Trade Unions News from Finland fête ses dix ans

Vendredi 17 août 2007 5 17 /08 /Août /2007 08:50

Trade Unions News from Finland fête ses dix ans

Saluons l'anniversaire du blog de Juhani Artto qui publie des informations sur la vie syndicale en Finlande depuis le 15 août 1997.

Trade Union News from Finland moves into its second decade

Helsinki (15.08.2007 - Juhani Artto) Ten years ago, on 15 August 1997, I began to publish Trade Union News of Finland. At that time there were not many other publications to be found on the World Wide Web focusing on the trade union movement and working life.

The original idea behind Trade Union News from Finland still stands. The challenge is to report in English, the lingua franca of global movements, on working life in Finland and its trade union movement. Even though Finland is a small country in terms of population there are many things happening that are worth reporting on, especially from the working people's angle, which might be of interest to a global audience.

Annually, around the world, tens of thousands of trade union activists, researchers, students and other people have loaded Trade Union News from Finland stories on their screens. Among the readers there are also many people who live and work in Finland but who are unable to read Finnish in a way that would give a proper idea of what is going on. For Finns Finnish is a totally natural and normal form of communication but for foreigners (at least according to foreign friends and acquaintances) it is often perplexing and like elsewhere, nowadays, the easiest route is to use English when trying to reach a wider audience.

Through the years, visitor statistics has given me a realistic picture on the popularity of various issues. In general, stories concerning Nokia and other multinationals have "sold" best. But also many other issues have found a satisfactory number of readers. For example, the story, published in January 2007, on agency-hired labour, has already been downloaded more than a thousand times. A thousand or so ‘hits’ makes me feel what I am trying to do is worthwhile.

Equality has been foremost among the issues that I’ve covered annually. Environmental and occupational safety issue have, self-evidently, had a place in the publication. At the bottom of this page there are links to ten stories, from 2003 to 2007, that have been among the most popular stories in these 10 years of publishing. The sample is also a reminder of the variety dealt with in the publication.

Since January 1998 the union confederation SAK and a handful of its affiliated unions have financially enabled the publication of the Trade Union News from Finland. Recently, for the first time, a union belonging to another union confederation, the Salaried Employees' Union TU, joined the sponsoring group. In my eyes, this kind of cross-confederation cooperation represents a most welcome development.

Trade Union News from Finland has, from the very beginning, been editorially independent from its sponsors. Each and every one of these organisations has fully respected this principle. At present, twelve union organisations sponsor the Trade Union News from Finland.

Links to a sample of Trade Union News from Finland stories
from 2003 to 2007

2007: