PAM’s Executive Committee has decided to call for large-scale strikes, with the first strikes starting in week 8, during the first week of the skiing holidays.
Among the first to go on strike will be the S-Group’s Inex Partners Oy consumer goods and grocery logistics center and all regional cooperatives’ Prisma stores. The strike at Inex Partners Oy will start on Tuesday, February 18 at 06:00 and end on Saturday, February 22 at midnight.
Prisma stores will be on strike from Thursday, February 20 at 06:00 until Friday, February 21 at midnight. In practice, all Prisma stores across the country will be closed.
Strikes in the facility services sector will also begin in week eight in Lapland, North Ostrobothnia, Kainuu, Central Ostrobothnia, Ostrobothnia, South Ostrobothnia and central Finland.
The strikes are likely to affect cleaning services at hotels, for example.
The strikes are a result of failed negotiations in the commercial sector and the facilities services sector. The negotiations broke off on Friday, and the Executive Committee of Service Union United PAM decided to take action with strikes concerning about 50,000 jobs.
The executive committee broke off the negotiations because they were no longer making progress. “The conditions weren’t in place to take the negotiations forward because the employers were unwilling to negotiate on the competitiveness pact hours, among other things,” says PAM President Annika Rönni-Sällinen in a statement.
PAM was negotiating the commercial sector collective agreement with the Finnish Commerce Federation and the collective agreement for employees in the facility services sector with Real Estate Employers. Both employers’ federations are members of EK, the Confederation of Finnish Industries. “EK was closely coordinating the negotiations, and this close coordination prevents genuine union-specific negotiations. By coordinating in this way, the employers want to have the best of both worlds and among other things force cleaners and sales staff to continue work extra hours for free. The employers are just playing, but this is a serious matter,” says Rönni-Sällinen.
If no agreement is reached, PAM is ready for more strikes.
“We have also decided on strikes after week eight. PAM will announce industrial action for the following weeks later. I hope decisions on the collective agreement can be reached before the strikes start,” says Rönni-Sällinen.
