Helsinki (24.03.2003 - Juhani Artto) Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are due to become EU Member States on 1 May 2004. The forthcoming accession of the Baltic countries has increased interest within the Finnish trade union movement in the progress that these countries are making in working life. This has fostered both worries and positive expectations, depending on which aspects of working life and European Union membership conditions are discussed.
A new study*, published in March by the Finnish Ministry of Labour, thoroughly updates the analysis of working life in these three countries. In an opening summary the researchers list the following key points:
- "Normalisation" in Estonia
The evolution of working life in Estonia in recent years has been quite continuous and steady, and has also been favourable on the whole. The trend has been towards 'normalisation', including cuts in excessively long working hours – and thus in overtime, less unofficial work in the grey economy, fewer delays in salary payments, and a narrowing of salary differentials between men and women. One significant problem, however, is that workers still have few opportunities to influence their own jobs.
- Job satisfaction in Latvia
Latvia has seen few changes in recent years. Trade union membership remains more common in Latvia, than in Estonia and Lithuania, although union membership rates are falling. Long working weeks are still common in the private sector, and the situation has not changed significantly in recent years. The situation as to employment relationships gives cause for concern. Only slightly over half of those at work have concluded regular contracts of employment in writing. While various conflicts at the workplace have increased, the level of job satisfaction remains quite high. Furthermore, working people feel that they have effective opportunities to influence their duties at work.
- Reduced gender pay differentials in Lithuania
There have been many changes in Lithuania in recent years, with developments in opposing directions. Female private-sector workers found working life to be arduous and problematic, and the greatest disadvantages afflicted this group. In the public sector, on the other hand, satisfaction is considerably higher – although here too, the pace of work for men especially has clearly increased. Positive factors of Lithuanian working life include reduced salary differentials between men and women, increased opportunities for wage earners to influence their jobs, and fewer unlawful employment contracts. Problems include long working hours in the private sector, uncompensated overtime, delays in salary payment, a considerable increase in work intensity, and a low incidence of work-related training.
Contradictory impact on Finnish working people
Besides its positive aspects, all of this also continues to make the European Union accession of the Baltic countries a threat to Finnish working men and women. These three countries offer a pool of cheap, well educated labour to Finnish enterprises, which will thus continue to tempt them to move labour intensive jobs south across the Gulf of Finland to the Baltic region. The sustained huge income and social security gap between Finland and the Baltic countries is another threat to Finnish labour. Despite the transition regulations governing free movement of labour, in a few years European Union membership will eliminate all administrative restrictions that have so far held back the influx from the Baltic countries to the Finnish labour market.
Having said all of this, Finnish trade unionists are also well aware of the many benefits that deregulation of Baltic country markets will offer to Finnish enterprises and individuals. The new Baltic country working life barometer essentially confirms the grounds for the fears and positive expectations of Finnish people, just slightly more than a year before these countries embark on membership of the European Union.
*Juha Antila, Pekka Ylöstalo: Working life barometer in the Baltic countries 2002, Labour Policy Studies series no. 247, Ministry of Labour, Helsinki 2003, pdf file, 327 pages. The English language of the extracts above has been edited.