State labour mediator Esa Lonka decided to put aside the biggest sticking point, the demands for better severance packages, and concentrate on smaller issues such as differences over outsourcing and flexibility of working hours.

For the first time in the dispute, Lonka is also pulling in the umbrella organisations under which the stevedores' unions and employers operate: the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK) and the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK).

Talks lasted until late Tuesday night, but Lonka did not say whether any progress had been made.

The strike started on March 4th, halting imports and exports. It has hit the paper industry especially hard, with paper mills shutting down because their product is backing up in warehouses.

Apart from the paper and forestry industry, technology industrialists say their industry is hemorrhaging at the rate of 70 million euros per day, and that the strike is affecting 80 percent of businesses in the sector.

The Transport Workers Union considers the strike so important that it has decided to raise strike pay for the stevedores involved in the action to one hundred euros per day for every day of the strike. The minimum for tax-free strike pay is 16 euros a day for a five day week.