The Strike Made Finnair the Worst Airline in the World – But the Strike General Doesn’t Care

Finland’s national airline, Finnair, has – at least according to the Germans – become the worst airline in the world. The reason for this is the high number of flight cancellations caused by employee strikes.

I won’t take a stance in this piece on whether the strikes were justified or not, but I would like to draw your attention, dear readers, to what the chairman of the union behind the strikes, Juhani Haapalehto, bluntly stated when asked what he would like to say to the at least one hundred thousand passengers whose travel plans were disrupted by the strikes.

Haapalehto said: “It’s not worth it for me to comment one way or another. It would be misunderstood. After all, air passengers are not our customers – our members are.”

His comment has been met with astonishment in Finland. For example, the CEO of the Chamber of Commerce, Juho Romakkaniemi, wondered how “the union (and apparently its members) seems to have no understanding of who ultimately pays their salaries. It’s sad, all in all.”

Unfortunately, this case reflects a broader trend of Finnish union leaders becoming increasingly detached from the everyday lives of ordinary people and wage earners. Their only apparent goal seems to be preserving their own positions and perks, and – as happens in every election in Finland – funneling union membership fees into the campaign efforts of left-wing parties.

For now, the strikes have ended, but the actual dispute between the unions and Finnair’s management remains unresolved. As a result, the rights of passengers and the future of the airline are likely to hang in the balance once the current agreement expires.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Finnair Pilots' Actions Spark Employer Countermove 
Why Can't Finland Find Workforce?
History of Finland XIII: The far-right's rebellion

Finnair Pilots' Actions Spark Employer Countermove

Finnair is a Finnish airline whose pilots have recently engaged in various industrial actions, such as standby duty bans, leading to flight cancellations. The underlying reason for these actions is their demand for significant pay raises, as the pilots had previously accepted salary cuts to help save their employer, which had fallen into heavy losses.

However, the pilots now have something new to consider, as Finnair has announced the start of negotiations regarding pilot layoffs. The reason for this is an arrangement in which Finnair had leased two of its A330 aircraft, along with their crews, to a partner company. Finnair pilots have been operating flights on these aircraft from Bangkok and Singapore to Sydney.

According to Finnair, this arrangement has allowed the airline to put its A330 aircraft to productive use and provide work for around 90 pilots, even though, with Russian airspace closed, there would not have been enough demand for these aircraft otherwise. Despite this, the pilots' union has now expanded its industrial actions to include the critical Bangkok and Singapore flights, as well as the Sydney flights operated for the partner company.

As a result, Finnair is no longer able to operate these partnership flights reliably and has therefore started discussions with its partner regarding next steps, which include the possibility of terminating the agreement—and consequently laying off the pilots involved in these operations. It remains to be seen how the pilots' union will respond to this development.

In my view, there are three possible outcomes. Either the pilots call off their industrial actions related to this partnership, abandon their push for significant pay raises to save those at risk of being laid off, or—what I consider the most likely scenario—the situation escalates even further. At this stage, one thing is clear: the labor dispute is being played with stakes so unusual that such a situation has rarely been seen in Finland.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Do Finns have the patience?
Why Can't Finland Find Workforce?
A nurse´s question: who deserves health care, and who does not

Why Can't Finland Find Workforce?

In Finland, there is a battery factory where people from over 60 different countries work. This is not due to a labor shortage or low wages.

Instead, the reason lies in the Finnish unemployment and social security systems, whose high level provides the unemployed with a relatively comfortable life, so they do not need to leave their hometown even when they become unemployed. As a result, Finnish companies have to seek staff from around the world.

This is a problem whose root cause is the oversized socialist thinking that has entrenched itself in Finnish society, where the society aims to absorb all setbacks related to individuals' lives. The result is simultaneous unemployment and labor shortages.

Indirectly, this also means that Finns are not very eager to start businesses. It would require taking risks, and in addition, the unemployment compensation following a potential failure would be almost nonexistent compared to a salaried worker. Therefore, only a few are willing to start new companies.

The current right-wing government led by Petteri Orpo (National Coalition Party) has promised in its program to "implement a wide range of reforms to improve incentives to work, simplify the social security system, facilitate employment and provision of work, develop international recruitment, increase local bargaining in the labour market, improve wellbeing at work and the integration of work and family, and continue the reform of employment services."

It remains to be seen whether they will succeed in their goal. However, it is already clear at this stage that the reforms are opposed by both the left-wing opposition and the trade union movement. This was already seen in the winter when unions tried to prevent the government from taking the first measures aimed at improving the efficiency of Finnish working life with a wide wave of strikes.

It is to be hoped, therefore, that the government will succeed in implementing the rest of its plans, and that Finnish companies will be able to get domestic labor if they wish. This does not mean that employees cannot be hired from abroad, but rather that society would not have to simultaneously support able-bodied but unwilling people elsewhere.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
The change in the demographic structure of Helsinki
History of Finland VIII: Joining of Finland to Russia led to an increase in crime
A nurse´s question: who deserves health care, and who does not

History of Finland XIII: The far-right's rebellion

This is the thirteenth part of a blog post series where I go through the most significant stages of Finnish history. In the twelfth post, I described how Finland gained democracy after its independence and the Civil War, characterized by an exceptionally strong executive power.

Like many other European countries, Finland also experienced attempts by the far right to seize power in the 1920s and 1930s. This movement emerged as a reaction to the active activities of communist groups supported by the Soviet Union that were channeled into trade unions and resulted in continuous strikes.

Initially, these strikes were attempted to be suppressed with strikebreakers, which were mainly collected from Southern Ostrobothnia. When this did not work, the right-wing became increasingly radicalized and formed the violent Lapua Movement, which targeted communists and those believed to be sympathetic to them.

Finnish right-wing radicalism was strongest in the region of South Ostrobothnia, as the region had traditionally adopted a more active attitude towards economic activity through tar burning and other pre-capitalist activities, but the landless population that generally created instability had left - inspired by the same activity - to seek their fortune in America. Thus, the population of South Ostrobothnia was wealthy and economically unusually equal.

As a result, the people who remained in the region adopted a more conservative attitude towards world events than the rest of the country. In the 1920s, this even took on some far-right characteristics: particularly Italian Benito Mussolini was admired.

However, there were only a few openly fascist people in South Ostrobothnia. In addition, the majority of the population remained on the side of legality, which had a decisive impact on later events in 1932.

The support for the far-right first rose all over Finland but turned quickly to decline after representatives of the Lapua Movement mistakenly abducted the former President Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg and his wife on October 15, 1930. At the same time, the core of the far-right movement radicalized further, and in February-March 1932, they rebelled against the lawful authority in Mäntsälä, South Finland.

The rebellion was stopped by a speech by President Pehr Evind Svinhufvud, emphasizing the importance of legal proceedings for the whole nation, and the Lapua members, who attempted to recruit people from the countryside, failed to gather support in Mäntsälä. As a result, the entire movement was banned, and the Patriotic People's Movement, that emerged from its ruins never became a significant political force.

Thus, Finland returned to being a law-abiding and peaceful democracy, with the Social Democrats and the Agrarian League, who had distanced themselves from the far-left, being its guarantors. The Agrarian League's peasant supporters had already refused to join the far-right's bandwagon earlier. As a result, the grip of the far-left and the far-right, which had created successive pressures at the beginning of Finland's independence, loosened, and the country could be developed through peaceful politics towards a better future.

The original blog post in Finnish:
Äärioikeiston kapina

All the blog posts in this series:
History of Finland I: How did Finland become culturally part of the West?
History of Finland II: From a hinterland of the Union into a modern state
History of Finland III: The legal and economic weakening of the position of the people
History of Finland IV: The bleakest time in Finnish history
History of Finland V: The pursuit of economic profit saved the country
History of Finland VI: Age of freedom and utility
History of Finland VII: The dictator of the era of Enlightenment promoted capitalist economy
History of Finland VIII: Joining of Finland to Russia led to an increase in crime
History of Finland IX: Enlightended dictator initiated economic growth
History of Finland X: The birth of Finnish identity
History of Finland XI: Finnish democracy and gender equality for women
History of Finland XII: Bloody civil war
History of Finland XIII: The far-right's rebellion
History of Finland XIV: The end of the first Finnish Republic
History of Finland XV: Paasikivi-Kekkonen doctrine
History of Finland XVI: Through rise and fall to a new kind of future