The Technology Industries of Finland and the Finnish Forest Industries Federation feel that illegal strikes like unannounced walkouts should be banned outright.
SAK's Director, Lauri Lyly told YLE News this is unnecessary, since the number of disputes is on the decline.
"The number of labour disputes in the past 20 years has dropped to just a tenth of what they used to be. There used to be between 1,000 and 2,000 disputes a year, nowadays it's between a hundred and two hundred," Lyly said.
Employers: Fines Not High Enough
The Technology Industries and Forest Industries Federation are also pressuring the government to increase fines for illegal strikes. They point out that fines usually amount to just a tiny fraction of the expenses incurred by the company during a strike. For example, a long strike in the paper industry last year cost the sector a hundred million euros; fines levied for the strike amounted to nearly 300,000 euros.
"The employee side has to understand how damaging these kinds of strikes are, not only to the company in the short term, but to their own jobs in the long term," says Martti Mäenpää, director general of the Technology Industries of Finland. "They chip away at a company's competitiveness and credibility with customers."
Regarding the paper industry strike, Lyly says much of the blame for expenses belongs with employers.
"Actually, the largest expenses to employers were incurred because the companies shut down plants in the standoff with employees."
He adds that fines have been adjusted constantly according to general indexes, so the actual value of the fine has not changed over the years.
Another point, says Lyly, is that many walkouts are not a matter of union tactics, but a way for employees to vent their anger.
"Many labour disputes are actually protests by employees over an employer's actions, such as mass layoffs. It's a release of bad feelings. Raising the fines won't stop such demonstrations from occurring in the future."
He also questions whether punishing employees for these actions is really justifiable. "If you take the walkouts by the Perlos employees, for example, should they have been punished even further? They all lost their jobs, after all."
