His most difficult time as negotiator was after the World War II, when communists organised several strikes and reached for weight in companies.
The company's shipyards created problems, and when the board wanted to produce ships unprofitably due to employment reasons, Vesa was against it, and was subsequently fired.
In 1925 Vesa moved to the United States where he first worked as mechanic at H. Drexler in New York City, then he became draftsman at American Machine & Foundry Co. in Brooklyn.
The Wärtsilä manager Wilhelm Wahlforss trusted Vesa who had a similar vivid temper and style of making decisions quickly.
Wahlforss first made him Deputy Director and in the end of 1936 Vesa was appointed Manager of Kone ja Silta.
[1] After the war against Soviet Union ended in September 1944, labour disputed bursted out as number of legal and illegal strikes.
The yard workers were tired because of the intense workload and required a such increase to their salaries that it would assure livelihood by normal working hours.
Vesa went directly to meet the communist Minister of the Interior, Yrjö Leino, who had been his classmate in the Normal Lyceum.
Vesa also criticised the contemporary Finnish school system in which the children were put to select the line of their studies at an early stage.
He worked as STK chairman until 1947 when he started as manager in newly formed Valtion Metallitehtaat (State Metalworks) company and he was forced to give up his position in STK; this was due to demand of the political left wing, which at first did not accept membership of employers' association for managers of the state owned companies.
[1] When Yrjö Vesa started as manager of Valtion Metallitehtaat, it was a miscellaneous group of small companies which had been collected together in 1946.
Management and administration of a such arrangement turned out to be problematic, and therefore the state put them under one company, Valmet Oy, which was founded at the end of 1950.
[1] Vesa was involved at starting tractor and paper machine production; these divisions grew later successful lines of business.
The government pressed Valmet to produce ships to Soviet Union with unprofitable prices due to employment reasons.
[1] After Valmet, Vesa worked for over ten years as manager for Teollisuuden Auto- ja vastuuvakuutus (Vehicle and Liability Insurance Company of Industry) in 1954–1965.