Border guards' strike ends

Negotiations between the Finnish Frontier Guard authority and the Border Guard Union concluded on 28 June 2005. The border guards ended their strike the following day and their union’s council approved the settlement on 18 July. The definition of 'essential work' during industrial action became a particularly sensitive issue during the negotiations; both the Frontier Guard and the government took steps to limit the effects of the strike by attempting to give supervisors the right to perform strikers' duties. Both attempts were ultimately blocked.

Collective bargaining negotiations between the Frontier Guard (Rajavartiolaitos) and the Border Guard Union (Rajavartioliitto) had been conducted without success in the course of spring 2005, which led the union to begin a strike on the Finland-Russia border on 31 May (FI0506201N). Following difficult negotiations and two strikes totalling three weeks in length, the Frontier Guard and the board of the Border Guard Union finally accepted, on 28 June, a mediation offer put forward by the national conciliator, Juhani Salonius. The proposal for a new collective agreement was then to be approved by the council of the Border Guard Union. This took place on 18 July after heated debate within the council, one third of whose members voted against the deal.

The main issue at stake in the negotiations was reform of the pay structure. The Border Guard Union had opposed a reform that was to make pay determination increasingly dependent on individual work requirements and performance while lessening the importance of work experience. In the end, the union yielded and the new pay structure will come into effect with only minor modifications to the employers’ original proposals. The union did, nonetheless, secure a hefty pay rise for its members, totalling 6.1% in the course of the two-year validity period of the agreement.

The definition of essential work during industrial action became a particularly sensitive issue during the negotiations. First tensions arose in early June between the Border Guard Union and the Frontier Guard when the latter defined the striking frontier guards’ duties as essential work and, on these grounds, ordered the guards’ supervisors to take over frontier posts. The union strongly opposed this move and was finally given support by the Labour Court which ruled that there was no legal ground for having essential work done. The court’s decision was based on the fact that the Frontier Guard had not specified what kind of harm to people or property the strike would have entailed if no essential work was performed. Later on in June the government brought a bill to the parliament that would have granted it powers to have essential work done by the strikers’ supervisors at border posts during the World Athletics Championships in Helsinki in August 2005. The bill was, nevertheless, blocked by the MPs of the Finnish Social Democratic Party, which belongs to the coalition government. Partly the MPs based their decision on not wanting to infringe upon the right to strike. As such they shared the position of the Border Guard Union. The government was planning to bring the bill again to the parliament in July. However, on 28 June when the collective bargaining negotiations were concluded, the Border Guard Union also agreed that it would not strike during the competition even if its council would not accept the deal two weeks later. Thus there was no need from the part of the government to take further measures.

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