Deal and no deal with nurses' unions

I present to you the likely number one political issue in the country for the next several weeks:

The Union of Health and Social Care Professionals (Tehy) rejected an offered labour contract with Finnish municipalities on Saturday, paving the way for a possible strike. On Thursday the other main nurses' union, SuPer, approved the deal.

The PM is not amused:

Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen called the Tehy nursing union's rejection of the local authorities' final contract offer "regrettable" but reiterated that the government would not offer any more money to raise municipal wages.

He said that tax cuts planned over the next few years would have to be cancelled if all wage agreements are as high as those reached so far.

My non-expert feeling is that Tehy's strike will flame out without any significant improvement in the offer. The deal they've been offered is relatively good, they reportedly don't have the money to withstand a long strike, and many of their fellow nurses who are represented by SuPer will keep working. On the flip side, they have the public opinion on their corner, at least on the outset, and the political pressure on the government will quickly become high.

The National Coalition Party might be wishing right about now that they'd never have emphasized the issue of nurses' pay during the election campaign like they did, because it threatens to come back to bite them and the government in a spectacular way. They didn't promise the infamous 500 euros, but it's still entirely reasonable to blame them for doing their part to set nurses' expectations unrealistically high. The opposition, meanwhile, will be doing what they can to support those expectations.

In conclusion, there's plenty of room here for both the government and Tehy to suffer some injuries.

Democracy on test

As a part of the Finnish Parliament's centennial celebration, it published a 12-part book series on the history of the Parliament. I've been reading what to me seemed like the most interesting part of the series, Kansanvalta koetuksella ("Democracy on Test"). The book is divided into three sections: Vesa Vares deals with the years 1907-1919, from the birth of the unicameral parliament to birth of the republican constitution, encompassing the second period of Russification and the Civil War. Mikko Uola writes about the 1920s and 1930s, focusing on political extremism from the left and the right. Mikko Majander writes about the so-called "Long Parliament" of the war years and the first post-wars election. It would have been nice to include another chapter on the post-wars years that would have assessed the impact of Soviet influence and addressed all the Kekkonen-centric wrangling.

I recommend the book if you're interested in the topic and can read the language. The authors are fair and informative and despite the Parliament-commissioned nature of the publication, they don't shy away from controversial topics. I also appreciated the numerous large historical photographs and other illustrations. For example, the reproduction of a 1919 drawing of Mannerheim in full military regalia riding the lion from the coat of arms (page 133) is pretty wonderful. Note carefully the lion's happy expression. The National Coalition Party's and Patriotic People's Movement's joint election poster from 1930 on page 225 is also some kind of a classic. ("Remember: Socialism is communism's brother.") I'm also partial to the 1920 photograph on page 157 in which Kullervo Manner, Yrjö Sirola, the Rahja brothers, and a few other Finnish communists in Moscow are studying a big map of Finland.

Centre sour on EU sugar decision

Yesterday in Parliament, Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen criticized the EU commission in unusually harsh terms:

[Vanhanen] strongly criticised the European commission for what he said was an unfair reform of sugar production in the EU.

Mr Vanhanen said during question time in the Finnish Parliament that the commission had failed to be impartial and to take into account Europe's diversity.

He added this would no doubt affect Finland's opinion of the commission.

Startlingly, the prime minister did not even attempt to dress the issue as some sort of defensive victory, saying point-blank that Finland had lost in the negotiations.

Vanhanen needed to show his displeasure with the decision just for the sake of party morale. Agricultural subsidies are a huge issue for the rural Centre Party rank-and-file.

Although I don't like the Centre's pro-subsidies position, on this particular question Vanhanen and Agricultural Minister Sirkka-Liisa Anttila (Centre), who was also very critical of the decision, have a point about fairness. Finnish farmers already cut sugar production by 40 percent during the previous phase of reform. Now farmers in other countries which didn't do what they were supposed to do are being rewarded with higher incentives to stop production.

World chart domination

I don't mind a bit of boosterism, but YLE got carried away when it titled its article on the new albums by Nightwish and HIM as "Finnish Metal Bands Poised for World Chart Domination". Evidence of this poise:

The new album by Finnish rock band HIM has entered the US album chart at number 12 [...]

In Europe's largest market, Germany, HIM's album Venus Doom rose to number three in its first week on the chart. [...]

Last week, the two metal bands made Finnish rock history by scoring the top spots on the British rock singles chart.

Not the main singles chart, mind you. The rock one. By YLE's standards, SaiPa is poised to dominate Finnish hockey.

Note to foreign readers: SaiPa is not poised to dominate Finnish hockey.

CIA, friend of Finnish social democracy

Mikko Majander has the goods:

The US Central Intelligence Agency began to fund Finland's Social Democratic party in the latter half of the 1940s, according to a book launched Tuesday by Mikko Majander, a Finnish historian. [...]

According to Dr Majander, 1949 was a key important watershed in the official US approach to Finnish politics as it marked the time when the Americans became convinced, thanks to the suppression of a Communist-led strike movement, that Finland had not turned into a Soviet satellite. The US viewed the SDP as the only significant force capable of keeping communism in check in Finland.

That the KGB funded the Communist Party is well-known and it stands to reason that the other side didn't stand pat. Still, it's good to have proper research on the subject.

The choice of parties is interesting. I'm fairly certain that the National Coalition Party also received funding, but the Social Democrats seem to have been the CIA's favorites, perhaps due to their battle with the Communists for the control of the labor unions.

I wonder, does this mean we can credit the CIA for the welfare state?

Tanks for the memories even if they weren't so great

When a Hummer just isn't big enough, the Finnish military has you covered:

The Finnish Defence Forces attracted buyers from across the world when it auctioned about 20 decommissioned armoured vehicles at a depot in Ruovesi.

[...] All three Sturmgeschätz vehicles fetched more than 100,000 euros.

[...] Most of the tanks sold on Tuesday were British-made Charioteers and Comets, most of which were bought by Finland in the 1950s.

Olli Toivonen from the Finnish capital region got his hands on a Charioteer for 8,200 euros.

In possibly related news, the Ministry of Finance is working on car tax reform:

Currently most car owners pay a vehicle tax of 130 euros a year. Under the planned model, the owner of a small car with low emissions would pay 50 euros.

The fee for cars with a 1.6 litre engine would be 100 euros, for a two-litre diesel engine it would be 85 euros; an urban SUV would be somewhat more expensive. The owner of a four-wheel drive SUV with a large petrol engine would be hit with an annual 325 euro car tax.

I assume a tank would fall in a similar tax bracket.

aLwNGL gets results

Back in May I wrote about the animated political satire Itse valtiaat, advising the producers to get rid of one "Loka" Laitinen as a scriptwriter. Today I read in the paper that when the show continues after a summer break with a new episode next weekend, it'll have a new Loka-less team of writers. Clearly this is a coup on par with getting Dan Rather fired. Blog power!

Money for nurses

I've been critical of the opposition's approach in the debate over government action to improve nurses' pay. It's worth noting, though, that whatever the merits of their case, what they're doing makes political sense:

Some 55 per cent of the Finns interviewed by market research company Taloustutkimus for Tampere-based daily Aamulehti said nurses deserved a bigger pay rise than other municipal workers, while 35 per cent of the respondents felt they did not.

[...] About two-thirds of the respondents were of the opinion that the nursing unions' wage demands were acceptable.

Many respondents were not impressed by the government's actions in the municipal wage affair, with an overall mark of 2.27 on a scale of one to five.

Those figures don't look too good for the government. One wonders if this issue is behind the recent drop in support for government parties.

Cronberg opposes joining NRF

Green League chair, Labor Minister Tarja Cronberg said (fi) at a party council meeting that it would be beneficial for Finland to stay out of the NATO Response Forces. She thinks joining the forces would probably increase the pressure to take part in operations that Finland hasn't chosen itself. It's a reasonable point and, I suspect, one that we'll be hearing more often once the NRF decision becomes timely. President Tarja Halonen has also pointed out (fi) that Finland wouldn't be involved in making the decision to start an operation. This makes the NRF different from e.g. the EU Rapid Reaction Forces.

Cronberg also pretty much accused of Foreign Minister Ilkka Kanerva and Defense Minister Jyri Häkämies of being on their hands and knees in front of Washington. Her comparison to the old days of Finlandization is a bit off-base. The United States just plain doesn't care about Finland enough to try to influence the country's foreign policy debate to the extent the Soviet Union used to do. Further, the domestic point scoring has gone both ways: against pro-NATO folks for having a bit too warm relations with the US and against anti-NATO folks for not being in Washington's good graces.

It will be interesting to see how the Greens react, should the government come down on the side of joining the NRF.

This month's party support polls

Helsingin Sanomat published the latest poll (fi) from Suomen Gallup. The two big government parties, the National Coalition Party (22.6%) and the Centre Party (22.5%), have lost a little support, resulting in the worst combined support for government parties since the election. They're still barely ahead of their election day support.

Earlier this month YLE published a poll (fi) from Taloustutkimus. It also showed the Coalition losing some support, but the Centre gained there. Support for the government parties as a group was flat.

CP   NCP  SDP  LA  GL   CD  SPP TF  gov  source
23.1 22.3 21.4 8.8 8.5  4.9 4.6 4.1 58.5 PE 3/18
23.0 24.1 20.7 8.2 9.4  4.5 4.4 4.5 60.9 TT 4/5
22.8 23.3 21.1 8.4 8.9  4.5 4.3 4.9 59.3 SG 5/20
23.4 23.3 20.8 9.0 9.6  5.0 4.1 4.4 60.4 RI 5/25
22.4 23.4 21.7 8.4 10.1 4.7 4.1 4.3 60.0 TT 6/9
23.0 23.2 21.5 8.3 9.0  4.3 4.2 5.0 59.4 SG 6/26
22.8 23.9 21.2 8.5 9.3  4.7 4.4 4.3 60.4 TT 7/2
22.3 23.6 21.2 8.5 9.4  4.6 4.5 4.7 59.8 TT 8/13
22.7 23.2 21.6 8.1 9.4  4.7 4.5 4.6 59.8 TT 9/9
22.5 22.6 21.5 8.4 9.0  4.6 4.6 5.0 58.7 SG 9/22

Legend:
CP = Centre Party
NCP = National Coalition Party
SDP = Social Democratic Party
LA = Left Alliance
GL = Green League
CD = Christian Democrats
SPP = Swedish People's Party
TF = True Finns
gov = government parties
PE = parliamentary election
TT = Taloustutkimus / YLE
SG = Suomen Gallup (TNS-Gallup) / Helsingin Sanomat
RI = Research International Finland / MTV3

Non-allied Sweden

Occasionally Finnish NATO boosters warn of the consequences of Sweden joining NATO while Finland stays out. Our neighbors to the west are seriously thinking about it so we should too, is the general suggestion. Earlier in the week, apropos of Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt leaving out the word "non-allied" from the foreign policy section of a speech, Jacob Christensen had this to say on the topic:

Sweden hasn't been in any military alliance since - well - time immemorial and joining an alliance has been a complete no-no in Swedish politics since 1945. As a leading politician, you're not even supposed to declare that you are not considering joining NATO because just making such a statement would endanger Sweden's non-aligned status. On the other hand, according to critics and political opponents, failing to make the ritual confession to non-alliance amounts to endorsing some kind of military cooperation with - the horror, the horror - NATO.

[...] Sweden isn't a member of NATO and in the real world, NATO membership isn't even a non-issue on the political agenda.

Based on that description, it seems that Finnish politicians, at least on the right, more openly support NATO membership than their Swedish counterparts do. In Finland there are many leading politicians, including several ministers, whose NATO position is that they're personally in favor of membership, but consider joining to be politically unfeasible at this time. I wonder if such beasts exist within Sweden's centre-right government.

Super ministry to the rescue

The new Ministry of Employment and Industries - or Labor and Business, or whatever the final translation will be - will come into being (fi) next year. Trade and Industries Minister Mauri Pekkarinen (Centre Party) and Labor Minister Tarja Cronberg (Green League) held a little press conference to introduce the new ministry's organization (fi). In summary, quite a few people will be working there and a lot of money will go through the place.

As to the motivation for setting up the new ministry, Cronberg explained that currently unemployed people and work that needs to be done don't meet, but Mauri and she will change all that now that everything related to the process is under one roof. All that remains to be seen is whether they'll fix the problem by eliminating work or the unemployed.

From a party political standpoint, this is a bit of coup for the Centre. Pekkarinen, to be called the Minister for Industries or something like that, will be in charge of distributing a great deal of dough that's related to regional development. This is particularly desirable for the Centre as its support is quite regionalized. The project probably isn't entirely about patronage, but I'd be very surprised if that angle hasn't been considered at Centre party headquarters.

In other news, Pekkarinen revealed that he would have liked to have called it the Economy Ministry. He was puzzled why that name wasn't picked. (Because it's pompous, Mauri.)