The conflict was around two questions: part-time work, and payment for night shift. The contract does not allow the bosses to hire more than 10 percent part-time workers, but this was being blatantly violated by the bosses. One-fourth of the workforce at the biggest longshore company in Helsinki, Finnsteve, works part-time. The dock bosses also wanted to reduce the pay for night work, changing it from overtime pay to regular shift pay. In response, the Transport Workers Union (ATK ) called for a strike on April 15 and decided on an immediate overtime ban.

The replacement of overtime pay with regular shift pay will reduce income for dockworkers by up to 10,000 euros per year, according to Patric Kollin and Lars Ammond, vice president and safety representative respectively of the ATK local at Finnsteve in Helsinki.

Dockworkers first struck the ports of Kotka and Fredrikshamn on April 12. “The national contract negotiations didn’t run like we wanted, so we wanted them to go faster,” Joha Antilla, union official at the dock in Kotka, said in a phone interview with Militant reporters. In the Helsinki port, the dockworkers decided to walk out April 13, when the Finnsteve company began to do banned overtime work with salaried personnel. The following morning, the dockworkers in Helsinki and 11 other ports went on strike. This was meant to be a local one-day warning strike, but on April 15—the deadline the union had set for a strike—no one returned to work. Instead, workers at the few remaining ports joined the walkout. The government’s labor ministry had called for a two-week postponement of the actions to April 29, but the union decided not to delay their action. Instead the union said they would stage a second strike action on the date proposed by the labor ministry if the contract was not signed.

Following the walkout, the union membership voted to accept the offer of the government arbitrator. The employers retreated on the question of part-time work, promising to respect the 10 percent limit on part-time workers.

The union accepted concessions on the overtime demand. Instead of doing night work as overtime, three shift schedules are now allowed after local agreements in each port. Workers won a wage increase of nearly 10 percent over the three years of the contract. While some ports voted against, the majority voted to approve the agreement. “It will mean that many part-timers will get full-time employment,” said Juha Atilla, shop steward in the local at the port of Kotka. “The wage increase was also good.”

The Finnish daily Hufvudstadsbladet waged a campaign against the dockworkers, accusing the striking workers of affecting the transit traffic to Russia. One-third of Russian imports go through Finland. “During the last few years the dockworkers have been on strike one to two days every year,” stated one article.

Last fall the dockworkers walked out for two or three days in support of the bus drivers who were on strike for a contract. In 1991 they walked out in a contract fight that lasted four weeks.  
 
 
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