Salaried Employees Strike UPM Operations in Finland

Yesterday morning (April 6) salaried employees began a two-week strike that impacts the majority of UPM's operations in Finland. The strike does not include UPM's mechanical forest industry, i.e., plywood, timber, and UPM ProFi businesses, UPM's forestry specialists, senior salaried employees, nor salaried employees of other forestry companies in Finland. At UPM, there are some1,300 salaried employees working within the supply chain, and finance and HR in Finland.

"At this stage it is impossible to estimate the exact impacts of the strike, but even a conservative estimate of the damage would be given in millions of Euros. When the strike begins, we most probably must begin running down paper mills within a couple of days," says Jyrki Ovaska, president of UPM's Paper Business Group.

"Continuous disturbances in the labor market damage Finland's reputation and the repeated strikes will shift orders permanently to other locations from the Finnish production units. Industrial actions targeted towards only one company represent negotiation tactics that have unreasonable consequences to customers, the company, and also to all of the company's employees.

"In recent years, UPM has centralized its global administration services in a service center in Tampere, Finland. If there is repeated uncertainty in our operations in Finland, we must evaluate whether our operations in Finland are in right proportions or whether we have to start to steer our operations to countries where the risk of strike is lower," says Ovaska.

Conciliation lead by the conciliator general ended unsettled on Monday of this week, UPM noted. For the time being, the conciliator general has not invited the parties to further conciliation. The Finnish Forest Industries Federation (FFIF) and trade union Pro have negotiated on salaries and the labor contract at the beginning of the year. In the negotiations led by the conciliator general, UPM said that "Pro required a 3.5% rise in salary and transfer into an old-fashioned compensation system, which does not match the needs of today's labor market. The FFIF considers the salary request oversized in comparison with other wage settlements completed this spring."

TAPPI
http://www.tappi.org/