Thousands of Nokia workers walked off their jobs Friday afternoon to protest company policy, including planned layoffs, union organizers said.
The brief walkout, by office personnel at Nokia Corp.'s Tampere and Oulu units, began a few hours before workers were due to end their normal working day, union leaders said. The two plants employ more than 8,500 people, but it was not immediately clear how many participated in the action.
Employees planned to return to work on Monday, and no other action was planned, officials said.
The workers were protesting the company's announcement last week that it would lay off up to 700 people globally -- about half of them in Finland, where it employs some 24,000 people. They also objected to cuts in bonuses paid to workers despite the company's good fourth-quarter and full-year 2006 earnings report.
"We left work a little bit early today in an attempt to reduce the bad feeling," said Jarmo Talvitie, a shop steward at Nokia's Tampere offices, 100 miles north of the capital, Helsinki.
Jukka Kivari, chairman of senior office workers union in Oulu, 370 miles north of Helsinki, said the workers objected to reduced bonuses and the planned layoffs.
Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone maker and Finland's biggest company, said it was surprised by the protest as talks to reduce staff were still continuing. It said it would try to re-employ workers in other units.
In 2006, Nokia rotated 10,000 personnel into new positions within the group. At the end of the year, it employed 68,000 people worldwide -- an increase of 16 percent on 2005.
"We are surprised by this action because we want as good a result as possible from these negotiations," Nokia spokeswoman Arja Suominen said. "The talks will continue."
Suominen said Nokia had not paid bonuses at the end of 2006 because units had failed to reach their targets.
Nokia's share price in Helsinki closed at 17.35 euros ($22.79), unchanged from Thursday.
Nokia: http://www.nokia.com
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