organisation ITUC, union activists were murdered in 13 countries in 2022. All kinds of harassment is commonplace, too, like battery, arrest and baseless dismissal.
The Industrial Union supports many trade union and working life projects around the world. These are financed from the Union budget.
Tekijä (16.08.2023 - Heikki Jokinen) Do the union development projects have real, concrete results? Are they really improving working peoples' life?
The answer is yes. In March, three Finnish researchers published a three-year study of the Trade Union Solidarity Centre of Finland SASK project in Mozambique. SASK supported five local trade unions to organise training for employees and their representatives. These unions also covered the industry work.
The researchers compared working places where the training was given with those without it. The results of the study were clear. Even short two days training did help to improve terms of work.
Tekijä (13.04.2023 - Heikki Jokinen) More than 53,000 members voted in the Industrial Union elections. They elected 442 delegates to represent members at the Industrial Union congress in Tampere in May 2023.
This makes the voter turnout 43.2 per cent, which is a good result in union elections. Especially as these were the first union elections for the Industrial Union, there are tens of thousands of new members since the last elections, the Union President Riku Aalto stresses.
The First Vice President Turja Lehtonen points out that employers closely follow voters’ activity. This voter turnout underlines the strong justification for representing members and for collective bargaining, Lehtonen says.
Yhteistyön Tekijät, the alliance of Social Democrats and non-aligned, got 64.2 per cent of the votes. Teollisuuden Vaikuttajat, the alliance of Left Alliance and non-aligned, share of the votes was 35.7 cent. The rest, 0.1 per cent, went to the alliance of the Centre Party and non-aligned.
Tekijä (13.04.2023 - Heikki Jokinen) In the parliamentary elections 2 April, two MPs with a background in the Industrial Union were elected in the Finnish Parliament: Social Democrats Niina Malm from Imatra and Timo Suhonen from Varkaus.
In her election campaign, Niina Malm focused on working life issues, and in her interview with this magazine she thinks that these are important for voters. She was re-elected and garnered 8 180 votes, the second highest in her electoral district Southeast Finland.
Malm became involved in politics in 2008 as she was in three-shift work at the steel factory and, as the mother of small children, faced the problems to balance work and family life.
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