The 1949 Kemi strike was a strike in July–August 1949 by the workers of Kemi Oy (today a part of

Metsä Group Metsä Group (previously Metsäliitto Group) is a Finnish forest industry group present in about 30 countries. Metsä Group's core businesses are tissue and cooking papers (Metsä Tissue), board (Metsä Board), pulp (Metsä Fibre), wood products ...

) in the Northern Finnish town of

Kemi Kemi (; sme, Giepma ; smn, Kiemâ; sms, Ǩeeʹmm; Swedish (historically): ''Kiemi'') is a town and municipality of Finland. It is located very near the city of Tornio and the Swedish border. The distance to Oulu is to the south and to Rovani ...

. On August 18 the strike escalated on a violent clash called "Kemi Bloody Thursday" between strikers and local police, two workers were killed and several injured. Kemi strike is so far the last fatal political protest in Finland. The Kemi strike is seen as a struggle between

Communist Party of Finland The Communist Party of Finland ( fi, Suomen Kommunistinen Puolue, SKP; sv, Finlands Kommunistiska Parti) was a communist political party in Finland. The SKP was a section of Comintern and illegal in Finland until 1944. The SKP was banned by ...

and the Prime Minister K-A Fagerholm's cabinet. The cabinet controlled a large part of the trade unions through the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

and the communists wanted to regain the power their parliamentary organization

Finnish People's Democratic League Finnish People's Democratic League ( fi, Suomen Kansan Demokraattinen Liitto, SKDL; sv, Demokratiska Förbundet för Finlands Folk, DFFF) was a Finnish political organisation with the aim of uniting those left of the Finnish Social Democratic Pa ...

had lost in the 1948 legislative election.Hanhimäki, Jussi M.: "Containing Coexistence: America, Russia, and the "Finnish Solution" 1945–1956"
p. 74–77. Kent State University Press, 1997.

The clash

The strike began on July 1, as the government wanted to cut the wages of Kemi Oy's lumber workers with more than 30 percent. It was soon joined by local

lumberjack Lumberjacks are mostly North American workers in the logging industry who perform the initial harvesting and transport of trees for ultimate processing into forest products. The term usually refers to loggers in the era (before 1945 in the Unite ...

s, employers of the Kemi Oy sawmill and the dockers of

Port of Kemi The Port of Kemi is a cargo port in the city of Kemi, Finland, on the northern shore of the Bothnian Bay. The port comprises three facilities: *Ajos harbour: the main facility at Kemi, handling both containerised and bulk cargo; four piers a ...

. Prime Minister

Karl-August Fagerholm Karl-August Fagerholm (31 December 1901, in Siuntio – 22 May 1984, in Helsinki) was Speaker of Parliament and three times Prime Minister of Finland (1948–50, 1956–57, and 1958–59). Fagerholm became one of the leading politicia ...

declared the strike illegal as it went on for several weeks. The strike caused a jam of 20,5 million

cubic foot Cubic may refer to: Science and mathematics * Cube (algebra), "cubic" measurement * Cube, a three-dimensional solid object bounded by six square faces, facets or sides, with three meeting at each vertex ** Cubic crystal system, a crystal system ...

of logs to the mouth of

Kemijoki Kemijoki ( sv, Kemi älv, se, Giemajohka), with its length, is the longest river in Finland. It runs through Kemijärvi and Rovaniemi before reaching the Gulf of Bothnia at Kemi. Facta 2001, part 8, ''finnish'' At Rovaniemi the Ounasjoki river ...

river. The employers recruited

strikebreaker A strikebreaker (sometimes called a scab, blackleg, or knobstick) is a person who works despite a strike. Strikebreakers are usually individuals who were not employed by the company before the trade union dispute but hired after or during the st ...

s, bringing them to work under police protection. On August 18 a peaceful march of more the 3,000 strikers was on its way to the estuary, where the strikebreakers were driving logs and releasing the jam. As the march was stopped by armed policemen, a violent riot burst out. Protesters were equipped with sticks and rocks, while the police were using their batons and guns. One striker was shot and a female worker was fatally hit by a truck. It is still unclear who fired the deadly shot. According to official forensic examination the bullet was not shot from any of the police guns,{{cite web, url=http://www.palkkatyolainen.fi/pt99/p990907-p2.html , title=Kemin lakosta puoli vuosisataa , publisher=Palkkatyöläinen , date=7 September 1999 , language=fi , accessdate=11 April 2014 , url-status=dead , archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927222436/http://www.palkkatyolainen.fi/pt99/p990907-p2.html , archivedate=September 27, 2007 although declassified secret police documents reveal that the police were shooting at strikers. One police officer stated he was prevented from shooting at a violent striker only by his gun jamming.Pohjolan Sanomat 16.8.2009

Aftermath

As a result, president

Juho Kusti Paasikivi Juho Kusti Paasikivi (; 27 November 1870 – 14 December 1956) was the seventh president of Finland (1946–1956). Representing the Finnish Party until its dissolution in 1918 and then the National Coalition Party, he also served as Prime Ministe ...

called a general alert of the armed forces and the government sent army troops to Kemi. This ended up with an arrest of 22 leading activists. A total number of 127 strikers were later accused of uprising, 63 of them were sent to prison. The police violence caused a series of sympathy strikes around Finland by communist dominated trade unions like the seamen's union led by

Niilo Wälläri Niilo Frans Wälläri (6 July 1897 – 25 August 1967) was a Finnish socialist, syndicalist politician. Wälläri led the Finnish Seamen's Union from 1938 until his death. In 1913 Wälläri left Finland to become seaman. In 1916, he settled in t ...

and a large number of metal workers. Finnish government was even afraid of communist uprising and

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

intervention. Communists in turn, were accusing the government for violating the

Paris Peace Treaty The Paris Peace Treaties (french: Traités de Paris) were signed on 10 February 1947 following the end of World War II in 1945. The Paris Peace Conference lasted from 29 July until 15 October 1946. The victorious wartime Allied powers (princi ...

since they had sent military against the striking workers. The American press characterized the incident as a "test for Finnish democracy". Soviet newspaper

Pravda ''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the co ...

was talking about "police terror" and "Prime Minister Fagerholm's collaboration with American imperialists". The sympathy strikes were finally put down on 22 August, as the Social Democrat controlled

Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions The Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions, usually referred to by the acronym SAK ( fi, Suomen Ammattiliittojen Keskusjärjestö; sv, Finlands Fackförbunds Centralorganisation, FFC) is the largest trade union confederation in Finland. Its ...

expelled the striking unions. Several other unions decided to cancel their planned strikes. Some trade union leaders were later put on trial and given short sentences.

References

External links

Kemi strike
Archives of Finnish Broadcasting Company Labour disputes in Finland Social history of Finland Kemi strike Kemi Rebellions in Finland Kemi strike Kemi strike Kemi strike Political violence