The Labour Court ruled on Monday that the tasks the Frontier Guard had been allocating to non-union personnel at crossing points could not be labelled safety work. This means that inspections hitherto carried out by senior personnel will have to be scaled back still further.
The ongoing strike by members of the Finnish Border Guards' Union has already seriously hampered work at crossing points on the Finnish-Russian border.
The Labour Court ruling, which was welcomed by the employees' side, led to an announcement by the Frontier Guard that border inspections would be kept to a minimum, but that the borders would not be closed.
In conjunction with the Labour Court ruling, inspections are to be limited to non-EU citizens.
Talks to bring about a settlement to the week-long stoppage will continue today at the office of the National Conciliator Juhani Salonius. At the core of the disagreement between employees and the Frontier Guard General Staff is a dispute over a new pay system under which old seniority bonuses are to be replaced by a pay scale in which the demands of the task in question are the determining factor. The union believes this will cut salaries as exisiting bonuses are removed.
Unless a settlement is reached, the strike will continue until Saturday. A statement from the Border Guards' Union will be released in a few days on the scale of the second stage of the strike, should this be necessary.
The union side's mood has clearly not been improved by what it deems to be an attempt by the Frontier Guard to break a legal strike through violating rules on safety work.
