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President of PAM Ann Selin tells Reuters that Finnish PM and Finance Minister ‘fist bump’ on preliminary union deal sent wrong signal

Quoted in a Reuters article widely syndicated to the world’s press, Ann Selin, head of the Finnish services union PAM and President of UNI Global Union, said the Finnish government had made a mistake by apparently celebrating a preliminary tough wages deal for workers.

Reuters reports that, “In a nod to popular culture, a smiling (Prime Minister) Sipila and his finance minister Alexander Stubb punched each other's fist to celebrate a breakthrough in negotiating one of Finland's toughest austerity deals in decades with trade unions.

“The unions, whose members face de facto wage cuts in the name of reviving economic growth, were deeply unimpressed by the public show of exuberance earlier this month.”

"Members were very upset. They thought that they were mocking workers, saying something like: 'now we can drive them into the ground'," said Selin.

Selin pointed out that this was only a preliminary deal, with a detailed agreement still to be hammered out in the coming months and that the fist bump was extremely unhelpful.

The Reuters article concluded that, “Unions were outraged at politicians who appeared out of touch, underlying the fragility of the Nordic model under which parties of the centre-right and centre-left, organised labour and business strive to reach consensus deals without conflict. The danger is that the preliminary accord may still collapse as the Finnish consensus is tested.”

Read the full article here