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28 July, 2005
Bargaining will resume today in the lockout of 25,000 paperworkers in Finland. The Executive Committee of Paperiliitto on 5 June rejected a mediator’s proposal that, on the whole, sided with many of the concessionary proposals put forward by the Finnish Forest Industries Federation. Those proposals would have given paper companies the unlimited right to outsource work that would see as many as one-third of all full-time paper sector jobs disappear, and would have weakened worker protections against layoffs.
Employers have now extended the lockout to six weeks, or until 29 June. EMCEF announced that it will investigate whether Finnish paper firms forced the lockout in order to increase paper prices through reduced supply and the ICEM continues to encourage paper sector unions across Europe not to accept work orders from Finnish paper mills and converters.