Paperworkers' President Lähteenmäki to head KEY-Finland in Brussels

The Finnish employee confederations SAK, STTK and AKAVA have decided to offer the position of Director of KEY-Finland, their joint mission to Brussels, to Finnish Paperworkers' Union President Jarmo Lähteenmäki. The position will be available as of 1 April 2004, and the mission's current Director Jorma Skippari will return to Finland in summer 2004. Lähteenmäki is due to step down from his presidency at the end of August 2003, following some 20 years of service at the Paperworkers' Union - initially as a responsible lawyer and then as President for the last decade.

As President of the Finnish Paperworkers' Union Jarmo Lähteenmäki (46) has been actively involved in international collective bargaining in such capacities as Chairman of the ICEM pulp and paper industry section, and has also focused his personal in-service development on international issues. A lawyer by training, Lähteenmäki will embark on a full academic year of further education at the European Academy of Legal Theory in Brussels at the beginning of September. The students for this programme are selected each year from a worldwide enrolment, and only a few Finns have completed the course to date.

Before his transfer to KEY-Finland Lähteenmäki also intends to complete his licentiate thesis on the case law of the Finnish Labour Court concerning the pulp and paper industry from 1970 to 2002. The theoretical background to this review of Finnish domestic legal usage will be strongly international. During his summer holiday in July Lähteenmäki will serve as a visiting researcher at the University of Tromso in Norway.

KEY-Finland is the joint mission of the Finnish employee confederations SAK, STTK and AKAVA in Brussels. It was originally established in Finland and moved to Brussels when Finland joined the European Union. KEY-Finland lobbies for the interests of Finnish employees in matters pertaining to European integration and keeps its supporting organisations informed of developments in the European Union.

KEY-Finland website

For further details please contact:

- Jarmo Lähteenmäki, tel. +358 400 759 870
- Marjaana Valkonen, SAK Director of International Affairs, tel. +358 400 705 136
- Leila Kostiainen, STTK Director of Collective Bargaining, tel. +358 400 805 417