Archive

Tekijä (13.09.2023 - Heikki Jokinen) Since June, Finland has had a very right-wing government led by PM Petteri Orpo. It combines swinging the balance in the labour market in favour of employers and company owners with making life harder for immigrants.

As one of their most urgent tasks, the government plans to curb the right to strike this autumn. One plan is to limit the right to conduct political strikes. According to the Government Programme, this right shall be limited to one day.

The same urgency concerns union solidarity actions. These should be "proportionate in relation to the objectives" and "only affect the parties to the labour dispute". This would mean goodbye to solidarity actions for weaker unions in need.

Tekijä (13.09.2023 - Heikki Jokinen) The right to strike is one of the most crucial instruments in the trade union movement’s toolbox. It is the last resort for wage and salary earners should collective bargaining fail.

The Finnish constitution guarantees the freedom to organise in a trade union. The right to strike is also guaranteed under Finnish legislation.

A strike means employees temporarily stop work. It can be a total work stoppage or cover only some part of the work done in the company or in the branch. The union decides the form, length and coverage of the strike. A strike is always a collective measure, not individual.

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.

Helsinki (17.12.2022 - Heikki Jokinen) Since August 1997, Trade Union News from Finland has been publishing and distributing, in English, news concerning trade union work and working life in Finland. Now, unfortunately, this has come to an end: this is the last piece of news from us.

This news service is one of the oldest trade union news services on the web, and was started by journalist Juhani Artto. He continued this work until May 2013, when journalist Heikki Jokinen took it over. In 2023, he has to focus on other work and is no longer able to provide this service.

During the more than 25 years of activity, the number of news articles published has been about one thousand.

Helsinki (15.12.2022 - Heikki Jokinen) Unions belonging to SAK are intensifying their cooperation in the ongoing collective bargaining round. The reason behind this is the total logjam in private sector collective bargaining as the employers are unwilling to agree to anything before a deal in the technology industry is struck.

SAK, the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions says this also entails organisational cooperation, if necessary, to reach results in collective bargaining.

"The unions' boards decide on the practical actions, but the goal is to get a deal that gives a negotiating result comparable with the one reached in Germany for the industry". SAK President Jarkko Eloranta says.

Helsinki (09.12.2022 - Heikki Jokinen) Collective bargaining has come to a halt or been blocked almost everywhere. The reason for this is the ironclad mutual coordination now in place by private sector employers.

Paradoxically, employers have for a very long time been speaking out in favour of a decentralised collective bargaining system. Every branch should negotiate on the basis of the realities of that very branch, they say.

It is now clear that the employers are taking a very determined stance, probably more so than ever before, on collective bargaining, everywhere. As there has been, so far, no deal in the export industries, such as the metal or chemical industry, the leadership of the employers' associations seem to be unwilling to accept any deals at all.

Helsinki (28.11.2022 - Heikki Jokinen) Antti Palola, President of STTK, was elected to the Executive Bureau of the International Trade Union Confederation ITUC. He is the only member from the Nordic Countries on it.

The elections took place at the 5th ITUC World Congress in Melbourne, Australia. Palola was elected as one of the 34 Vice Presidents and also as one of the 25 members of the Executive Bureau.

The ITUC’s primary mission is to promote and defend workers' rights and interests, through international cooperation between trade unions, and by way of global campaigning and advocacy within major global institutions.