That barbecue grill, bicycle or summer frock you ordered in your excitement at the approaching spring is most likely sitting in a freight container at some European port, waiting for the current wave of strikes in Finland to end on 25 March.
So far during the strike, the Port of Helsinki's Vuosaari harbour is seeing only about half its usual number of self-contained freight shipments — such as shipping containers — arriving by ship, says Vesa Marttinen, the port's Director of Freight Transport.
The port of Hamina-Kotka, on the other hand, is operating at only about 10 percent of normal volume during the strike, says its Managing Director Kimmo Naski.
The strike will affect around 20,000 shipping containers and 10,000 lorry trailers at Helsinki's harbours alone, Marttinen estimates.
"Consumer goods that do not spoil, such as bicycles and clothing, could be delayed by the strike by a few weeks to a few months," he says.
About 1.4 million shipping containers pass through Finland every year. According to Juha Mutru, Managing Director of the Finnish Port Operators Association, the strike will affect tens of thousands of containers in Finland as a whole.
Medicines and animals getting through
During the strike, freight containers headed for Finland from abroad are either remaining in their country of dispatch, waiting in European ports such as Rotterdam or Hamburg, or are aboard ships in Finnish waters waiting for ports to receive their cargo.
The last of these options is, though, the most unlikely, according to Marttinen since the strike that started Monday is still at such an early stage. Even so, there may be some ships off the coast waiting for the strike to end.
Shipping companies are now trying to reroute their cargo vessels. According to Mutru, some of the cargo destined for Finland has been unloaded at the port of Muuga in Tallinn, Estonia, and some at the port of Lübeck in Germany.
Only goods critical for national security of supply, such as some energy-related materials, medicines and hospital supplies, animal feed and live animals, are now being received for unloading by Finnish ports.
"In addition, some non-urgent cargoes have been accepted because some stevedores have come to work despite the strike," Mutru says.
Mutru points out that the strike will bring additional costs for individual ships, ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of euros, depending on factors such as the type of freight they are carrying and the daily costs of transport.
"If cargo is unloaded in the meantime, say in Muuga [near Tallinn] and picked up there for reshipment to Finland, the extra stopover can be very expensive," Mutru explains.
No major losses expected
Many foodstuffs are also transported by shipping container. Marttinen says he is not yet worried about tons of food spoiling because of the strike, as the containers are temperature-controlled.
Mutru believes that some food will spoil during the strike, but the impact will not be huge.
If food does go to waste, the loss is usually covered by the sender or the buyer, according to what contract terms state.
"When these containers arrive in Finland, the Finnish Food Safety Authority will assess whether or not the products are still marketable," says Marttinen.
The strike is not expected to cause widespread shortages of food products, but there may be shortages of some individual products.
Difficult to prioritise
Operators at Vuosaari harbour were able to forward a large number of containers before the strike started, so there is currently not a significant backlog at the port facility.
When the strike ends, Marttinen expects the port to fill up quickly. The biggest challenge will then be to get the containers out of the port.
"Moving just one cargo ship's load out requires hundreds of trucks," he explains.
According to Marttinen, being able to prioritise unloading according to the urgency of the products in containers is a challenge. Ships are mostly unloaded on a first-come, first-served basis.
Foodstuffs will move quickly as soon as the strike ends, but, say a bicycle on order for the spring may be stuck someplace like Rotterdam for quite a long time.
