Lauri Ihalainen likely to continue as President of SAK

SAK Congress to be held 28th to 30th May 2001

The leaders of the major SAK affiliated unions have asked Lauri Ihalainen to continue in his leadership role as the President of SAK. Mr Ihalainen has consented to this and to date no other candidate for the position has been proposed. The President, and the General Council and the Executive Committee Delegates, are elected by the Congress which is convened at five year intervals.

Giving the reasons for their proposal, the union leaders stated that Mr Ihalainen is a persevering negotiator who is both willing to listen to the affiliated trade unions and who will act upon union needs. The union leaders who have proposed this further term of office represent the Metalworkers' Union; the Chemical Workers' Union; the Union of Commercial Employees; KTV, the Trade Union for the Municipal Sector; VAL, the Finnish National Union of State Employees and Special Services; and AKT, the Transport Workers' Union.

Lauri Ihalainen has now served SAK for a full 30 years

November 2000 marks a total of thirty years that Lauri Ihalainen has spent in the service of SAK. He was first engaged by SAK on the 5th of November, 1970, and was appointed as a SAK Youth Secretary on 15th November. Following this first position he then moved on, first to become the SAK Organisation Secretary and then the SAK Secretary.

Lauri Ihalainen was first elected to the post of President of SAK by the General Council, on the 25th of May 1990, after his immediate predecessor, Mr Pertti Viinanen, had resigned from the post in mid-term. Mr Ihalainen was subsequently re-elected as President by the SAK Congress in both 1991 and 1996.

Hilkka Jukarainen