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16 November, 2005
Just hours before 130 paperworkers of the ICEM affiliate Svenska Pappers were about to strike an ABB Power Technologies paper mill near Oskarshamn, Sweden, on 15 November, a settlement was reached between the union and Swiss-based engineering firm.
The agreement actually exceeds the standards in place in Sweden's paper sector. It guarantees workers at the paperboard mill the right to health care, education, all benefits and income development, plus ABB will pay Svenska Pappers 1.5% of the total salary cost for follow up and administrative costs during the term of the agreement.
Pressure to resolve the two-year-long dispute was brought on management when, on 10 November, a Swedish labour court ruled the workers not only had the right to strike, but that sympathy strikes by other unions operating at the mill were lawful.
The threat of a strike also was heightened when Finnish union Paperiliitto, another ICEM affiliate, announced it would engage in industrial action against ABB if Swedish workers at the ABB's Figeholm mill struck. Svenska Pappers was instrumental last spring and early summer in sympathy actions in support of Paperiliitto during a 7-week lockout of Finland's paper sector, affecting 25,000 paperworkers.
"We are happy to avoid a strike," said Svenska Pappers Negotiations Secretary Lennart Olovsson. "But I am more relieved over the fact that we could stand up against ABB and their intention to introduce a completely new and inferior collective agreement into the Swedish paper industry."