In connection with the labour market seminar, the Industrial Union submitted a petition to the Minister of Employment – More than 27,000 industrial workers demand that the Government cancel the weakening of working life

More than 27,000 industrial workers have signed a petition calling on Petteri Orpo’s government to back down from the actions impairing the working life. Riku Aalto, the Chairman of the Industrial Union, handed over the petition to Minister of Employment Arto Satonen today, 16 October 2024, in connection with a labour market seminar organised by the Government at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment.

Names for the petition have been collected by the Industrial Union’s shop stewards at workplaces and electronically during November and December 2023. The petition has a total of almost 300 A4 pages of signatures. The signatories of the petition have also given their permission for their names to be made public when the petition is handed over to MPs.

The petition is as follows:

We, the undersigned workers, feel that the impairments to working life planned by the Finnish Government are a great threat to ourselves and to the Finnish workplace. The impairments are justified by referring to their employment effects, although no such effects have been proven to exist.

Restricting the right to strike deprives us, workers, of the opportunity to defend ourselves against impairments to working life that undermine job security and terms of employment. The true rationale underlying these Government actions is the unilateral weakening of workers’ rights and bargaining position.

We want every Member of Parliament to know that this is not what we voted for. We demand that the Government reverse the impairment of working life. We have Serious Grounds to act.

Riku Aalto, Chairman of the Industrial Union, thanks the signatories of the petition for their activity.

“I would like to thank the signatories of the petition for their active promotion of workers’ rights. More than 27,000 signatures in such a short space of time demonstrate the widespread opposition of industrial workers to the impairment of working life.”