Archive

Helsinki (19.09.2022 - Heikki Jokinen) The deadlock in nurses' collective bargaining led to a new law restricting the right to strike and has caused serious friction in the Government.

Tehy and Super, the nurses' unions, announced five limited strikes in intensive care units and home care, to begin in September. This did not speed up the collective bargaining process, instead the employers asked the courts to outlaw strikes.

The Helsinki District Court promptly accepted requests from three hospital districts to delay the nurses' strikes at hospital intensive care units, but not in regard to home care. The reason for this ruling was the great risk to patients, and possibility of fatalities.

Helsinki (09.09.2022 - Heikki Jokinen) In June, the two nurses' unions Tehy and Super pulled out of the major municipal sector collective agreement. Presently, collective bargaining for the nurses’ is ongoing, but the debate around the deal is getting heated.

Tehy - The Union of Health and Social Care Professionals in Finland and Super - the Finnish Union of Practical Nurses are clear in their demands: nurses must get a real pay rise in order to solve the growing shortage of nurses. For the unions, this is a matter of patient security.

Aki Lindén, the social democratic Minister of Family Affairs and Social Services has taken a stance on the issue. He had already started preparing the Patient Safety Act, which would force nurses, in some cases, to work and thus limiting their right to strike.

Helsinki (02.09.2022 - Heikki Jokinen) Forestry giant UPM adamantly refuses to engage in collective bargaining with their salaried employees. Since the beginning of this year, they have not had any collective agreement whatsoever.

According to the UPM press release last December, "defining terms of employment without collective agreement gives the same starting point and possibilities for everyone".

Now, UPM has had time to translate this into reality as there is no collective agreement for their salaried employees in Finland. Their actions seem to be based on a policy of divide and rule.

Helsinki (26.08.2022 - Heikki Jokinen) Sture Fjäder, Akava President, is to stand as a candidate for the Finnish parliament in the next elections in April 2023. For this reason, he stepped down as President on 22 August and Akava will get a temporary replacement until congress meets on 14 November.

Akava, the Confederation of Unions for Professional and Managerial Staff, is one of the three trade union confederations with 615,000 members. Akava Director Pekka Piispanen will now take over the daily running of the office and be in charge of the handling of Akava’s interests.

Akava board meetings are to be chaired alternately by three Vice Presidents Salla Luomanmäki, Katarina Murto and Mikko Salo. Vice President Jari Jokinen is a candidate in the upcoming Akava presidency and will not chair any board meetings.

Helsinki (12.08.2022 - Heikki Jokinen) The summer holiday season is coming to a close in Finland. People return to work and schools have already started. At the same time the debate on the next round of collective agreements has got underway.

Minister of Finance, Chairperson of the Centre Party Annika Saarikko said in the beginning of August that she would be ready to consider income tax cuts if pay rises in new collective agreements are "moderate". This means a pay rise below the level of inflation, which is predicted to be three per cent next year.

Saarikko's proposal is nothing surprising. Tax cuts are usually the first - and often only - cure the right-wing parties offer up for any situation or problem. It is also convenient for companies, as it partly finances pay rises from public money instead of company profits.

Helsinki (05.08.2022 - Heikki Jokinen) Workplaces are rapidly becoming more multicultural even here in Finland. As this is a new situation in many places, problems may arise. However, quite often this is down to a lack of skills and experience on how to get along with people from other backgrounds.

In 2021, out of Finland's total population, 470,000 people had a foreign background. That makes 8.5 per cent of the population. In working life, the share of people with a foreign background is even higher as there are less retired people from this group than in the whole population.

STTK, the Finnish Confederation of Professionals, opened this summer a dedicated website monikulttuurinen.fi on how to improve fruitful work and activities in multicultural workplaces. The target groups are in particular supervisors and shop stewards, but also people in the workplaces in general.

Helsinki (27.06.2022 - Heikki Jokinen) Lawyer Anu Sajavaara will take up her position as the new National Conciliator on 6 August. The Finnish Government appointed her on 22 June.

The task of the National Conciliator is to assist the negotiating partners in the conciliation of labour disputes if a collective agreement cannot be reached without outside help. The arbitration system is based on the Act on Mediation in Labour Disputes.

Sajavaara is working as the Negotiations Director for labour market issues at Palta, the Service Sector Employers. She has had a many-sided career in public administration, the European Union, Jyväskylä University and various employers' associations.

Helsinki (21.06.2022 - Heikki Jokinen) Sture Fjäder will resign his position as President of Akava this autumn, much earlier than expected. His term was due to end in Spring 2024. Fjäder's announcement comes amid reports by Finnish media that there was a secret written and signed deal requiring Fjäder to step down this autumn. This deal was not disclosed at the time.

Fjäder has been leading Akava, the Confederation of Unions for Professional and Managerial Staff in Finland, since 2011. He was re-elected President on 25 August 2020. He received 578 votes against 292 votes for Maria Teikari, the Service Director at the Social Science Professionals YKA, one of the Akava member unions.

Only a short time after that, on 9 September 2020 Fjäder signed a deal saying that he would vacate the presidency in Autumn 2022. The other three signatories to this arrangement were the leaders of three major Akava Unions.

Helsinki (10.06.2022 – Heikki Jokinen) The long quest for a collective agreement in the municipal sector finally resulted in a pay deal. But one that doesn’t include all municipal employees.

The struggle to reach a new collective agreement for 245,000 municipal employees proved to be especially difficult this year. Tehy and Super, the unions representing nurses, are demanding a substantial pay rise due to the major shortage of nurses in social and health care.

For similar reasons and to keep municipal sector jobs attractive, other unions in the municipal sector also demanded pay rises that go above the level unions in the private sector have reached so far.

Helsinki (02.06.2022 - Heikki Jokinen) Collective bargaining in the municipal sector is increasingly becoming more complicated and difficult. All negotiations have failed so far.

In February, the nurses' unions Tehy and Super issued a demand for a five-year pay programme. This would raise nurses' salaries annually by 3.6 per cent over the next 5 years on top of the standard pay increase.

The main reason behind this programme is the major shortage of nurses in social and health care. Better pay would make the work more attractive.

Other unions for the municipal sector echoed these demands on the same grounds - without a real pay rise the labour shortage throughout the municipal sector will only get worse.