Central organisations called in to break harbour strike deadlock

Negotiations aimed at ending the ongoing strike by stevedores at Finnish harbours continued on Tuesday, and were suspended in the evening.
      The talks resumed today, Wednesday, at noon, with representatives of the Confederation of Finnish Industry (EK) and the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK) joining efforts to resolve the dispute.
      The biggest bone of contention, that of severance terms, was postponed until later in Tuesday’s talks, where the focus was on smaller points of disagreement.
     
In a newspaper interview on Tuesday, Timo Räty, the President of the Finnish Transport Workers Union (AKT), said that his union’s strikes have never been settled without the involvement of EK and the companies involved.
      In the talks, the management is represented by the Finnish Port Operators Association, in which the country’s largest port operator, Steveco, largely calls the shots. Steveco’s CEO Kari Savolainen is the chairman of the board of the Port operators Association.
      He says that the organisation has proposed that under the poor economic situation, with a little light at the end of the tunnel, the focus should not be on how to interpret the language of the contract. Instead, he says that if there are differences on the interpretation of severance terms, they can be sorted out by the Labour Court.
     
Over the years, central organisations of the labour market have been brought in to break deadlocks at the individual union level.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Harbour strike shuts down most of Finnish forest industry output (15.3.2010)
  Stevedoring strike´s ripple effects already seen in pay-packets of paper industry workers (11.3.2010)
  Tempers flare over harbour strike (5.3.2010)

Links:
  Finnish Port Operators Association
  Finnish Transport Workers Union (AKT)
  Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK)
  Confederation of Finnish Industry (EK)