News

Helsinki (30.06.2008 - Juhani Artto) Late May brought to light serious disagreements that may derail the project, known as TEAM, with the intended purpose of amalgamating six industrial unions.

The six unions involved in amalgamation preparations are (rank and file members 1 January 2007)

• The Chemical Workers' Union (47,600)
  
• The Electrical Workers' Union (32,300)
  
• The Media Union (24,200)
  
• The Metalworkers' Union (165,500)
  
• The Railway Workers' Union (14,500)
  
• The Wood and Allied Workers' Union (45,600)

Strong doubts about the future of the venture have been expressed by Matti Alakoski, the President of the Electrical Workers Union, and Timo Vallittu, the President of the ChemicalWorkers' Union. Both of them criticise certain conditions approved by the Congress of the Metalworkers' Union.

"The Metalworkers' Union has either to give up those conditions or quit the merger talks and leave the remaining five unions to go on with their mutual preparations", Alakoski says in the June issue of his union's magazine Vasama. The big issue concerns the electricians' right to have their own collective agreement and their own network of shop stewards.

"Representatives of the Metalworkers' Union have rather directly told us that the 2,500 electricians, working in the metal industry, should be incorporated into the collective agreement of the metal industry", Alakoski states in Vasama. "This cannot be approved by rank and files members of our union."

The Congress of the Metalworkers' Union formulated its position on this matter as follows: "Already prior to the founding of the new union, one has to quickly clear up how to reduce the number of parallel collective agreements. The goal has to be to have one collective agreement at each work place."

Another major disagreement concerns the status of retired rank and file members. In the Metalworkers's Union they have full voting rights. The Congress of the Union expressed its desire to safeguard this right in the new union also, namely "their participation in the activities of local chapters and the union". Timo Vallittu, the President of the Chemical Workers' Union, has strongly opposed the idea of giving retired members voting rights in the new union. This position was confirmed by the Council of the Chemical Workers' Union, just two days before the Congress of the Metalworkers' Union was due to hold its session.

Paavo Holi, the editor-in-chief of the Electrical Workers' Union's magazine Vasama, writes that the merger project has come to a standstill, because of these decisions taken by the Metalworkers' Unions. In his opinion there are not any grounds for optimism.

If this stalemate persists and there is no chance of going on with the TEAM project, the Electrical Workers' Union will work out its own solution, Holi adds.

The Council of the Chemical Workers' Union arrived at a similar conclusion. The union will continue its search for strategic partners even in the event that the TEAM project fails to be implemented by the six unions, the current parties of the project.

The Media Union, the Railway Workers' Union and the Wood and Allied Workers' Union have so far refrained from publicly taking a position on the issues now dividing amalgamation preparations.