Sirel interviewed Henri Lindholm, General Secretary of the Finnish Food and Beverage Union (SEL), about their current union action.

For most people, Finland is a geographically remote and cold country. For Rel-UITA, however, the relationship with SEL is close and warm. The working class of this country, historically at the forefront in social and welfare policies, is now living a conflict where food workers must resist a flexibilization attempt by employers of the sector, who are using the new legislation and the support of the government in force.

-How did this conflict come about?

-SEL has been  in this prolonged conflict since early 2010 when the negotiation process began. Our Union has five national collective bargaining agreements by industry, all of which expired on 31 March.  Since then, we have been experiencing a difficult situation with strikes and walkouts.

In Finland, collective agreements are signed for one to four years.  These agreements were for a three year period and we have submitted our proposal at the negotiation table for a four-year agreement, but unfortunately we did not succeed. 

-Did employers want different terms and conditions?

-In fact, employers also wanted a four-year agreement, but the conflict is related to the composition of the agreement.  The issue is regulations regarding working time. It is not so much wages levels, the dispute is about working time and how much employers can demand people to work longer days.

We have faced employers' demands for extended and flexible work earlier, but now there is new legislations that allow shops to open 24 hours 7 days a week for the sale of food. 

There is a lot of pressure from the retailers because they want food to be delivered all day long, at night and even on week-ends. Companies want a 10 hour flexible time scheme, with 50 hour weeks, without extra compensation, to be taken into consideration during the whole year, so it would be calculated as regular working time on an annual basis.

So far, according to our collective agreement, working overtime has always been voluntary, an option to be negotiated with the individual, and this new scheme wants it to be  This new scheme wants overtime to be compulsory. In fact they are imposing a longer working day.

-Why is this situation happening now?

-The background is related to our new reality. In Finland we have a center-right government, which is a coalition between the Agrarian Party and the Conservatives, while Social-Democrats and the Labor Party are in the opposition. This means that from the government they are defending more the employers, the big business and the industry. This determines that in this moment we are not only negotiating with employers, in fact the legislation has allowed companies to demand this flexibility.

We have also faced some new developments to which we were not used:  a new union busting where employers encouraged people to bust our strikes, this caused that in our first three-day period, with limited strikes of 4,000 o 5,000. 

Our second strike, once this was overcome, was a strike of 9,000 workers in 57 production sites throughout the country. This caused concern in the meat industry. It was then when the conciliation process began, with the State mediator, but there, in turn, he usually takes more into account the views of the employer than the union. Consequently, the process has been very slow and without sufficient results.

-How does the negotiation process go on now?

-This coming Monday we resume the conciliation process. The background is that our Union Board had to reject three proposals already, if there is a fourth one, we hope that the mediator this time has into account our views on working time and that we have a more balanced proposal and we can reach an agreement before  25 May, date set to go on strike for the food and beverage sector, which would be very hard for us, but SEL has 24,000 members and all of them would go on strike if we do not reach a solution before.

Please let me add that we have received solidarity messages from the National Confederation of the Food Industry Workers (CONTAC), represented by  Siderlei de Oliveiraand from the National Confederation of Food and Related Workers  (CNTA), represented by  Artur Bueno de Carmargo, and I want to mention our appreciation for our Brazilian friends.