Office workers at UPM begin two-week strike
Production could start shutting down within days
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More than 1,000 office employees of the paper manufacturer UPM, who are affiliated with the Pro white collar labour union, began a two-week strike on Wednesday morning.
UPM fears that the action will cost the company millions of euros.
“It is most likely that paper factories will have to be closed down already within a few days”, says Jyrki Ovaska, President of UPM’s Paper Business Group.
When office workers are on strike, the handling of orders and planning of logistics shuts down, leading eventually to a need to shut down paper production.
The biggest impact will be on UPM’s Tampere service centre, which houses activities such as the planning of production.
The strike will also force the closure of UPM’s power plants.
The disagreement between the union side and the Finnish Forest Industries Federation is a deep one. Even the sides to the dispute do not know exactly how far apart they are, because they are not even in agreement on what the main points of disagreement are.
Pro chairman Antti Rinne says that their pay demands are a hike of EUR 48 a month, or at least 2,5 per cent, but Jari Forss, deputy managing director of the Forest industries Federation calculates that the union demand would lead to a pay hike of 3.5 per cent.
Negotiations broke down over the issue of how the portion of the pay hikes that is to be implemented at the individual corporate level is to be distributed in situations in which there is disagreement.
After this, Pro raised the issue of renewing the pay system.
Forss says that it is amazing that a proposal on such a sweeping change should be brought to the table at the mediation stage. Rinne says that many promises for a new payment system have been made since 2005. “Now it will be a fight to the finish.”
The Forest Industries Federation says that the demands for pay increases are excessive, and that the strike hurts the credibility of the Finnish forest industry.
“We will have to consider whether or not there is reason to move activities to countries that are not as prone to strikes”, UPM’s Jyrki Ovaska says.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 6.4.2011 - TODAY |
 Office workers at UPM begin two-week strike |
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