The member companies of Finnish Forest Industries Federation will continue the lockout at all Finnish pulp and paper mills after the Finnish Paperworkers' Union rejected yesterday the National Conciliator's proposal for a settlement in the labour market dispute. The Federation would have accepted the proposal.
The National Conciliators' proposal would have brought employees over 6 per cent rise in wages in three years time. At the same time the Paperworkers' Union rejected an additional rise of 1,600 euros in wages together with an 11 hours' decrease in working time to compensate the work at the Christmas and Midsummer. According to the proposal, it would also have been possible to choose more spare time instead of the extra compensation for work on holidays. The paper workers' annual working time is already the shortest in Europe and is in practise 32 hours per week on average.
The lockout, as announced by the Finnish Forest Industries Federation, can continue until June 29, 2005. The lockout will be cancelled when the parties reach a settlement. The negotiations will continue on Monday, June 13, 2005 lead by the National Conciliator.
The purpose of the lockout is to reduce the negative effects caused by the ongoing overtime ban declared by the Finnish Paper Workers' Union. Due to the ban, the pulp mills and the paper machines have been repeatedly shut down at the Finnish mills.
For more information, please contact:
Mr Sakari Toivonen, Director, HR, Northern Europe, tel. +358 40 512 2042
UPM
Corporate Communications
June 6, 2005
