Strikes scheduled across 13 meat and ready meals sites in Finland have been postponed for two weeks.
Earlier this month, the Finnish Food Workers’ Union (SEL) announced a two-day planned walkout across sites owned by local manufacturers HKFoods, Saarioinen, Pouttu, Snellman Group, Atria and Apetit Food starting today (25 March).
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In a statement, the SEL, which represents workers, said Finland’s Minister of Labour Arto Satonen had postponed the strike to 8 April, as “given its nature and scope, [it] would target vital functions of society and would significantly harm the public interest”.
The strike action will now begin at midnight on 8 April, lasting until around the same time on 10 April.
Nearly 4,000 employees across the 13 facilities are expected to down their tools over poor pay and unreasonable working hours.
Affected locations include three of HKFoods’ meats and ready meals sites, four of Saarioinen’s factories and a dispatch centre, Pouttu’s factory in Kannus and Apetit’s frozen foods plant in Säkylä.
Convenience foods and cold cuts processor Atria will also see strikes at facilities in Forssa and Nurmo, though the poultry factory is unaffected, SEL said.
Snellmann’s site in Kerava, which produces ready meals under the Kokkikartano brand will also see strikes, though the group told Just Food it did not expect the impact would be “too big”. It declined to confirm how many workers would be walking out.
Apetit also declined to share a statement, while the other manufacturers did not respond to Just Food‘s requests for comment.
The SEL said the strike looked to speed up the development of new collective agreements for food industry workers in Finland.
The union is also working on developing collective agreements for the dairy, bakery and drinks sectors.
Collective agreements for food and drinks industry workers expired at the end of January. The SEL and Finnish Food Industries Federation (ETL), which represents employers, have not yet reached an agreement.
Walkouts started on Sunday at breweries run by Royal-Unibrew owned Hartwall, Carlsberg and Olvi and are expected to continue until 28 March.
Affected sites include the Lahti brewery run by Hartwall, Carlsberg’s Sinebrychoff site in Kerava and Olvi’s brewery in the North Savonian town of Iisalmi.
Hartwall’s warehouse in Tattariharju, Helsinki, and Sinebrychoff’s equipment business Sinebrychoff Supply Company are also seeing strikes.
ETL confirmed to Just Drinks that negotiations had been set for tomorrow.
Strikes took place at Fazer and Lantmännen bakeries a couple of weeks ago. These are set to continue across 150 bakeries between 31 March and 3 April, according to SEL.
