Transport strike over - normal traffic expected by Wednesday

Talks over incomes agreement resume

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A settlement was reached on Sunday evening bringing an end to a strike by drivers of the Concordia and Connex bus companies in the Helsinki area, as well as related solidarity strikes called by the Finnish Transport Workers’ Union (AKT). Other stoppages planned for Finnish rail services and airport ground services were cancelled.
      The settlement was reached after the employers’ side dropped its refusal to negotiate in what it saw as illegal industrial action. The union side accepted the employers’ offer on the issue of part-time drivers.
     
"The settlement blocks the expansion of the use of part time workers. It also contains the provision that part-time workers should be offered full-time employment", said Transport Workers’ Union chairman Timo Räty when he announced that a settlement had been reached.
      The two sides agreed to set up a working group to further iron out the disagreements related to part-time drivers.
      In the Helsinki region bus lines affected by the strike are expected to be running normally by Wednesday. Bus companies in other parts of the country, which were affected by support strikes, should be operating normally already on Monday, and the Port of Helsinki, whose cargo handlers also walked off their jobs to support the striking bus drivers, is also expected to be in full operation today.
     
Hannu Parvela, managing director of the Road Transport Employers’ Union, said that he was relieved that the strike was at an end.
      However, he also said that the issue of illegal strikes should be taken up during the ongoing round of incomes talks.
      Talks for reaching a broad-based incomes agreement among the main trade union and employers’ confederations had been cut off by the Confederation of Finnish Industries for the duration of the transport strike. They resumed Sunday evening, and negotiators hope to reach a basic agreement on the issue by the weekend.
      In comments on Sunday evening, Leif Fagernäs, Director-General of the Confederation of Finnish Industry (EK), said that the issue of preventing wildcat strikes should be discussed in connection with the incomes talks.
      "We are not changing legal strikes, but there are shortcomings in the right to strike, which must be corrected. The law on the right to strike is over 50 years old", Fagernäs said.
      However, Lauri Ihalainen, chairman of the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK), was opposed to including the issue on the agenda of the incomes talks. His views were echoed by Risto Piekka, chairman of the Confederation for Unions for Academic Professionals (AKAVA), and by Mikko Mäenpää of the Finnish Confederation for Salaried Employees (STTK).
      Mäenpää said that the question of illegal strikes was such a big issue that trying to resolve it during the incomes talks could sabotage the whole process.
      Both Ihalainen and Mäenpää felt that the transport strike did not have a negative effect on the atmosphere of the talks, although Mäenpää was critical of EK’s decision to suspend the incomes talks.
      Ihalainen noted that EK and SAK had worked together to resolve the dispute.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  UPDATE: Settlement reached in transport strike Sunday evening (19.11.2004)

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