News / Relief as Finnish port strikes are set to cease in bid to start talks

Photo: port of Helsinki

Finland’s supply chains look set for a reprieve after the country’s trade unions issued a temporary pause to the weeks-long labour disruption.

Today, the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK) confirmed that the wave of port strikes would cease on Monday morning at 6am.

Petri Laitinen, MD of the Finnish Freight Forwarding and Logistics Association, told The Loadstar: “No decision about the long-term has been taken, with the possibility of further action, but this is good news from the unions and we should know what the long-term holds when they meet on 18 April.”

He added that the union decision to suspend the action was intended to open up the possibility of government negotiations.

Finland’s recently elected ‘austerity government’ has taken a hard line on when and when it will not negotiate with unions, making clear that no negotiations would be permitted while strikes were taking place.

Having cleared this obstruction to government dialogue, SAK president Jarkko Eloranta said the union could “negotiate immediately”, adding the “ball’s in their court”.

Despite the disruption, Mr Laitinen said forwarders had largely managed to mitigate most of the delays, sending goods via ferry services through neighbouring countries.

“It is not that the strikes did not have an effect, they did, but with a number of ferry services still running, forwarders were able to route goods via accompanied freight through Estonia or Sweden and then into Germany,” he explained.

“This, of course, meant there have been some additional costs, because where we could send only trailers before we were now needing to use drivers.”

Until the 18 April meeting, there is a possiblity of further strikes, the SAK pushing the government to ‘water down’ the wave of economic reforms that that kick-started the dispute.

They include austerity measures and plans to reform the country’s labour market and reduce its social welfare net, the newly-elected government claiming the changes were a necessary response to “reckless state indebtedness”.