| SAK and affiliated unions support campaign for second term: Incumbent President Tarja Halonen wins re-election During these last few months of her campaign, Halonen defended the Nordic welfare state, as she has done throughout her long career as a politician. In the early stages of campaigning, SAK, the largest union confederation in ”President Tarja Halonen is the only candidate who has consistently defended the principles, important for wage and salary earners: the generally binding character of collective agreements and the tri-partite labour market system", the SAK President Lauri Ihalainen argued shortly before the election day. A few years ago when the Employment Contracts Act was up for renewal, the then leading conservative politician Sauli Niinistö openly tried to weaken, in the legislation, the generally binding character of the collective agreements. In the global trade union movement Halonen is well-known for having co-chaired, along with her Tanzanian colleague Benjamin Mkapa, the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation. Its final report, A Fair Globalisation: Creating Opportunities for All, published in February 2004, offers valuable tools and innovations in the struggle for a more just globalisation process. Through the 1970s Halonen worked as a labour lawyer at the SAK. From1979, until2000, she served as a Social Democrat Member of Parliament. Between 1987 and 2000 she held four ministerial posts, in all, covering Social and Health Affairs, Foreign Policy, Justice and Nordic co-operation. Halonen is also well known for her active involvement in international solidarity causes, like championing the rights of the Chilean people during the military dictatorship, and for her readiness to defend minorities. Read more:
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