Walkout at Nokia’s mobile phone factory in Salo

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At least a couple of hundred workers walked out at Nokia’s mobile phone factory in Salo in Southwestern Finland two hours before the end of their shift, at around noon on Tuesday.
      The purpose of this demonstration - exceptional at Nokia - was to protest against the company’s plans to relocate basic assembly work for its mobile telephones from its factory in Salo to South Korea.
      The planned transfer of assembly lines could be just the beginning of other similar moves, some employees fear.
      The employees intend to leave their morning and evening shifts two hours early every day this week. In practice this would mean that the assembly lines should be shut down every time and started up again when the next shift comes to work.
     
Nokia announced last week that the move would not be leading to any job cuts in Salo. Workers in Salo now dealing with the front end of assembly will focus on the end stages, in which assembled phones are fine-tuned for operator customers.
      Nevertheless, the statutory negotiations with staff were launched on Monday, relating to the reorganisation of the jobs of some 370 employees.
      Nokia has been continuously looking for new employees for its Salo factory, while the number of employees at the factory has increased by 300 since June. Nokia says that the company would need yet another 400 employees. The total number of workers at the Salo factory is currently around 2,600.
      Nokia has announced futher that the terms of employment will remain unchanged.
      However, Outi Aaltonen from the local branch of the Metalworkers’ Union says that according to the collective agreement, work at the end stage of assembly is less demanding than that at the front end, which means a less promising wage development in the long run.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Nokia shifting production from Salo to Korea because of labour shortage (13.12.2007)

Helsingin Sanomat