Finnish Services Union United published critical Wal-Mart book

Finnish Services Union United publishes critical Wal-Mart book, deepens its cooperation with UNI

PAM – the 200.000 strong united services union of Finland has just published a book exposing the Wal-Mart business model. The book, translated into Finnish from the English-language original edited by Nelson Lichtenstein, was launched to coincide with the union's second Congress, which took place in Helsinki. The book is available in bookstores nationwide and is a fantastic dissection of the consequences of the world's largest retailer on jobs, communities and the retail sector.

Philip Jennings calls for decent work and Nordic-style safety nets

In his address to the conference on the theme of unions and globalisation, Philip Jennings stated : "The world has a choice. The road of the Nordic way of decent work, social safety nets and active labour market policies, or the Wal-Mart way of "always lower prices" whatever the social consequences. A more apt description of Wal-Mart would be "always fighting unions", he said.
In reaction to the news that Wal-Mart had announced its entry into India, Philip Jennings announced that UNI was already working on the ground in India to ensure that, with the arrival of Wal-Mart and other multinationals, unions will be ready to educate, organise and negotiate.

PAM deepens its cooperation with UNI

Ann Selin, PAM President, called upon the union to deepen its work with UNI. In the "era of economic globalisation, we must be more committed to deepening our global and European union work."
In her address, Ann was at odds with the government's pledges on equal pay. "In 2004, the average pay for women was 80% of the average pay of men, making the gap wider than it was in 1999".
The Finnish government plans to raise women's average pay to 85% of that of men by 2015. According to the government's official plan, it would take 40 years to eliminate the gender based pay gap. Selin stated that "full equality must be reached in a shorter period of time".