Helsinki (02.07.2015 - Heikki Jokinen) The new Government Programme of Prime Minister Sipilä goes against the Finnish Constitution when it comes to labour rights, says a professor of labour law.
Jaana Paanetoja, Professor of Labour Law at Rovaniemi University, writes that the Government Programme shows a a meagre knowledge of the labour legislation.
According to the Programme ”the objective is that companies will be able more widely than at present to agree locally on ... terms of employment such as pay, working hours, conditions for terminating employment, use of a working time bank, reduction of sick leave, and issues affecting wellbeing at work.”
The Government Programme includes several unclear bits, Paanetoja says. Issues like reduction of sick leave has nothing to do with terms of employment, for example.
The Sipilä Government idea to agree conditions for terminating employment on the company level is against Finnish constitution, Paanetoja says.
At the moment employer and employee are already free to agree on termination of employment on the basis the existing legislation. This legislation is based on the Finnish Constitution. ”No one shall be dismissed from employment without a lawful reason”, it says.
”The conditions for terminating employment must thus always be stipulated in the law”, Paanetoja writes. This means that a local agreement cannot ignore the demand that legal reasons be met in cases of dismissal, as stipulated in the Constitution.
”What on earth does this mean?”, professor Paanetoja asks about the Government Programme.
Problem with the EU legislation
The Government Programme also promises to ”allow fixed-term employment relationships of less than a year without separate justification”. Now the Finnish legislation stipulates that there has to be valid reasons for fixed-term employment.
Professor Paanetoja says that this would be a major change. The paragraph is written in order to prevent abuse arising from the use of successive fixed-term employment contracts.
The existing legislation is flexible and always makes it possible in practise to have fixed-term employees when the employer has a temporary need of labour.
Finland must also follow the EU Council Directive called Framework agreement on fixed-term work, Paanetoja stresses. According to her the existing Finnish law follows the EU regulation, but it is not sure whether the one planned by the Government would.
Sweden changed its Labour Law in 2007 to allow some type of fixed-term employment without any limitations. This has led, in many cases, to an endless succession of fixed-term employment contracts.
The EU Commission has already requested that Sweden bring its legislation into line with the European norm as set out in the Directive.