Image: Martti Kainulainen / Lehtikuva

Postal workers won’t go back to work, and support strikes are set to widen after postal workers on Tuesday rejected a proposal for new terms and conditions from the National Labour Conciliator Vuokko Piekkala.

The move means postal workers remain on strike and support strikes are slated to expand to cover Posti service points, freight rail services, ferry services and even local transport in the Helsinki region.

The proposal was presented on Monday evening, and postal union PAU’s leader Heidi Nieminen had said immediately that she knew what her answer was.

"The answer was already known last night, but the conciliator wanted us to sleep on it and then give our response again," said Nieminen on Tuesday morning.

She said that the main issue was the company’s decision to move some 700 workers in parcel sorting offices to a new collective agreement in August.

The employers' representatives Palta had accepted the proposal, with their negotiator Tuomas Aarto claiming that the parcel sorting workers' conditions were not on the table in this negotiation round.

Several unions in the transport sector have announced sympathy strikes, with railway workers stopping freight trains for 24 hours from this evening. Public sector workers in the JHL union have from Tuesday morning stopped handling goods in rail freight yards, with their action scheduled to end in the evening.

Negotiations are scheduled to continue from 1pm on Wednesday at the National Labour Conciliator’s office.