Strikebound in Helsinki

The Mariella and Gabriella laid up together at Katajanokka on 26.11.2019 due to the strike, with the Lotus (Danish-flagged and therefore outside the strike) bunkering the Gabriella and slightly messing up my envisioned shot.

The Finnish postal services have been on strike for the past two weeks, after the employer decided to unilaterally move a part of the workforce under a different collective agreement, resulting in pay cuts of 30-40%. When the postal services wouldn't budge from their original position, support strikes quickly begun – for reasons that should be obvious, workers across the board were not exactly keen on a precedent being set for such radical pay cuts made purely at the employers' discretion.

The Finnish Seamen's Union (amongst others) joined the strike on Monday, with Finnish-flagged ships laid up after arriving in Finnish ports. For the Helsinki-Stockholm route, this meant that only the Silja Symphony was sailing, with the Mariella laid up on arrival on Monday and the Gabriella and Silja Serenade on Tuesday.

Need a magazine cover?

Finnlines attempted a strikebusting move by moving the Finnstar, which normally sails on the Helsinki-Travemünde route, to the Malmö-Travemünde route (meaning she never arrives at a Finnish port and is therefore not subject to the strike), and moving the Swedish-flagged Europalink to the services from Finland instead. However, the strike was resolved earlier this morning, before the Europalink even reached Finland.

The Lotus leaving – I was so preoccupied with taking photos that I didn't notice she was moving at first! Alas, she reparted just as the light was getting a bit too dark for really good views.

Of course, the Helsinki-Stockholm ships laid up gave nice chances of photographing ships that are normally not seen together in Eteläsatama in Helsinki (similar unusual pairings could also be seen in Vuosaari, Turku, Naantali and Hanko, but I didn't have time to zoom around the country quite so much).

Line-up of the Finnish-flagged Helsinki-Stockholm ships. Unfortunately, I only realised you could take a photo with all three properly visible through the harbour fence when it was a bit too dark for really good photos.

You wait for five months for a blog update and then two come at once? Worry not, I'm sure we'll be back to the one update per month if you're lucky -pace soon. :P