Nokia staff in Tampere and Oulu stage a walk out
By Stefan Constantinescu on Friday, February 23rd, 2007 at 10:01 AM PST In Financial/Corporate News
Several thousand employees at Nokia (NYSE: NOK) offices in the Finnish cities of Tampere and Oulo have this afternoon walked out in protest against the mobile phone maker’s employment practices, the Finnish Confederation of Salaried Employees (STTK) said.Nokia spokesperson Arja Suominen said it appears the action involves less than half of the 9,000 employees that are employed at the two sites. They are making use of flexitime arrangements to leave their desks early today, she said.
The walk-out is linked to Nokia’s plans to cut jobs primarily in its enterprise solutions and technology platform units, where talks got underway yesterday.
Last week, Nokia said it intends to lay off about 340 staff at operations in Finland over the next few months, though some of those may be offered other jobs within the group.
‘We don’t understand that, after the best results in history, they start co-determination talks and pay the worst bonuses in years,’ state broadcaster YLE quoted a union official in Tampere as saying.
The action is expected to continue through Friday afternoon.
Some more information from Reuters:
Nokia spokeswoman Arja Suominen said the company had been informed of the planned action later on Friday, but declined to comment on the number of staff involved. She said Nokia had not had significant strikes or walkouts anywhere in the company’s recent history.
"They are very rare," she said.
Any Nokia employee care to talk to me about this? The conversation will be private. You have my word.
what is Nokia doing with all the big fat money they are making from their expensive devices? Nokia devices are the most expensive phones in the market compared with Sony, Motorola, Samsung, LG and the rest. No other phone maker other than Nokia makes phones that cost $800/$1000 dollars out there in the market right now.
Hello Stefan!
It is Oulu, not Oulo
Sheikh, I would argue SE is the most expensive relative to features – that is at the time when the phone is first launched into the market.
Nokia is using its profits to develop business, R&D and, and, most importantly, giving dividends to the investors that have given them capital to work with and increased the value of the company. Sure, they should give something nice to their staff – say a 1100?
Sim: Thanks! Forbes had the wrong spelling. Reuters didn’t.