Archive

Helsinki (29.01.2001 - Juhani Artto) Several recent studies, opinion polls and updated statistics indicate that Finnish working life is changing in a paradoxical manner.

The good news is that employment has risen and there has been a slow but steady decline in the number of those out of work. At the end of December, according to Statistics Finland, there were 33,000 more people at work than a year earlier. The employment rate is edging closer to the 70 per cent target of Prime Minister Lipponen's cabinet and now stands at 66.4 per cent, compared with 65.6 per cent one year ago. Over the same period the number of those unemployed dropped from 229,000 to 210,000*.

Helsinki (19.01.2001 - Juhani Artto) In a recent statement the three Finnish central trade union organisations - SAK, STTK and Akava - express their support for European Union enlargement to the East, but their basically positive stance includes several important conditional remarks.

While the enhancement of EU decision-making structures has improved conditions for enlargement, this work was not completed at the ministerial meeting in Nice. The charter that was approved will play an important role in defining European values and principles and the three trade union organisations insist that it must be made legally binding.

Helsinki (10.01.2001 - Juhani Artto) The largest central trade union organisation in Finland SAK, represents the interests of almost 1.1 million members of its 26 affiliated unions. One of the burning questions for the future of SAK is how the ageing of this rank and file membership will affect the organisation's position. Will it be able in the future to maintain a high organising rate in its various fields of operation?

A survey published in December indicates that more than half of the members of SAK affiliated unions in 1998 are due to retire from working life before 2010. An even quicker rate of retirement applies to their 30,000 to 40,000 shop stewards. Up to 25,000 of these key activists will retire before 2010. This means that local union branches will have to recruit and train some 2,500 new shop stewards every year. This is a huge challenge, since the ever-increasing demands involved in serving as a shop steward discourage interested activists from standing for the post.

More than half of the approximately 3,000 full-time trade union officials in the SAK sector will retire before 2008.

Helsinki (01.12.2000 - Juhani Artto) The trade union movement is demanding reduced working hours in the newly opened round of collective bargaining. Aside from this, the road transport sector has special problems in working hours. All recent studies demonstrate that the working hours of professional drivers in Finland, as in other countries, far exceed healthy limits. This poses risks both to the drivers' health and to road safety.

According to a 1999 inquiry by the Finnish Transport Workers Union – AKT, almost 20 per cent of lorry drivers regularly work more than 60 hours per week, and a few even exceed 80 hours.

A thesis by Helinä Häkkänen, published last Spring, provides strong evidence of the risks caused by long working hours. About 20 per cent of professional drivers admit that they "nod off" every now and then when driving. Over a period of three months half had experienced "near-accident" situations.

Helsinki (23.11.2000 - Juhani Artto) Exceptionally thorough preparations have preceded the merger of four service industry unions on 28–29 November in Helsinki. Work for the merger began as long ago as 1994.

The new service industry union PAM will have over 200,000 members. The national organisations due to merge are the Union of Commercial Workers (129,700 members), the Hotel and Restaurant Workers Union (48,000), the Caretakers Union (13,400) and the Technical and Special Trades Union (10,400). A total of 260 employees will work in PAM's headquarters and in its 19 regional offices. 90 of these will serve the various regions, 70 will work in the union's unemployment fund and the remaining 100 will be based in its Helsinki headquarters.

St. Petersburg (18.11.2000 - Juhani Artto) The Vena Brewery is one of St. Petersburg's scarce foreign-owned production facilities. A two-thirds interest in this 450-employee enterprise is owned by the Denmark-based global concern Carlsberg, while one-third is owned by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Carlsberg recently became Vena's majority shareholder by acquiring Sinebrychoff, a company with a long history of brewing in Finland.

Since 1994 Vena has invested almost USD 100 million in increased production capacity to respond to the rapidly expanding Russian beer market. In the middle of this heavy investment programme Russia's August 1998 economic slump took this profitable enterprise into the red. Despite this setback, its Executive Director Sergei Khudoleev is cautiously optimistic of restored profitability in 2001.

St. Petersburg (18.11.2000 - Juhani Artto) In St. Petersburg and the surrounding Leningrad oblast the foreign direct investment is up. Last year's figures were much above the 1998 level and in September this year the 1999 figures were already surpassed. In nine months the 4,7 million inhabitant St. Petersburg received 700 million USD foreign investments and the 1,8 million inhabitant Leningrad oblast almost 400 million USD.

Another positive sign is the St. Petersburg balanced budget in two consecutive years and the 2001 draft showing an almost 40 million USD surplus. The incomes are estimated to rise to 1,48 billion USD.

In St. Petersburg the production and average incomes are rising.

Helsinki (10.11.2000 - Juhani Artto) Archbishop Jukka Paarma and SAK President Lauri Ihalainen have made a historic appeal to policymakers and all influential people in Finland. They are calling for Finland to increase its development co-operation expenditure to 0.7 per cent of GNP, in line with UN recommendations.

Archbishop Paarma is the leader of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Finland. Some 85 per cent of Finland's population belong to this denomination. With member organisations representing 1.1 million workers SAK, led by Mr. Ihalainen, is the largest trade union confederation in Finland.

Although Finland achieved the 0.7 per cent level in 1991, development co-operation aid suffered worse than any other item in the Finnish State budget during the recession of the early 1990s. The level of aid slumped to well below 0.4 per cent of GNP. Since then the nominal sum has risen, but the proportion has stayed at around 0.34 per cent. In its draft budget for 2001 the government has even reduced this still further to 0,335 per cent, despite the fact that this is already the seventh consecutive year of sustained economic growth.

(08.10.2000 - Daryl Taylor**) It has been observed that Finland is the Promised Land of associations. If you put twelve Finns in a church boat and tell them to row from Lahti to Jyväskylä, they will quickly form at least three associations: those favouring a route near to the eastern shore of the lake, those preferring the western shore, and those insisting that the best policy is to row straight down the middle. They will then select representatives to negotiate a settlement respecting one fundamental fact: everyone must row with maximum enthusiasm and in the same direction.

This story at least partly explains why the level of trade union membership in Finland is so extraordinarily high. Some 85 per cent of all employees belong to a trade union and in some occupations the organising rate is very nearly 100 per cent. Irrespective of individual political and other conviction, very many Finns feel that joining a union is the natural and obvious thing to do.

The logic of the trade union movement is a simple one and is the same everywhere. The main role of a union is to defend the interests of the employee, who is the weaker party in an employment contract. For most employees the labour market is generally a buyer's market.

Helsinki (21.09.2000 - Juhani Artto) In a seminar held in the Finnish south coast town of Porvoo at the end of August the Nordic graphical workers union umbrella NGU sought answers to the question "Nordic female energy - how do we utilise it?" At the beginning of the seminar representatives of the five Nordic countries and the NGU chairman, Finn Erik Thoresen from Norway, explained to the Finnish union magazine Kirjatyö how they view the present role of women in the labour market and in trade union organisations.

Thoresen and Malte Eriksson, who chairs the Swedish Grafiska Fackförbundet organisation, participated in the events of the first day of the two day seminar. "This is the first time that the NGU gentlemen have been involved in the women's meeting. It's a good sign", commented Irene Hämäläinen from Finland. Irene Hämäläinen is the Director of the Finnish union's unemployment fund and is one of its leading women.