Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Legislation, Markets and Companies, Strike

"We're going to have a picket in front of the headquarters in Turku at 1 p.m., and at the same time trade union meetings will take place at the three biggest plants in Finland, which means that operations at the plants will come to a halt for up to one-and-a-half hours," Artjom Arhangelski,organization secretary of the Estonian Trade Union Confederation (EAKL), told BNS.

The scheduled stoppages at the production units in Finland are meant to express solidarity with workers at the Rakvere slaughter unit.

"[In Finland] one plant has been closed. It was a slaughter unit too. If no agreement is achieved here, there exists the danger that pigs and cattle will start to be brought to Estonia in ever bigger numbers, which could mean loss of jobs in Finland. They understand what is going on, and we have joined our forces," Arhangelski said.

On Tuesday 21 people, 75 percent of the workers of the slaughter line of the Rakvere plant, were on strike.

Employees of the slaughter unit at the HKScan meatpacking plant in Rakvere, North Estonia, started an indefinite strike on Dec. 6 last year to support their demand for a wage increase.

The slaughter unit workers wanted their pay to be raised by 16 percent as of Feb. 1 and by another 16 percent as of July 1. Additionally, the employees demanded that the method of calculation of performance wages was not changed. The current net salary of slaughter unit employees is approximately 750 euros per month, made up of basic wages and extras.

The workers also referred the dispute to the public conciliator, who was unable to reconcile the two parties.

HKScan is a Nordic meat producer, which produces and markets pork, beef, poultry meat and mutton, processed meat and ready-made food. HKScan saw a loss of 18 million euros (comparable) on revenue of 1.8 billion euros in 2017. The HKScan Group also includes HKScan Estonia, which owns the Rakvere meatpacking plant and poultry producer Tallegg.