Unions are fighting to defend social rights in Finland
The right-winged government is set to slash social rights in the country.
Image taken from: https://twitter.com/EFFAT_org/status/1767238074398810175
290,000 workers took part in strikes across Finland in the beginning of February. The strikes are part of a campaign to reject the country’s right-wing alliance’s plan to slash social rights and cut welfare conditions.
More strikes have been planned for this month. The campaign launched by the largest labour union, SAK, is called #SeriousGrounds.
The strike action has resulted in the board of SAK being able to organise a meeting with Finland’s labour minister, Arto Satonen. The union confederation will postpone a decision on continued strike action until Wednesday, after the meeting.
The right-winged alliance in Finland led by Petteri Orpo, the leader of the centre-right National Coalition party, is attempting to implement significant cuts to social rights.
The reforms cover various different kinds of social welfare programs, social rights, and industrial action.
The changes include:
Erosion of working rights:
No pay for the first day of sick leave;
Reducing the barriers to firing employees to what are considered “relevant grounds”;
A shorter notice time for temporary lay-offs;
Right to strike restrictions:
Stricter rules for organising political strikes;
Restricting sympathetic strikes (when unions strike in solidarity with other unions to place additional pressure on companies to come to the bargaining table);
A fine for workers who strike when a strike is found to be illegal;
Dramatic increase in fees for unions whose strikes are deemed to be illegal;
Social welfare cuts:
Abolition an adult education benefit;
Waiting period for unemployment benefits will be extended;
A full list of the proposed cuts can be found here.
There are several examples of how these striking rights have been particularly impactful the past months. For example, Nordic labour unions coordinated solidarity strikes against Tesla in an effort to force the company to negotiate a collective bargaining agreements.
Restricting the right to strike for political reasons would mean that the very action being coordinated against the Orpo government right now could be criminalized in the future.
Drifting to the right
Finland had parliamentary elections last year in April that saw the creation of a right-winged alliance. Orpo’s centre-right pro-business National Coalition Party won the election with the far-right nationalist Finns Party in second place. The Social Democrats came in a very close third.
This culminated in a right- to far-right coalition that has been plagued with scandals. A minister from the Finns Party resigned when he was found to have made jokes about saying “heil Hitler” and called for Finland to support abortions in Africa as a solution to climate change.
Riikka Purra, the leader of the Finns Party was forced to apologise last year for racist comments she had made about Turkish and Somali immigrants, among other putrid and violent social media posts.
Orpo himself has vowed to “fix Finland”. This is despite the fact that Finland regularly tops the list of well-being and quality of life indicators.
Solidarity across Union confederations
In response to the strikes organised by SAK, union confederations across Europe have made statements in solidarity. UNI Europa, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), and IndustriALL published statements condemning the Orpo government’s anti-worker programme.
Isabelle Barthès, IndustriALL Europe’s Deputy General Secretary, remarked that “
"In the light of international regulations such as the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Adequate Minimum Wage Directive, the new government in Finland seems to be taking the country backwards.”