Facebook used to recruit strikebreakers in harbour strike

Scuffles break out in Kotka

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A wary atmosphere prevailed at the office of the harbour operator Multi Link terminals at the Vuosaari harbour in Helsinki on Wednesday evening.
      About 15 men gathered there following an appeal on Facebook. The aim is to start working at the port if the strike by stevedores continues.
      Harri Nordström, one of the owners of Multi-Link, tells the group that they are making history.
      “For the first time ever, Facebook has been used for this kind of thing. Remember, only the workers are on strike, not the work”, Nordström says.
     
Also present are three young entrepreneurs who established a Facebook group called “I am a volunteer stevedore in the AKT harbour strike”.
      About 2,500 members have joined the group on the social networking website in the past week. Aki Kakko, Juha Viitala, and Jari Ollila did not want to stand on the sidelines when the stevedores’ strike was on the horizon.
      “I felt anger at the unreasonable strike. It felt incomprehensible that a small group could bring the export industry and society to its knees”, Viitala says.
     
Multi-Link has already recruited more than ten employees for training at the harbours of Loviisa and Kotka.
      The Vuosaari group gets a couple of hours of training in an office, after which they are taken on a small tour of the harbour area.
     
“When I heard about the group I thought immediately that I want to join. Members of the union want to be on strike, but those who are not can work”, said a former, and possibly future stevedore who asked to remain anonymous.
     
Some of those who showed up have had experience in the field, but most have not. Some are students, while others have other jobs.
     
The prospect of having their strike undermined by non-union employees has enraged the strikers. On Wednesday, SMS messages circulated around Kotka calling on strikers to a protest Thursday morning at the city’s Mussalo Harbour.
      A scuffle broke out at the harbour at 8:00 in the morning as about 100 strikers tried to prevent the recruits from starting work. Police were called in to keep the groups apart.
      About 20 people came to the harbour on Thursday, working to clear the backlog of about 1,000 containers.
     
Efforts to negotiate an end to the two-week old strike resumed on Thursday morning.
      In addition to representatives of the Finnish Transport Workers Union (AKT) and the Finnish Port Operators Association, the talks at the office of the National conciliator are being joined by Confederation of Finnish Industry (EK) director Eeva-Liisa Inkeroinen and Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK) President Lauri Lyly.
      The main sticking points in the dispute involve job security, working hour arrangements, and rules concerning subcontracting.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Central organisations called in to break harbour strike deadlock (17.3.2010)
  Harbour strike forces UPM to shut down three paper mills (9.3.2010)
  Harbour strike forces UPM to shut down three paper mills (9.3.2010)

Links:
  Finnish Port Operators Association
  Finnish Transport Workers Union (AKT)

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