Controversy over Finnair hiring temporary staff from Asian countries

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The Finnair airline, mainly owned by the Finnish state, decided in February 2002 to start using temporary agency workers from Asian countries on its Far East flights. The SLSY cabin crew trade union finds the work permits granted to these workers questionable and suspects that the use of agency workers will take jobs from Finnair's permanent staff.

The Finnish airline Finnair, which is mainly owned by the state, announced in February 2002 that it would start to use temporary agency workers from Asian countries on its flights to and from the Far East. This followed several months of negotiations with the Finnish Cabin Crew Union (Suomen Lentoemäntä- ja Stuerttiyhdistys, SLSY) concerning the work permits to be granted to the Asian temporary agency workers. These permits include a condition that the relevant Finnish collective agreement is to be followed. However, the negotiations brought out differences of opinion as to whether or not the contracts signed with the temporary agency workers conformed with the collective agreement. Despite these differing views, Finnair received the work permits from the Finnish authorities, which were given an assurance from the company that the workers' pay and other terms of employment would be set according to the collective agreement in force. After thus receiving the green light, Finnair announced that it would hire 12 cabin crew from the Chinese agency Fasco, and 26 from the Thai Adesco.

SLSY declared in January its astonishment at the hiring of temporary agency workers, because Finnair will be laying off permanent cabin crew staff during 2002. Due to the economic problems caused by the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the USA, during autumn 2001 Finnair negotiated with all its unions concerning savings measures, including cuts in personnel costs. SLSY participated in these talks, but did not sign the agreement; instead, it chose to accept four-week lay-offs for cabin crew up to the end of 2002.

According to Finnair, allegations by SLSY that it is using cheap labour are groundless. SLSY claims that the use of temporary agency workers will cause a loss of jobs, because the contracts signed are not in line with Finnish collective agreements. The union also points that Finnair has trained a reserve of over 100 Finnish cabin crew, which has not been used, and in addition there are some 20 unemployed professionals in the field. Finnair states that this reserve group was trained for the needs of the original traffic programme for winter 2001-2. However, due to the decrease in air traffic demand and supply, they could not be hired. The company states that it has ended up using temporary agency workers for reasons of service, security and competition, because the majority of the passengers on the routes concerned are Asian. In order to improve the service, there should be Chinese- and Thai-speaking personnel on these routes. Finnair argues that, with improved competitiveness, there will be growth and more work for the Finnish personnel as well.

SLSY states that further action will be taken. The legality of the work permits granted by the Finnish authorities is under investigation, among other matters.