Metal hammers out incomes agreement - talks stalled on many sectors

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Negotiators of the Finnish Metalworkers' Union and Technology Industries of Finland hammered out an agreement on an incomes settlement for the sector on Tuesday. The council of the Metalworkers' Union approved the settlement at a meeting in the evening.
      The original deadline for the agreement was Sunday.
      The agreement affects about 120,000 employees of the metal industry, but at the same time progress was slow in many other sectors.
     
The stalemate in talks of the data communications sector eased somewhat on Tuesday when the employers' side agreed to resume talks on a contract for employees of bookkeeping offices.
      The Federation of Special Services and Clerical Employees (Erto) had cut off all talks because of the lack of a labour contract.
      On Tuesday, representatives of the employers' side were given the authority to negotiate a labour contract. However, Erto said that before it agrees to further negotiations, it needs to be sure that the contract will be accepted by the meeting of the employers' association.
     
Stalemates also emerged in the finance sector and the wood industry. Suora, the trade union representing employees in the finance and insurance sectors, and YTN, the association which negotiates contract terms for various white collar professions, cut off talks with employers in the banking sector.
      The disagreement focuses on planned reform in the pay system in the sector.
      Talks in the mechanical wood processing sector were interrupted once, but it was agreed in the evening that discussions would resume this morning.
      Several unions have accused the employers' side of trying to bring issus to the negotiating table in their talks with individual unions that had been cleared up during the broad-based incomes talks among the central labour market associations.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Incomes agreement to go now to individual sectors for approval (30.11.2004)

Helsingin Sanomat