Finnish Metalworkers' Union to revote on TEAM

The Finnish Metalworkers' Union is to vote again on Wednesday on joining the new industrial union TEAM. A three-fourths majority must be found in order for the Metalworkers' Union to continue as part of the TEAM project.

In an earlier vote held on Wednesday over one third of the delegates at the general meeting voted against joining the new trade union that is to be set up within the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK).

At the meeting 306 delegates voted for TEAM and 179 against it. A three-fourths majority is needed because the same majority will eventually be required to dissolve the Metalworkers' Union.

Opponents of the new joint industrial union were mainly from the leftwing faction of the union.

The TEAM project has been in the works since 2005 and is to be launched in 2011. Currently it looks to combine the chemical, wood, media and railway workers' unions, though without the metalworkers it would hardly be the super union originally envisaged.