COMMENTARY: Ruthless power

By Anna-Stina Nykänen
     
      The closure of the Voikkaa paper mill should not affect me in any way. Nevertheless, it upsets me. There is something so ruthless about it. UPM, a company that is making profit, threatens to sack thousands of employees - more than ever before in Finland. What is the crisis that we are supposedly living in now?
      It seems that in recent years, there have been some historically bad decisions made.
      And who have made those decisions? Men my age, in their forties.
      UPM's CEO Jussi Pesonen is only a little bit older than I am. Sonera's former boss Kaj-Erik Relander studied at the same time that I did.
      The most blatant, audacious, and arrogant ones are exactly my age. Can this be true?
     
On the bus I overheard an older man talking with the driver, reminiscing about the reconstruction of Finland after the war. Even corporate directors appreciated their workers back then. Everyone was working at the same great task.
      "These forty-year-olds have decided to tear everything into money", the man said.
      My generation cares the least about anything.
      After the war, people thought about all of Finland. In the 1970s, there was a change of direction, and people started thinking about the whole world - or at least the Soviet Union, Latin America, and the Third World.
      But when my generation began studies in the 1980s, we only thought about ourselves. No standing in a united front for us.
      We lived through the yuppie years, and the recession years. We enjoyed ourselves, and suffered on our own, with our own money, without a sense of common responsibility, or strength in numbers. Bosses that are now my age take pride in their solitude.
      "One must not adapt too much", has been the basic advice offered by UPM's Pesonen. He boasts that the company has sent him wherever it likes, and he has gladly gone.
      Well, why not? After all, Pesonen always has Pesonen.
     
Do I imagine that younger bosses would be better people?Certainly not. But they have grown up in a different world.
      People around them are feeling global responsibility again. Fair trade bananas are consumed. People take part in boycotts. Opinions of others need to be taken seriously.
      When men my age began their engineering studies, they laughed at the idea of recycling paper. They would wipe their bottoms with the ordinary stuff, and the bosses of the paper industry did not want any new ideas. If they tried something in Germany, it was different, far away from us.
      Now we can no longer be obstinate. Consumer campaigns are global. If a reputation is lost, the immediate reaction can be very big. The threats are global.
      What threats did my generation feel? None at all.
     
People in their forties grew up in a safe place. The war was in the distant past. Now boys are being trained with weapons in their hands for front lines around the world.
      It used to be that we could mouth off freely. The worst fear - and worship - of the Soviet Union was a thing of the past. There were no immigrants in Finnish schools. Religions were not in fashion.
      Younger people know that they live in a very explosive time. A cartoon in an insignificant village causes a riot on the other side of the world. They have learned to close their mouths. They are more politically correct.
      As the forty-somethings were starting out on their careers, the welfare state was at its peak. Nobody longed for tough corporate bosses. Traditional masculinity not fashionable: forget honour and responsibility. You can go back on your word the very second that someone pays enough to make it worth your while.
      UPM gave Pesonen a 60 percent pay hike, and with that money, it was easy to push the less important people to the side.
      What is unpleasant is that the "market" loves brutality. The more cruel the measures, the more share prices go up. How high would share prices go if workers were beaten with baseball bats?
     
People in their forties are causing plenty of damage, and the younger ones will not save us. Corporate ethics protect flying squirrels better than people. Indigenous peoples in South America are more unique than the villagers in Voikkaa who have grown attached to their factory.
      The young feel that it's OK.
      It can also be that men my age are no more cruel than others. They have simply taken power.
      And the ruthless get there first.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 17.3.2006 in the Friday Nyt supplement


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Labour Minister Filatov wants companies to share human cost of downsizing (21.3.2006)
  UPM´s Jussi Pesonen´s earnings rose massively last year (14.3.2006)
  Paper mill closure major blow to Kuusankoski (10.3.2006)
  State representatives to discuss job cuts with UPM management (10.3.2006)
  Paper manufacturer UPM cutting thousands of jobs in Finland (9.3.2006)