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Trade Union News from Finland

Helsinki (29.04.2022 - Heikki Jokinen) The 112 day long strike at paper giant UPM paper and pulp mills has finally ended. Paper began to roll out of the mills again this week.

The parties signed five separate collective agreements for various UPM business sectors. All of these are valid from 22.4.2022 until 21.4.2026. The pay rise follows the general line, the Paper Workers’ Union say, without indicating the exact figures.

Thus far, the collective agreements made in Finland have brought about a 1.9 - 2.0 cent pay rise for this year. The pay rise at UPM has now been agreed for two years and the remaining two years of the agreement will be negotiated later.

Helsinki (13.04.2022 - Heikki Jokinen) When a union declares a strike, it pays strike pay to its members. Without this benefit and a big enough industrial action fund the union is toothless in its efforts to improve the terms of work.

The amount of strike pay varies, as every union decides this by themselves. But, this year we have seen a clear rise in the level of strike pay. This indicates that the unions are very serious about reaching their goals and are prepared to pay for it.

According to Finnish legislation, 16 euro per day of the strike pay is tax-free. For the rest, there is a flat tax rate of 45 per cent. However, in the final taxation assessment this will be balanced out to be in line with the percentage according to the full-year earned income.

Helsinki (08.04.2022 - Heikki Jokinen) Short strikes are on the increase in the public municipal services sector. Negotiations to reach collective agreements for the municipal sector have failed as of yet. The agreements cover some 425,000 local government employees.

JHL, the Trade Union for the Public and Welfare Sectors had already earlier instituted overtime and shift swap bans. At the beginning of April, it declared a two-day municipal service strike in six selected cities like Tampere and Oulu.

Should negotiations not yield a result, JHL, JUKO and Jyty unions will start on 19 April a seven-day strike in the Helsinki metropolitan area, covering Helsinki, Vantaa, Espoo and Kauniainen.

Helsinki (29.03.2022 - Heikki Jokinen) A major strike of 25,000 nurses is beginning on 1 April, unless a last-minute agreement can be reached.

Tehy - The Union of Health and Social Care Professionals in Finland and Super - the Finnish Union of Practical Nurses, are concerned about the urgent need to do something about the shortage of social and health care professionals.

To this end, the unions have proposed there should be an extra 3.6 per cent increase over the next 5 years on top of the standard pay increase. This would be separate from the branch collective agreements and financed directly by the state, the unions say.

  1. Industrial Union to support paper workers' strike at UPM to the tune of 2.2 million euro
  2. UPM frames paper mill strike as a force majeure
  3. Tehy and Super issue a five-year rescue programme for social and health care
  4. European printing industry appeals to UPM to settle the strike quickly
  5. UPM finally to sit down at the negotiation table, perhaps
  6. New collective agreement for the commerce sector gives similar pay rise as the other pay deals this year
  7. UPM’s refusal to engage in collective bargaining means losses in profit of up to 20 million euro a week
  8. Employment rate clearly up in one year
  9. Ideology takes upper hand in UMP labour market policy
  10. New collective agreements for salaried employees in the technology industry