BB FANS

Wed May 25, 2005 6:43 PM BST

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Shoppers in Finland raided shelves for toilet paper on Wednesday in fear of it running out as a lockout of workers kept the Nordic country's paper mills shut.

"As soon as we get a delivery, the packages vanish off the shelves. The big bags go first," said Hille Laine, manager of a central Helsinki shop which had no tissue paper products left.

Paper makers enforced a four-week lockout on May 18 following a two-day strike by workers. The dispute in the key export sector is mainly over industry's plans to scrap mill shutdowns during some holidays and on the use of outside labour.

The latest round of talks between workers and employers ended without a deal on Wednesday, meaning that the lockout will continue at least until Monday when they are due meet again.

This is so crazy and true!

I heard this from people on friday when I was at work. They said that people were buying packages like mads.

All that has made me laugh: our shops have stores and IF these papers will end unfortunately somehow, we have global world and we can import paper from other countries. There's really nothing to worry about.

All that I'm worried is that if the employers and workers will have a deal, employers will sooner or later give notices to their workers and they'll move their production of paper somewhere else (like in China) than having it in Finland.