Progress towards merger of industrial workers’ unions

The director of the bargaining department in the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK), Lauri Lyly, was appointed in December 2006 as spokesperson for a project aimed at assessing the viable future relations among six trade unions. The ensuing report recommends that a full merger is the most promising option.

A total of six trade unions representing industrial workers and affiliated to the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (Suomen Ammattiliittojen Keskusjärjestö, SAK) are preparing to merge into a single organisation, to be known as the Union for Professionals in Technology (Teknologian ammattilaisten unioni, TEAM). The Administrator of the development project and Director of SAK’s bargaining department, Lauri Lyly, believes that the following unions should merge their management structures by 2010: the Finnish Metalworkers’ Union (Metallityöväenliitto), the Chemical Workers’ Union (Kemianliitto), the Paperworkers’ Union (Paperiliitto), the Wood and Allied Workers’ Union (Puuliitto), the Finnish Electrical Workers’ Union (Sähköliitto) and the Finnish Media Union (Viestintäalan ammattiliitto). The new union would have a total number of 370,000 members and would represent about 35% of the total membership of SAK (FI0612029I).

Greater impact on industry structures

In December 2006, the six trade unions appointed Mr Lyly as spokesperson for the project aimed at outlining possible options for the trade unions’ future relations. In the ensuing report (in Finnish, 4Mb PDF) in April 2007, Mr Lyly proposes that a full merger is a better option than either closer cooperation or a consolidation model which would be somewhere in between merging and cooperation. The new union – TEAM, as Lyly calls it – would begin operations in January 2010.

According to the report, a strong and wide-ranging representation of interests will facilitate positive labour force and vocational training policies, industrial policy and efforts to improve workplaces. Mr Lyly states that: ‘In the meantime, unions are not able to perform this kind of safeguarding of interests widely enough.’

With a proactive stance designed to safeguard interests, the trade union movement would have a greater impact on the transformation of industrial, occupational and educational structures. The objective is that rank and file members in declining sectors and occupations do not have to face these changes without resources to draw on but are trained in good time to meet new demands. This also corresponds to the challenges and interests of society as a whole.

Wider coverage for collective agreements

The sectors represented by the six trade unions account for 75–80% of Finnish exports. Mr Lyly believes that, in the future, collective agreements will cover a wider variety of employee groups than at present. For example, the majority of salaried employees in these sectors are organised in the Union of Salaried Employees (Toimihenkilöunioni, TU), affiliated to the Finnish Confederation of Salaried Employees (Toimihenkilökeskusjärjestö, STTK).

The report underlines that more extensive union coverage in terms of the entire value chain from production to services entails greater overall power for the union: ‘Thus we are able to offer industrial peace for the whole value chain, which is very significant for employers.’

In the report’s conclusions, Mr Lyly promises that the merger would create the strongest trade union organisation in Finland. However, he emphasises that the six unions cannot be merged into one single group unless a large majority of the unions’ rank and file members support this decision.

Union members to decide outcome

At present, the trade unions participating in the consolidation project refer to a total of 53 collective agreements, while the daily safeguarding of interests in the workplace is entrusted to and performed by about 12,300 employee representatives.

The trade unions will define their preliminary positions on Mr Lyly’s proposals in the near future. The final decisions, however, will be in the hands of each union’s meeting, where a large majority will be required to make the necessary changes to the union rules.

Pertti Jokivuori, Statistics Finland