HELSINKI: Valio announced on Monday that it will discontinue the production of pasteurised milk in Nekala, Tampere. In addition, the dairy giant will shed 74 positions through non-renewals of fixed-term contracts, 45 positions through voluntary pension arrangements and 38 positions through other arrangements. Overall, it will shed 326.5 full-time equivalent positions.
The cost cuts will especially hit the milk production plant of Valio in Nekala, Tampere, where 76 employees will be laid off and 4 employment relations terminated by other means – thus, cutting the workforce of the plant roughly in half.
Antti Parviainen, the chief shop steward at the plant, reveals that the numbers correspond with the estimates announced at the beginning of the consultative negotiations.“All of us naturally feel bad. This will have such a big effect on us,” he says.
Valio will transfer the production of pasteurised milk from its plant in Tampere to its plants in Oulu, Jyväskylä and Riihimäki. The plant in Tampere will henceforth concentrate on the production of special milks and domestic cheeses. The sweeping cuts were detailed no more than two years after the dairy giant announced that it would invest 30 million euros to double the special milk production capacity of its plant in Tampere.
