Finnish Workers Announce Two Weeks' Strike

On Monday, nearly 7,000 Finnish workers began a two-week strike against labour market reform and government-driven social cuts. 

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The strike was called by the Central Organization of Trade Unions of Finland (SAK) the largest trade union confederation in the country which have organized strikes held intermittently for almost three months in the Nordic country.

The reasons for the protest by the unions is a reform of the labour market and a series of cuts in social benefits that the unions consider unacceptable.

The Finnish Government plans to limit the duration of political strikes to a single day and to facilitate the non-binding sectoral agreements for all companies, which would significantly reduce the bargaining power of trade unions.

In addition, it plans to cut unemployment benefits, facilitate dismissal and temporality and allow the first day of sick leave to go unpaid.

Negotiations between the government and the unions are completely frozen, as the organizations want to bring to the table the government’s policies on social and labor issues, which Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo refuses.

Orpo met with workers' organizations to try to dissolve the strike and negotiate a proposed wage model, according to which no sector can move beyond a wage increase stipulated in the export industries agreement.

However, the talks are unsuccessful due to the opposition of the workers to the wage proposal and the minister’s refusal to discuss with the workers.

Past strikes have cost Helsinki approximately EUR 1 billion and these two weeks of strikes will result in a loss of EUR 320 million to the national economy.