Paper mills in Finland will be starting up gradually, but impacts of the strike will be felt for quite some time, according to the Finnish Forest Industries Federation. Almost 70 percent of the paper industry in the country was halted due to the strike.“Mills will be starting up gradually over a few days. The forest industry will be cleaning up the mess caused by the strike for a long time. We will have to work very hard to win back client confidence,” said Jari Forss, Executive Vice President and Head of labour market issues at the Forest Industries Federation."The strike has added to the forest industry’s costs and is increasing pressure to achieve savings in other aspects of operations,” Forss continued. “The flow of export revenues was cut off after the stevedore strike halted the forest industry’s client deliveries."According to Jari Forss, Finland must develop its system for maintaining industrial peace. "Our country can ill afford labour disputes that halt the deliveries of the entire export sector. In addition to the forest industry, the cost of the stevedore strike will be shouldered by the employees of the industry’s entire value chain as well as by the regions in which affected companies operate,” Forss said.It will take at least several weeks to clear inventories of export and import goods at harbours. The large number of full railway carriages that have accumulated in ports form a major problem because they place obstacles to loading, clog up rail yards and lead to a shortage of empty carriages elsewhere.