UPM Reached New Deal to End Strike at Finland Mills

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): UPM announced that it has reached business-specific collective labour agreements with Paperworkers’ Union for five UPM businesses. Consequently, the strike at UPM Pulp, UPM Communication Papers, UPM Specialty Papers, UPM Raflatac and UPM Biofuels units in Finland will come to an end immediately. The employees will return to work, with customer deliveries expected to restart at the earliest, said the company news release.

The conciliator submitted settlement proposals for separate collective labour agreements for the five UPM businesses. Both the parties have already approved them.

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The contract period of the new agreements is four years. The pay increases will be in line with the industry norms. Revisions to wages will be negotiated after two years. The structurally less complicated new agreements consider competence and performance as key factors in wage formulation. In general, all agreements substitute periodical pay with hourly pay. In addition, they agree on added flexibility to shift arrangements and the use of working time.

UPM and the union have made history together by agreeing on five business-specific collective labour agreements, which replace the paper industry´s old agreement stemming from the 1940’s, said Riitta Savonlahti, Executive Vice President, Human Resources, UPM.