News from www.yle.fi
Icebreaker strike
cancelled—Finnish ports to stay open over Easter
1.4.2015 18:27 | updated 1.4.2015 18:32
A dispute between
icebreaker crew and their employer will not now shut Finnish ports on Thursday
after the two sides reached a last-minute agreement. Support action from other
maritime workers would have closed all Finnish harbours to traffic from 2pm on
Thursday.
Icebreakers can now get back to work. Image:
Heikki Saukkomaa / Lehtikuva
A two-and-a-half week dispute between icebreaker crews
and Arctia shipping has been resolved just in time to avoid large-scale support
action. Maritime unions were prepared to shut all Finnish ports if no deal was
reached, shutting down cargo and passenger transport from 2pm on Thursday.
The agreement was announced by the national labour
conciliator Minna Helle on Twitter. It brings to an end months of negotiations
over the icebreaker crews’ terms and conditions. Unions had wanted guarantees
that the collective agreements were generally binding on all companies in the
sector, and the final agreement states that a board can adjudicate on that
question.
The conciliator disclosed that both sides had moved their
positions in the final hours of the dispute.
"Otherwise this agreement wouldn’t have been
possible," said Helle, who also acknowledged that the prospect of broad
disruption to passenger traffic had helped spur an agreement.
"All sides wanted to get this agreed today,"
Helle told Yle.
Sources Yle
Stubb: Government
cannot intervene in icebreaker strike talks
1.4.2015 16:51 | updated 1.4.2015 16:51
Prime Minister Alexander Stubb says that the strike by
icebreaker crews planned for Thursday would be detrimental to Finland’s
economy. Stubb implored the concerned parties to come to terms over the labour
dispute.
Icebreakers may halt tomorrow, to the detriment of the
Finnish economy, says PM Stubb. Image: Arctia Shipping
Prime Minister Alexander Stubb says that Finland’s
government cannot involve itself in the ongoing icebreaker employee-employer
talks that threaten to hinder Finnish trade and sea traffic.
Government discussed the icebreaker working conditions
dispute on Wednesday. Stubb called a phone meeting of the Committee on Economic
Policy to discuss the current collective bargaining talks.
”The situation is dire,” he said. “The work agreement
issue hinges on industrial relations and government cannot intervene in the
dispute.”
The committee was appraised of the negotiations over
icebreaker crews’ working conditions and their potential consequences. The
strike proposed by the workers would cripple Finnish exporting and sea travel
on Thursday. The extent of the effects on international cargo transportation is
still unclear.
”The government is still imploring the concerned parties
to find a middle ground. In this unstable economy, Finland cannot afford internal
disputes such as this,” Stubb said.
The country’s icebreaking company Arctia Shipping has
negotiated with the Finnish Seafarers’ Union and the Finnish Engineers’
Association for months. The ship’s masters, first officers and first mates who
belong to the association are not going on strike.
The dispute surrounds the applicability of the collective
agreement in shipping which affects about 200 employees. Workers’ unions are
calling for a uniform agreement in the field of icebreaking, while employers say
that universality would damage competition.
Sources Yle
Shutdown of
maritime traffic may affect 100,000 passengers
The Finnish Seamen’s Union and the Finnish Engineers’
Association are threatening to start supportive action at 2 pm Thursday to
stand alongside crews of Finland’s icebreaker fleet in their labour dispute
with their employer, state-owned Arctia Shipping. If the sympathy strike proves
necessary, it will extend the strike to every cargo ship sailing under the
Finnish flag. This would potentially include the passenger cruise ships of
Viking Line, Tallink Silja and Eckerö Line.
Union support of an icebreaker crew strike threatens to
shut down all of Finland’s maritime traffic flying under the Finnish flag just
in time for the Easter holidays. The Finnish Seamen’s Union and the Finnish
Engineers’ Association decided on Tuesday that they will begin support action
for the strike on Holy Thursday at 2 pm if a settlement can’t be reached.
If the sympathy strike ends up happening, the two unions’
members will not help incoming cargo and freight vessels return to sea, the
unions said in a press release.
“The ships would remain at port,” said the Seamen’s Union
head Simo Zitting.
Union members would also not be allowed to serve
passenger vessels sailing to foreign destinations that carry cargo in their car
deck. This would not however prohibit the passenger ferries from transporting
passenger cars and buses.
Silja and Viking may be affected
The passenger cruise company Viking Line was surprised to
hear the news that the extended strike might affect their operations. They say
the strike couldn’t have come at a worse time, as part of their fleet is booked
solid over the Easter weekend.
The strike could potentially affect the voyages of the
Viking's Finnish-flagged cruise ships the MS Amorella, Grace, Mariella,
Gabriella and Rosella. Over the Easter holiday, 87,000 Viking passengers could
be affected.
Marika Nöjd, Communications Director for Tallink Silja,
says that the labour negotiations are still underway and so there’s no need to
be concerned quite yet.
“We have faith that the strike will not extend to
passenger traffic,” she says.
Two ships in the Silja fleet, the MS Serenade and the MS
Baltic Princess, could also be affected by the strike, but Nöjd asks that
passengers with reservations for Thursday stay calm.
“We hope the passengers don’t panic. Let’s just see how
the situation progresses. We haven’t pushed the panic button yet or made any
kinds of special arrangements.”
The line's Serenade and Baltic Princess are scheduled to
carry around 20,000 passengers between Thursday and Monday.
Seven weeks of negotiations already
State icebreaker company Arctia Shipping has been
negotiating with its striking crew members for months without a settlement.
Arctia Shipping indicated its willingness to accept the state mediator Minna
Helle’s settlement proposal a few days ago, but the employees are still not
satisfied and refuse to settle.
At first, talk of potential support action only applied
to cargo ships, but on Tuesday, the Finnish Seamen's Union announced the
possibility that the strike would be expanded to passenger ships. The strike
would only apply to vessels flying under the Finnish flag. In addition to the
Viking and Silja passenger ships, the support action would also apply to Eckerö
Line traffic.
Sources Yle
Thursday's papers:
Potential shipping strike, remembering Germanwings victims, and Finnish climber
feared dead
26.3.2015 9:35 | updated 26.3.2015 9:53
Features in the print media this morning include an
analysis of the potential support strike that could bring Finnish cargo traffic
to a standstill, a memorial to the 150 people who lost their lives in Tuesday's
ill-fated Germanwings flight, and the fear that top Finnish climber Samuli
Mansikka has died during his ascent of Annapurna in the Himalayas.
Main Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat leads with an
in-depth analysis of the potential icebreaker strike that could bring shipping
traffic in Finland to a standstill and negatively impact on foreign trade as
more than 75 percent of Finland's 55.8 billion euros of trade (2014 figures) is
transported by sea.
Two unions, The Finnish Seafarers Union and the Finnish
Engineers' Association (SKL), announced on Tuesday that they would start a
support strike on April 2 if the ice breaker workers contract dispute with
employer Arctia Shipping is not resolved. Should the combined strikes go-ahead,
they would bring all shipping traffic sailing under the Finnish flag to a halt,
including Silja and Viking Line cruise ships.
Helsingin Sanomat's sister paper tabloid Ilta-Sanomat
devotes its cover to Tuesday's Germanwings crash that killed 150 people with
the stories of some of those on-board the ill-fated Airbus flight from
Barcelona to Dusseldorf. They included Maria Radner, a rising star of Wagnerian
opera, who was travelling with her husband and their child; bass baritone Oleg
Bryjak; and 16 German secondary school children studying Spanish who were en
route to a two-week exchange in Barcelona. While the cause of the crash is
still unknown, Ilta-Sanomat reports that Finnish aviation expert Pekka Henttu
says preliminary information indicates that those inside the cockpit were
unconscious during the plane's descent.
On a brighter note, Ilta-Sanomat features a spread about
the promise of a super warm summer for Finland, with temperatures higher than
usual forecast.
And on a very sad note, Finland's other national tabloid
Iltalehti leads with story of experienced climber Samuli Mansikka who
disappeared on Mount Annapurna in Nepal on Wednesday and is feared dead. The
paper cites an Associated Press report that says Mansikka, 36, and his local
guide (Pemba Sherpa, 35) were at 8,000 metres on Annapurna's peak on Tuesday.
But by Wednesday morning they had disappeared on one of the world's most
dangerous mountains. Initial Twitter reports from Mansikka's account said that
he was dead, but they were changed later to say that he was missing. According
to the Himalayan Times, the bodies of Mansikka and his guide were sighted at
7,000 metres.
Sources Helsingin Sanomat, Ilta-Sanomat, Iltalehti, Yle
Union anger as
icebreaker crews' strike put on ice
26.2.2015 16:02 | updated 26.2.2015 16:17
The Finnish Seafarers' Union is furious at a move by the
new state labour mediator to block a threatened strike by ship crews.
On Wednesday National Conciliator Minna Helle decreed
that a walkout scheduled to begin this weekend had to be postponed for a couple
of weeks to allow more time for contract talks.
Workers at the state-owned Arctia Shipping had planned to
go on strike on Sunday, March 1st. Their contract runs out at the end of the
month. The sailors' union says Helle made the wrong decision based on a lack of
experience.
"I think the national conciliator made a tactical
mistake because of her inexperience," union boss Simo Zitting told Yle.
"Instead of trying to reach an agreement, she decided to put off the
strike."
Helle, who took office last month, is the first woman to
ever hold the state labour conciliator’s job.
Owners await invitation
The ship operators’ association, meanwhile, told Yle on
Thursday that it is ready to resume contract negotiations soon.
"We on the employer’s side hope that the process can
continue as soon as possible, within the next few days," said David
Lindström, head of the employers’ association and senior vice president of
Arctia Shipping. "Of course we will wait for and follow an invitation from
the labour mediator."
Sources Yle
