Finnish Port Strike Talks Break Down

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Talks between Finnish dockworkers and port operators broke down last Friday, March 12, with no end in sight to a strike that is costing export-dependent Finland hundreds of millions of euros, both parties said in a Reuters news report. Redundancy packages are at the heart of a dispute that has stopped operations at Finnish ports since March 4.

"The negotiations are frozen, the talks ended, and a new time has not been scheduled, so it looks bad," Hilkka Ahde, spokeswoman for the Transport Workers Union, told Reuters. She added that it was unlikely the parties would meet over the weekend.

The Finnish Port Operators Association's managing director Juha Mutru said that the talks had ended and no new talks were planned. The strike of some 3,000 stevedores threatens Finland's nascent recovery from recession, and has forced Stora Enso and UPM-Kymmene to shut many of their paper machines in Finland. Metals, electronics and forestry businesses are also being hit by the strike, the Reuters report noted.