On 18 May, bitter strikes by 4,000 members of the Ammattiliitto Pro union against Finnish paper producers came to an end. After six weeks of tension, the union and the Finnish Forest Industries Federation (FFIF) came to terms over a second-year wage renewal. The white-collar union won an across-the-board national wage increase, but most importantly the pay gap among the clerical, technical, and front-line managerial ranks of the pulp and paper industry was narrowed. Effective 19 May there is a 1.5% pay increase, or €48-per-month minimum, whichever is higher. The effect is to weight the package toward lower-wage clerical workers in order to narrow the pay gap. The settlement, mediated by national mediator Esa Lonka, calls for an additional 1% to be negotiated at the local level by 17 June. If talks on local issues such as training, development, skill requirements, and work tasks do not conclude by then, the 1% will be awarded on 1 July (See also this Collective Bargaining Newsletter Year 4 March and April 2011).
English: http://www.icem.org/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4434-Ammattiliitto-Pro ...
This article was published in the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. It aims to facilitate information exchange between trade unions and to support the work of ETUC's collective bargaining committee. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2011.