FINNISH transport workers and employers’ representatives yesterday [SUN 2 April] reconvened talks aimed at ending a five-day strike that has brought the country’s ports to a standstill.
The state-sponsored negotiations followed what were officially described as “business-like” contacts between the two sides, raising hopes of an end to the deadlock in the current pay round.
Hannu Parvela, managing director of the country’s road transport employers’ association, commented:“I cannot say whether I am optimistic or not that we will find a solution, but we will try.”
Transport union AKT is not specifying exactly how much it is seeking, and is instead asking for pay rises in line with other sectors of the economy, plus an additional amount to compensate for wage drift.
Employers put the cost of the package at 7%, at a time when inflation is 2.7% and the average pay settlement 3.2%.
Earlier in the week, employers’ representatives threw out a government-backed compromise plan as too costly.
Around 10,000 truckers and bus drivers, along with workers at transport terminals, stopped work on Wednesday in a bid to enforce union demands. Their industrial action was backed by dockers, seafarers and specialist drivers of chemical carrying lorries, halting daily port trade worth about 1.2bn markka ($193m) almost entirely.
Only privately-owned terminals remained unaffected.
Previous stoppages by AKT have been known to last up to four weeks. According to the Confederation of Finnish Industry and Employers, some three quarters of the country’s imports and exports are shipped via ports. The strike is also thought likely to be stopping over 90% of goods transport by road, which would hit trade to the tune of 150m markka a day.
The growing impact of the dispute has seen the closure of many plants, creating a massive backlog of products awaiting shipment.
Stora Enso, one of Europe’s leading papermakers, announced on Saturday that the action had forced it to shut the largest machine at its Anjalankoski paper mill, with the other two machines due to close on Sunday.
“We are afraid that the most important factories at Stora Enso will go down by the end of next week,” said the company’s vice president Matti Kostet. Finnish forest industry products account for around 40% of exports through ports. The industry produced 13m tonnes of paper and board last year, and exported about 90%, making it the world’s second largest exporter behind Canada.
Almost 80% of Finnish forest industry exports go to other European countries, with Germany taking almost 20%, Britain 16% and France 7%.
Metals and mining group Outokumpu admitted on Friday that the strike had slowed down its shipment of metals from Finnish plants.
A spokeswoman for the International Transport Workers’ Federation said that the stoppage had the full backing of the worldwide union grouping. Meanwhile, Finland’s powerful paperworkers union has issued notice of a strike from April 11, while power plant foremen are due to strike from April 6.
