Power changes hands in the transport sector

The demanding duties which are assigned to a union president were, at AKT, the Finnish Transport Workers' Union, transferred from Mr Kauko Lehikoinen to Mr Timo Räty. The General Council of the Union decided upon this change on 2nd March 2001, when Mr Lehikoinen, who has served the Union over a long period of time, reached the retirement age of 60. Mr Lehikoinen, who originally trained and worked as a lorry and bus driver, was first engaged by AKT as long ago as 1971. He became the Union Secretary in 1978 and he was subsequently elected as the President of the Union in 1994.

The successor to Mr Lehikoinen, Timo Räty, has been employed by the Transport Workers' Union as a lawyer since 1997. Prior to that appointment he worked as a lawyer for SAK.

The highest decision making body of AKT is its Congress, which will next convene in the summer of 2002, when it will elect the leaders of the Union for the following four years.

AKT is a SAK affiliated union and it has some 50,000 members, of whom nearly 90% are male.