The bakery strike is impacting the variety of bread available in stores, resulting in partially empty shelves and the possibility of increased shortages over the weekend.
The bakery strike that began on Tuesday night has started to affect the bread selection in stores. Some shelves are already partly empty, and the situation could become worse over the weekend.
The bread shortage is caused by failed negotiations of the new collective agreements for food workers between the Finnish Food and Drink Industries’ Federation (ETL) and the Finnish Food Workers’ Union (SEL).
The strike targets Finland’s largest bakery operators, including the bakeries of Fazer and Vaasan, as well as Unibake bakeries of the Lantmännen Group.
ETL and SEL are trying to find mutual ground in negotiating five collective agreements for workers in the bakery, meat, dairy, industry and brewing and soft drinks sectors, covering around 25,000 workers.
But ….
“Our differences of opinion in the negotiations have been so great that we have had to resort to issuing a strike warning as a means of exerting pressure to achieve good collective agreements for all food workers,” Veli-Matti Kuntonen, the president of SEL, said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Anni Pyykkö, the communications manager at Vaasa Oy, assured consumers, “At least we are trying to get Ruispalat into the shops, because it is not only ours but also the most popular bread in Finland.”
Ruispalat is the rye bread classic baked from 100% domestic grain using sourdough. 100 grams of Ruispalat contains 12% of fiber!
In many stores customers have been informed of the strike and product shortages by posters on the bread shelf. As a result, as explained by Tero Karhula, the director of the Hyvinkää and Järvenpää Prisma stores, “There have been few queries from customers.”
The strike will last until Sunday, March 16.
