Archive

Murmansk (10.03.1999 - Juhani Artto) It is a mystery to many Finns that far to the north of the Arctic Circle there is a city of almost half a million people. For the Finns this means a fairly large city, as the population of Finland's capital Helsinki has only recently exceeded the half million mark.

Murmansk is by far the world's largest city to the north of the Arctic Circle. It is only 1,200 kilometres away the North Pole.

During the Soviet Era the existence of a large city far in the north was intelligible to foreigners as the federal government of this Superpower readily pumped money into its massive naval base in the neighbouring area of Severomorsk.

Nowadays, as the flow of federal cash has dried up and Russia's entire economy is in very poor shape, especially after the latest crisis cycle, the mystery of Murmansk is still more confusing than it was in earlier times.

Helsinki (24.02.1999 - Juhani Artto) A wide gulf exists between the social conditions of workers on either side of the Finnish-Russian border. The Finns enjoy the benefits of world-class enterprises while the Russians suffer from factory closures and other consequences of outmoded production facilities and the collapse of social structures.

The Finnish paperworkers are showing solidarity towards their Russian peers in this situation in many ways. While in earlier decades cross-border co-operation was mainly a matter of exchanging top-level delegations between Helsinki and Moscow, in the 1990s co-operation has taken another form.

This spring the Finns are showing their solidarity in a new way. The Paperworkers Union is financing and organising the distribution of basic foodstuffs to worker families in two towns, Läskelä and Suojärvi, where the forest industry factories closed down last year.

Helsinki (18.02.1999 - Juhani Artto) Kesko is Finland's largest importer of products from the developing countries, with annual imports for the Finnish market valued at more than a billion Finnish marks (FIM 1.00 = EUR 0.17 or USD 0.19). Kesko's third world product selection is a broad one, ranging from fruit to footwear, from tea to textiles and from toys to tools.

But are any of these imports produced by child labour? Kesko decided as long as nearly 20 years ago not to buy goods produced with the participation of child labour but what has the company done and what is it doing to ensure that this decision is honoured in practice?

Helsinki (09.02.1999 - Marjo Ollikainen**) In Daryl Taylor's schedule even finding a couple of hours for an interview isn't easy. This language teacher-translator is also chairperson of the Association for Foreigners in Finland, vice-chairperson of the Advisory Board for Ethnic Relations and vice-chairperson of the language teachers' section of Tekeri - the Union of Technical and Specialised Occupations.

At the end of last year Taylor was also asked to join the Executive Board of Tekeri, probably making him the first foreigner ever to serve on the Board of a Finnish trade union.

"Please don't ask!", he retorts when the conversation turns to his working hours. Even for family matters he ought to have more time.

It was 24 August 1986 when Daryl Taylor officially arrived in Finland to stay. He joined Tekeri the very next day.

Helsinki (02.02.1999 - Juhani Artto) National collective agreements form a central element of the Finnish labour market. There are about 600 of them. In the 1990s it has been fashionable in the employer camp to demand greater emphasis on local agreements. Often this demand has been an integral part of vocal campaigning for "greater flexibility".

The results of a new study on local agreements must therefore come as a surprise to many who have sympathised with the employers' lament. The study shows that Finnish legislation and national collective agreements offer a broader framework for local agreements than has so far been used.

"Opportunities for local agreement were expanded during the recession of the early 1990s. The frameworks created at that time have not proved to be too narrow", says Jyrki Helin, author of the study.

Helsinki (31.01.1999 - Juhani Artto) Both during and since the Soviet Era the world media have often focused their attention on Murmansk, a city of half a million residents in the north-western corner of Russia. In the West, the interest has mainly concentrated on military issues, as for decades Murmansk has been an important naval port. Factual and speculative reports about its nuclear facilities and risks are numerous.

Finnish construction workers and their union organisations have long been interested in Murmansk for quite different reasons. In the 1990s, hundreds of Finnish construction workers have been employed on construction projects in Murmansk. The Finns have erected office buildings and schools and have helped to modernise residential buildings.

Cross border co-operation between the construction worker trade unions of Murmansk and Northern Finland began in the 1960s. Up to the end of 1980s their main activity was an annual exchange of delegations for discussions, but in the early 1990s the parties agreed to change the character of their co-operation. They chose as the main areas union education and the concrete struggle for better working conditions in the construction industry.

Helsinki (29.01.1999 - Juhani Artto) Mid-December 1999 is the deadline for the fifteen Member States of the EU to harmonise their legislation with Directive 96/71/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services.

The initiative that led to the Directive was originally proposed in 1989 by EFBWW, the European Federation of Building and Wood Workers. In 1991 the European Commission published its first version of the Directive. This would have allowed workers sent by a company in a low-pay country to work in a high-pay country for three months at the wage levels of the low-pay country. Such social dumping was and remains unacceptable to the trade unions and would also question the rationale of the European internal market. In 1993 the Commission reduced the disputed time to one month.

After fierce lobbying by the trade union movement and by many employer organisations, the Directive finally approved does not envisage even a single day of work for low pay on the building sites of a high-pay country. In installation work the Directive permits eight days of work at the lower wages and salaries of the sender country.

Helsinki (11.01.1999 - Juhani Artto) Who's afraid of isocyanates? Hundreds of thousands of workers in Europe and elsewhere should be, warns the Finnish Metalworkers Union.

Isocyanates are a hidden danger. It may take several years until exposure leads to noticeable symptoms. Moreover regular measuring methods were unable for many years to give an accurate picture of the insidious isocyanate content of the working environment.

In 1996 Swedish researchers Marianne Dalene and Gunnar Skarping provided a new measuring method which could show isocyanate concentrations up to a hundred times higher than those shown by earlier methods.

Helsinki (14.12.1998 - Juhani Artto) Four service worker unions plan to merge in 2001. The letter of intent was signed in early December. With more than 200,000 members the new trade union will become the second largest in Finland. The Municipal Sector Trade Union has 228,000 members.

The merging unions are the Union of Commercial Employees (130,000 members), the Hotel and Restaurant Workers Union (51,000 members), the Union of Technical and Special Trades (10,000 members) and the Caretakers Union (13,000 members). More than 80 per cent of the members in the two larger unions are women.

Many factors favour the merger. It will improve organising and lobbying power and helps to build trade union unity, as the members of these unions partly work in the same places. Recently some of the parties were involved in a bitter dispute about which union should organise cleaning staff.

Helsinki (07.12.1998) In Finland a huge majority, i.e. 87 %, is of the opinion that difficulties in coping with workloads, and even burn out, currently constitute a major problem at work. Only 28 % think that productivity could be increased even further in order to be more competitive in the international market place.

These results were discovered during a survey on the present labour market climate, which was conducted by Finnish Gallup on behalf of SAK, the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions. During August and September, 1021 Finns over the age of 15 were interviewed. These interviewees were representative of the population of that age group throughout Finland, with the exception of the Åland Islands.

The problem of coping with workloads is particularly significant amongst the members of SAK, at 91 %, and amongst those of STTK, the Finnish Confederation of Salaried Employees, at 96 %. Excessively tight work schedules were mentioned by 84 % of the members of AKAVA, the Confederation of Unions for Academic Professionals in Finland. Women are more concerned with the complications resulting from workload difficulties and cases of burn out, 92 % of them seeing this as an issue, whilst 81 % of men have a similar view.