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2 Finnish unions to launch sympathy action to support ongoing Finnish icebreaker strike

Xinhua, March 25, 2015 Adjust font size:

Sympathy action for the ongoing strike launched by Finnish icebreakers will start affecting freight and cargo shipping next week, media reports indicated on Tuesday.

Effective April 2, members of two striking unions will not accompany Finnish ships in international freight or cargo service from a Finnish port back to the sea.

The action will also affect those passenger ships that carry freight. However, they will be exempted if only passenger automobiles and buses serving the passengers are on board.

Ilkka Oksala, director of the Confederation of Finnish Industries, said the sympathy action was unreasonable in the light of the fact that the original strike only concerned 200 employees, according to Finnish national broadcaster Yle.

The chairman of the Finnish Seafarers' Union, Simo Zitting, told local media on Tuesday that his union hoped other Finnish unions in the transport branch would join, so that foreign ships could not serve Finnish ports either.

Besides Seafarer's Union, the Finnish Union of Engineers was also behind the icebreaker strike which began on March 12. Endit