PRESS RELEASE 15 August 2017
High stakes with personnel’s coping at work:
FORESTRY COMPANY STORA ENSO ACHIEVES RECORD RESULTS—STILL PLANS TO DECRESE THE NUMBER OF FORESTRY EXPERTS
During the last financial period, Stora Enso turned in more than EUR 400 million of pure profit. The company announced that it will start a EUR 50 million savings scheme that will be realised “by cutting annual costs” by 2018. Stora Enso Metsä started the co-operation negotiation process on 14 August with a maximum personnel reduction objective of 30 people. Forestry experts are already working overtime to achieve the company’s bio economy goals.
- “Forestry experts are known for their commitment to their company. The co-operation negotiations announced by Stora Enso were a slap in the face right before the start of a new round of negotiations,” says Håkan Nystrand, President of METO–Forestry Experts’ Association.
According to Nystrand, the profit targets set for forestry experts have multiplied over the years, and not all work has become more efficient by digitalisation to this extent.
- “Forestry experts want to do their jobs well and serve forestry customers, but the targets and objectives set for them have been excessive for too long. According to our reports, forestry experts’ working days already often extend beyond normal working hours. In addition to this, the Competitiveness Pact that came into effect last February meant that forestry experts granted 24 more hours of their time to their employers. Previous co-operation negotiations have already marked the retirement of those qualified for it. This is enough,” says Nystrand.
Stora Enso states in its Sustainability Report 2016 that one of its goals is “to have a workforce that is motivated, healthy and capable”. Meto feels that excessive targets and objectives continuously set for forestry experts and the overlong working days required to meet these targets without any compensation are contrary to the spirit of the company’s own Sustainability Report.
- “According to the annual report, Stora Enso wants to respect its employees and treat them fairly. However, the plan is to dump the increasing timber acquisition targets and growing quality criteria of the bio economy on the decreasing number of forestry experts. In practice, the process started by Stora Enso is an impossible equation that signals that the company is forgetting its own values of sustainability and responsibility,” says Håkan Nystrand, President of METO–Forestry Experts’ Association.
For additional information, please contact:
President of METO Håkan Nystrand, tel. +358407615176
METO – Forestry Experts’ Association is an organisation for safeguarding the interests of forestry and natural resources experts. The association has approximately 7,000 members who work in natural resource industries as planners, designers, supervisors, foremen, in timber acquisition and harvesting, in forestry, as executive directors, office managers, advisers, in jobs related to nature management, as teachers and as experts, in other managerial duties and as independent entrepreneurs.
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