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Icebreaker sailors strike affects major Finnish ports

Xinhua, March 13, 2015 Adjust font size:

Icebreaker assistance for ships around ports in northern Finland remained at a standstill on Friday due to a strike on salary issues.

The strike affects the ports of Oulu, Kemi and Tornio along the northern shores of the Gulf of Bothnia between Finland and Sweden.

The owner of the icebreakers, the state-controlled Arctia Shipping, wants salary levels to be lowered. Arctia Shipping owns eight icebreakers.

At this moment, it would be cheaper to use Swedish icebreakers for assistance on the Finnish side of the Gulf of Bothnia, said Arctia.

The personnel director of the firm David Lindstrom told newspaper Demokraatti that the "greedy attitude" of the unions risks the loss of Finnish jobs.

Chairman of the Finnish Seafarers' Union Simo Zitting told the newspaper that the strike could widen to other sectors of shipping in Finland if agreement is not reached.

According to the union, the owners demand a 30 or 40 percent cutback in the earnings of Finnish sailors and threaten to hire foreign labor instead.

The strike began on Thursday, but talks between the organizations representing employers and employees were not interrupted.

The strike impacts, among others, Finnish steel giant Outokumpu in Tornio. The company has to rely on additional ground transportation to more southern Finnish ports. Endit