Protest strike hits port of Kotka

Employees object to job cuts and continued use of temporary workers

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Employees of the stevedoring company Steveco were on strike at the Port of Kotka on Finland's south coast on Thursday. Both stevedores and their supervisors walked off the job to protest plans to reduce personnel by the main stevedoring company at Finland's largest export harbour.
      The supervisors went back to work on Friday, while the stevedores are to stay off the job until Saturday afternoon.
      On Wednesday, after the completion of mandatory talks with personnel representatives, Steveco announced that it would cut 253 jobs at the seaports of Kotka and nearby Hamina. Most of the cuts will be covered by retirement arrangements, but 76 employees are to be let go.
      Head shop steward Juha Anttila feels that the job cuts are unfair, because as he sees it, the company keeps hiring new people every day.
     
Anttila refers to the approximately 50 stevedores who work on the docks on a temporary basis one day at a time.
      "Their jobs are always one day long."
      The union feels that the hiring of temporary workers, which was originally supposed to be a stopgap measure to deal with sudden backlogs, has become a permanent feature.
      Anttila does not feel that there is any shortage of work at the harbour, and warns that if the cutbacks are implemented, the remaining employees will have to do vast amounts of overtime. He also fears that work that is now done in Kotka could move to Helsinki or Hamina.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Fears of new industrial action at Finnish harbours (10.5.2005)
  Local strikes by stevedores stop work at most Finnish harbours (15.4.2005)

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