Roundup: Aviation, seafarers unions to support postal strike in Finland

The Finnish Aviation Union IAU and the Finnish Seafarers' Union SMU announced Tuesday that they will hold sympathy strikes to support industrial action being held by postal workers.

The Finnish Aviation Union said it would stop processing mails that pass through airports, and suspend providing meals for crew of planes carrying posts.

The support strike will take place on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 if there is no resolution to the postal dispute.

The Finnish Seafarers' Union said its members would stop carrying Deutsche Post Group (DHL)'s mails to passenger ships, ferries and cargo-carrying vessels, as well as any other means of transportation.

The strike action will start on the morning of Nov. 30 and be valid until further notice.

Some 4,000 postal workers of Finland on Nov. 19 started a nationwide strike, as negotiations to resolve a dispute over pay, conditions and new shift patterns broke down.

The labor action may last for two weeks from Nov. 19 to Dec. 4, said Posti Group, the state-owned post service provider of Finland.

On Nov. 20, PAU asked other unions to stage sympathy strikes for participating in the ongoing postal strike.

The Finnish Transport Workers' Union AKT responded positively to PAU's request on Monday.

Meanwhile, collective bargaining talks to resolve the postal labor dispute will continue on Thursday, said Finnish national broadcaster Yle.

The postal strike has so far mostly affected the capital region, through which more than half of the country's mails are delivered, as well as Turku, Tampere, Oulu and Seinajoki.

The Posti Group warned on Tuesday that the strike is likely to cause problems in mail delivery across the whole country in the near future.

According to the current estimate made by Posti Group, clearing the backlog accumulated during the strike might take several days or even weeks. Enditem