Two Finnish courts reached opposite decisions on wage claims brought by workers who did not participate in political strikes at UPM and Stora Enso, Yle reports.

The Kymenlaakso District Court rejected claims from UPM’s Kymi mill employees seeking unpaid wages from the March 2024 political strike. UPM had shut down operations and stopped paying wages at the Kouvola mill because of the strike. The workers belonged to the Paperiliitto union, which did not join the strike.

The Oulu District Court ruled in favour of workers at Stora Enso’s Oulu mill in a similar case, ordering the company to pay the outstanding wages.

Emeritus professor of labour law Seppo Koskinen said the differing rulings stem from interpretation differences over how the strike’s aims affected Paperiliitto members. Koskinen gave expert testimony used in both cases but did not comment on the correctness of the verdicts, only explaining the courts’ reasoning.

UPM justified withholding pay by arguing there was a dependency between the workers and the strike’s goals — that the strike’s objectives would also affect Paperiliitto members’ terms and conditions. Under the Employment Contracts Act, employers must pay wages for a maximum of seven days if there is no such dependency between the striking union and the non-striking union’s workers.

The Oulu court found the strike’s goals had no concrete impact on Stora Enso’s workers, Koskinen said. Those goals included disputes over local bargaining and legislation on the general applicability of collective agreements.

“The Oulu district court considered these general-level matters that do not have a concrete effect. The Kymenlaakso district court, on the other hand, found that labour legislation and efforts to change it also affect future working conditions for Paperiliitto members,” Koskinen explained.

Koskinen noted the Oulu court also cited that Paperiliitto had neither influenced the strike’s emergence nor supported it. The Kymenlaakso court did not consider that factor at all.

“If the Kymenlaakso district court had determined there was no dependency between the strike and Paperiliitto workers, UPM would have had a payment obligation,” Koskinen said.

He added that courts always have discretion in how they justify rulings, and that no similar political labour dispute had been decided before in Finland. “If the cases proceed to appeal courts, it is impossible to know whether a consistent position will emerge or not,” he said.