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28 November, 2005
Pressure brought by potential sympathy strikes at an ABB Power Technologies paper mill near Oskarshamn, Sweden, and promised industrial actions at the company’s Finnish installations, proved too much for the Swiss-based engineering firm.
Within hours of a 15 November strike deadline by 130 paperworkers, members of ICEM affiliate Svenska Pappers, ABB abandoned a two-year-long effort to undercut established social standards in Sweden’s paper sector.
The resulting two-year labour agreement actually surpasses the social norms of the sector. ABB agreed to pay the union 1.5% of the total salary cost for administrative costs of the long overdue collective agreement at the paperboard mill.
ICEM Finnish affiliate Paperiliitto said it would target ABB in Finland if a strike at the Figeholm mill near Oskarshamn were to occur, and a labour court in Sweden issued a unanimous ruling that a strike by the 130 workers, as well as any sympathy actions surrounding the mill’s operations would be legal.