Strike to close slopes at five ski resorts

Alpine skiing World Cup event in Levi in jeopardy

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Five ski resorts around Finland - Levi, Pyhätunturi, Ruka, Tahko, and Vuokatti - will be hit by a two-day strike starting this afternoon.
      National Conciliator Esa Lonka was unable to offer a mediation agreement in the dispute affecting about 1,000 ski centre employees, which means that the strike, called by the Service Union United (PAM), will take place as planned.
      The old labour contract expired at the end of September.
     
The management side offered ski centre employees a pay hike of 0.5 per cent from the beginning of November, as well as a bonus to be paid at the end of the skiing season, which would depend on how successful the season proved to be.
      The offer was not good enough for PAM, which called for an increase which would be “significantly more than 0.5 per cent”. The union’s original demand was about three per cent.
     
The strike, which begins on Wednesday at 14:00, will close all ski slopes and equipment rental locations. There will also be no production of artificial snow.
      The strike ends early on Friday morning, but Jouni Palosaari, managing director of the Levi Ski Resort, is more concerned about the threat of wider industrial action on Friday, November 13th, if no settlement is reached before that.
      If implemented, this second stoppage would force the cancellation of a FIS Alpine skiing World Cup event scheduled for that weekend in Levi.
      “The stakes are too high”, Palosaari says.
     
The cancellation of the World Cup event would bring direct losses of about a million euros, Palosaari calculates. However, it would have an even greater knock-on effect on the whole area.
      The last time that the World Cup skiers came to Finland, local business turnover got a boost of of between EUR 7.5 and 9.5 million.
      Two years ago the FIS World Cup slalom races in Levi were cancelled due to a shortage of snow, as the early Finnish winter refused to oblige.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Levi World Cup slalom races cancelled: millions in losses anticipated for local entrepreneurs (5.11.2007)

Links:
  Service Union United (PAM)
  Levi

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