Disagreement on seniority rewards: Strike begins in the mechanical forest industry

Helsinki (01.10.2010 – Juhani Artto)
About 4,000 mechanical forest industry workers went on strike in the afternoon on October 1. Both the Wood and Allied Workers’ Union and its counterpart, the Finnish Forest Industries, rejected the proposal of the National Conciliator Esa Lonka.

According to the union the main disagreement concerned the seniority-based rewards. Many forest industry jobs are in regions where workers do not have many employment options. Therefore, many workers have had long working careers in the same company. The now expired collective agreement rewarded this by seniority allowances or bonuses that have long played a significant role in many workers’ incomes.

And so the union is not willing to risk the future of this income component. The conciliation proposal posed too much of a risk for the union to accept as it would have obliged the parties to negotiate &#;8211 at a later date, after signing the agreement – on how to include the seniority allowances to wages.

Recent years have shown that the employers’ Finnish Forest Industries can be an unfair negotiator in these kinds of situations.

The strike will be enlarged on October 8 to all member companies of the Finnish Forest Industries and to the whole mechanical forest industry on October 15 if the parties cannot agree on a new collective agreement. At stage about 18,000 workers would be out on strike.