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sanna marin
Finnish Unions Extend Strikes to Fight Right-Wing Attack on Labor, Safety Net
"The policies now pursued by the Orpo-Purra government fulfill long-standing dreams of Finnish big business," said one journalist.
Mar 20, 2024
Labor unions in Finland said Wednesday that they would continue their two-week strike wave through the end of March as they fight attacks on worker rights and social programs by the Nordic nation's right-wing government.
The blue-collar union confederation SAK announced the extension after an unproductive meeting with Finnish Employment Minister Arto Santonen of the ruling center-right National Coalition Party (NCP), state broadcaster
Ylereported.
"From our perspective the meeting was a disappointment and obviously we are very worried over the fact that the government is so stubborn and unresponsive even to our far-reaching compromise proposals," SAK chair Jarkko Eloranta told reporters. "We are ready to suspend the strikes if the government shows an understanding of workers' concerns."
"These policies... were straight from the playbook of the employers' organizations, who generously financed the campaigns of the right-wing parties in the election."
Approximately 7,000 Finnish union members including dock and industrial workers are taking part in the work stoppages, which are disrupting exports, imports, and cargo transportation. Last year, the transport workers' union AKT staged a two-week strike that shut down Finnish ports while demanding higher wages as part of a new collective bargaining agreement. The workers ultimately won a 25-month contract with a 6% raise.
Finland's April 2023 general election saw the defeat of former Prime Minister Sanna Marin's center-left coalition government, which was replaced by a coalition including Prime Minister Petteri Orpo's NCP and the far-right Finns Party, led by Deputy Prime Minister Riikka Purra, who is also the finance minister. The new government angered labor advocates by announcing an agenda that includes making it easier for employers to fire workers, slashing unemployment insurance, cutting social security benefits, weakening sick pay, and limiting solidarity strikes.
Orpo's government also says it will pass legislation creating an "export-driven" collective bargaining model that would cap wage increases, hile localizing collective bargaining, effectively empowering individual companies to negotiate their own contracts with workers.
"These policies... were straight from the playbook of the employers' organizations, who generously financed the campaigns of the right-wing parties in the election," Finnish journalist Toivo Haimi wrote for Jacobin. "It is worth noting that these policies received very little attention during the election campaign, and some of them were even directly opposed by the Finns Party."
"The policies now pursued by the Orpo-Purra government fulfill long-standing dreams of Finnish big business," Haimi added.
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Progressive PM Sanna Marin Falls as Right-Wing Coalition Wins in Finland
Finland appeared headed for "a new center-right government with nationalist tones," according to political observers.
Apr 03, 2023
Finland's progressive Prime Minister Sanna Marin has conceded defeat as her ruling social democratic party fell after two right-wing parties both won more seats in parliament in national elections on Sunday.
The National Coalition Party (NCP), which campaigned on cutting government spending and reducing the national debt, won 20.8% of the vote, while the nationalist, anti-immigration Finns Party won 20.1%.
Marin's Social Democratic Party (SDP) was supported by 19.9% of voters, but the outgoing prime minister noted in her concession speech that the party won three more seats in Eduskunta, the Finnish parliament.
"Democracy has spoken," Marin said. "We have gained support, we have gained more seats. That is an excellent achievement, even if we did not finish first today."
The NCP now holds 48 seats in the parliament while the Finns have 46. The SDP holds 43 seats.
\u201cEven as Finland\u2019s NATO membership comes through, its Prime Minister Sanna Marin has conceded defeat at the hands of the right wing. Conservative Petteri Orpo has won the race with \u2018far-right\u2019, Eurosceptic Finns party coming a close second. Both are tough on immigration.\u201d— Shubhangi Sharma (@Shubhangi Sharma) 1680473905
Petteri Orpo, the leader of the NDP, is now tasked with forming a new government and is considered likely to work closely with the Finns and its leader, Riikka Purra.
"Observers say the result means a power shift in Finland's political scene as the nation is now likely to get a new center-right government with nationalist tones," reported Al Jazeera.
Marin has served as prime minister since 2019 and has won praise from progressives around the world for leading the country through the Covid pandemic by promptly invoking the Emergency Powers Act to boost healthcare and social welfare spending and for her vocal support for Ukraine following Russia's invasion last year.
The prime minister has also been a strong supporter of Finland's bid to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which is expected to be finalized on Tuesday.
"Sanna Marin, like Jacinda Ardern, will be missed in global politics," peace and conflict research professor Ashok Swain of Sweden's Uppsala University toldCNBC, referring to New Zealand's former progressive prime minister.
The Finns—with whom Orpo has expressed a willingness to cooperate despite Purra's opposition to Finland's 2035 target for carbon neutrality and to immigration, including work-based immigration to help fill job vacancies—have advocated for leaving the European Union and have been condemned as "openly racist" by Marin.
Both right-wing parties have been critical of public spending under Marin, including funding for education and pensions. Marin has argued that heavy spending to fund the country's health service, schools, and social welfare programs are crucial for economic growth, and the United Nations' annual World Happiness Report has found Finland to be the happiest country in the world for six years in a row, with researchers pointing to the government's capacity for delivering a wide range of public services as a contributing factor.
"Everybody has access to the basics," one Finnish woman, Liisi Hatinen toldThe Washington Post of Finland's success in the annual study last year. "These programs are well thought out and work."
Finland's elections were the latest in a European country to usher in a right-wing government recently. Far-right Christian and xenophobic parties formed a coalition in Sweden after elections last September and promptly shut down the country's environmental ministry, and Giorgia Meloni of the Brothers of Italy, a party with fascist roots, became Italy's prime minister last fall.
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Social Democracy Lands Finland Atop World Happiness Ranking
"World leaders should take heed," said economist Jeffrey Sachs. "Politics should be directed as the great sages long ago insisted: to the well-being of the people, not the power of the rulers."
Mar 18, 2022
Finland is the happiest country in the world, followed by Denmark and Iceland, with other Scandinavian social democracies Sweden and Norway not far behind.
"Social support, generosity to one another, and honesty in government are crucial for well-being."
That's according to the latest World Happiness Report 2022, released Friday for the 10th year in a row by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).
Rankings are based on opinion surveys that people from nearly 150 nations around the globe completed from 2019 to 2021. Analysts say that data from the Gallup World Poll and other sources reveals "key determinants of well-being," which countries can use "to craft policies aimed at achieving happier societies."
As SDSN president and report co-editor Jeffrey Sachs explained in a statement: "A decade ago, governments around the world expressed the desire to put happiness at the heart of the global development agenda, and they adopted a U.N. General Assembly resolution for that purpose. The World Happiness Report grew out of that worldwide determination to find the path to greater global well-being."
"Now, at a time of pandemic and war, we need such an effort more than ever," said Sachs, who also directs the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University's Earth Institute. "And the lesson of the World Happiness Report over the years is that social support, generosity to one another, and honesty in government are crucial for well-being."
According to the report, the global public health emergency, now in its third year, has "demonstrated the crucial importance of trust for human well-being. Deaths from Covid-19 during 2020 and 2021 have been markedly lower in those countries with higher trust in public institutions and where inequality is lower."
For the fifth consecutive year, Finland--where union density remains relatively high and the welfare state comparatively robust--was identified as the happiest country in the world. Denmark, where workers' rights and the provision of public goods are also high priorities, maintained its position in second place, while Iceland, which in recent years has experimented with a four-day work week, moved up from fourth place to third.
Coming in fourth was Switzerland, followed by the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Sweden, Norway, Israel, and New Zealand rounded out the top ten.
According to Oxfam, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has killed or contributed to the deaths of more than 19.6 million people worldwide, with most fatalities occurring in low- and lower-middle-income countries.
"This presents a stark reminder of the material and immaterial damage that war does to its many victims and the fundamental importance of peace and stability for human well-being."
Despite this grim global situation, report co-editor John Helliwell of the University of British Columbia said that two years' worth of evidence allowed SDSN to assess how "benevolence and trust... have contributed to well-being during the pandemic."
"We found during 2021 remarkable worldwide growth in all three acts of kindness monitored in the Gallup World Poll," said Helliwell. "Helping strangers, volunteering, and donations in 2021 were strongly up in every part of the world, reaching levels almost 25% above their pre-pandemic prevalence."
"This surge of benevolence, which was especially great for the helping of strangers, provides powerful evidence that people respond to help others in need, creating in the process more happiness for the beneficiaries, good examples for others to follow, and better lives for themselves," he added.
Of the 146 countries surveyed, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Lesotho, Botswana, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Lebanon, and Afghanistan ranked the lowest for happiness.
"At the very bottom of the ranking we find societies that suffer from conflict and extreme poverty," said Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, director of Oxford University's Well-Being Research Center and a co-editor of the report. "Notably we find that people in Afghanistan evaluate the quality of their own lives as merely 2.4 out of 10. This presents a stark reminder of the material and immaterial damage that war does to its many victims and the fundamental importance of peace and stability for human well-being."
Not long after the 16th-ranked United States withdrew from Afghanistan last August following a 20-year military assault that killed hundreds of thousands and cost trillions of dollars, U.S. President Joe Biden last month seized $7 billion worth of assets held by the war-torn and poverty-stricken nation's central bank--putting millions of Afghans on the verge of starvation.
"World leaders should take heed," said Sachs. "Politics should be directed as the great sages long ago insisted: to the well-being of the people, not the power of the rulers."
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