The Finnish seamen’s trade union has threatened to announce that Tallink’s ships should be “open to sanctions” unless the company says it will discuss a collective agreement of the crews working on ships bought in April.
Tallink has sued the trade union. Kaia Vask from the Estonian seamen’s trade
union says that there are many ways to boycot the ships. But Simo Zitting from
the Finnish trade union did not want to say exactly which sanctions they were
planning.
This spring, Tallink bought three fast ferries from Greece for EEK 4.8
billion (EUR 0.3 billion); 300 Greek, German and Finnish seamen who had been
working on the ships were replaced by Estonians and the number of employees was
reduced.
The Finnish seamen’s trade union was disturbed by such behaviour and expects
Tallink to start negotiations with those left unemployed. Moreover, the
Estonians are getting 75 percent less money for their work at Tallink and this
is total discrimination, thinks Zitting.
