Packaging group Stora Enso forced to pay workers €21m

26-Jan-2011 - Last updated on 26-Jan-2011 at 13:51 GMT

Food industry packaging supplier Stora Enso will record a €21m negative non-recurring item (NRI) in its fourth quarter operating profits following a court decision over the company’s non-payment of rewards to workers who participated in strikes in 2006.

The Finnish Supreme Court issued a precedent ruling at the end of 2010 obliging the food packaging company to extend pay performance-based rewards to those employees who had taken part in industrial action four years ago.

“Stora Enso will follow the ruling and voluntarily pay all unpaid performance-based rewards from 2005-2009, including interest, on the same basis as that covered by the precedent,” the company said in a statement.

The move by the company has averted a planned strike by the union involved in the payment row. Ammattiliitto Pro said it will now cancel a two-day strike it had organised for about 1,000 white-collar workers in Finland.

Separately, Stora Enso is one of three paper companies accused of running a wood buying cartel by the Finnish organisation that administers forest land owned by the state, Metsähallitus, reports Finnish media outlet, the Helsingin Sanomat.

Stora Enso said the allegations are without merit.

Metsähallitus is demanding compensation from three forest industry companies, alleging that they operated a price fixing cartel for raw wood between 1997 and 2004.

Director-General Jyrki Kangas of Metsähallitus told the Finnish news group that precise demands for compensation have not yet been made, but the companies - Stora Enso, UPM, and Metsäliitto - will be called in for discussions on the matter immediately.

“We have made our calculations, but we will not disclose our demand for compensation yet. It involves a significant sum in relation to our turnover”, Kangas added.