Archive

JHL (23.12.2015 – Heikki Jokinen) Local authority decision makers are facing a challenging year, JHL strongly affirms in its letter to members of municipal councils.

The Trade Union for the Public and Welfare Sectors JHL send a letter to 7 500 members and deputy members of municipal councils four times a year.

The municipal council is the highest decision making body of local governments and is elected by secret ballot for a four year term. The number of councillors vary from 17 to 85 depending on the number of inhabitants.

The main issue in the letter is the recent decision of the Finnish Government to orchestrate a major reform of the social welfare and health care structure.

Helsinki (20.12.2015 - Heikki Jokinen) Lidl is the only national grocery store chain in Finland that refuses to provide information on its subcontractors. The Finnish industry watchdog Finnwatch is campaigning to put pressure on Lidl to provide consumers with information on its supply chain.

The main Finnish grocery trade groups, NGO's, the Ministry of Employment and the Economy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs signed a memorandum on August 15 2015 setting out the lines on how to follow the UN principles concerning the grocery trade supply chain.

Lidl joined the discussions initially but then pulled out and did not sign the memorandum.

Finnwatch has been requesting information on Lidl supply chains for years - all in vain. Lidl Finland says this is in line with the international policy of the group. It also pleads competitiveness as a reason for keeping supply chains secret.

Helsinki (17.12.2015 - Heikki Jokinen) Shops and hairdressers can choose their own opening hours as they see fit from February 2016, the Finnish parliament decided in mid December. The Service Union United PAM expects employers to issue new working hours to their existing staff.

Extending shop opening hours has been developing gradually since the 1960's. In 2009 opening hours were extended especially with respect to Sunday. And this was designed to stimulate employment.

However, this failed to happen. The number of working hours per employee has not shown any uptick following this move. Instead, what we are seeing is a marked increase in the number of part time employees in all retail shops and in grocery shops in particular.

Helsinki (07.12.2015 - Heikki Jokinen) Negotiations on a broad labour market pact have been developing like an ancient Greek tragedy. But instead of a catharsis it seems likely that the end result will be chaos.

How did we have come to a situation where the Finnish labour market is heading towards a lack of mutual trust and possible wave of industrial disputes?

Prime Minister Sipilä’s Government announced in September this year that they will introduce new legislation that sets the maximum limits on what can be agreed collectively in certain cases.

They will shorten annual leave, eliminate two bank holidays, make the first day of sick leave unpaid and - as the modified proposal today is - cut the holiday bonus by 30 per cent.

The fact that a Government is prepared to interfere directly in collective bargaining is totally unheard of in Finland and unique internationally, too.

JHL (07.12.2015 - Heikki Jokinen) The Finnish Government has made a major decision to reform the social welfare and health care structure. From the beginning of 2019 Finland will be divided into 18 self-governing regions that will have responsibility for social welfare and health care in those regions.

The fate of employees still remains open, says JHL Chairperson Jarkko Eloranta. There are many questions that need to be clarified.

”The reformed social welfare and health care services will require strong and comprehensive public service production. For that we need the entire personnel”, Eloranta says. They will have to be able to work in a secure environment.

”Savings - which is the key goal behind the reform - cannot be at the expense of employees. This would be harmful to the reform in general.”

Helsinki (02.12.2015 - Heikki Jokinen) The negotiations to draft a comprehensive labour market pact ended in the early hours of the morning of 2 November. Now the country is heading towards implementation of the severe cuts in incomes and labour rights planned by the right-wing Government.

The employers association EK pulled out, claiming the reason behind their decision was that one of the unions had announced they would not join the national pact.

The Government had said it would consider cancelling its controversial labour market legislation should the social partners reach an agreement that satisfies the Government. Now it will go on with it's original plans.

The trade union confederations are extremely disappointed about the failure of the negotiations.

Helsinki (02.12.2015 - Heikki Jokinen) The Government finally outlined its plans on the long-debated social welfare and health care reform in November. The decision to divide the country into 18 autonomous health care regions will mean transferring more than 200,000 employees to new employers.

”The specialists were not heard. The number of regions is too big to reach the goals of citizens' equal high-quality services, bridge the gap in health differences and have better cost effectiveness”, says Rauno Vesivalo, Chairperson of Tehy - The Union of Health and Social Care Professionals in Finland. He is disappointed by the decision.

”We are very worried about the costs, too”, Vesivalo says. A smaller number of regions would have secured a reasonable division of work and made it easier to coordinate work between the regions, Vesivalo says.

Helsinki (20.11.2015 - Heikki Jokinen) A group of leading Finnish forest industry companies - including UPM, Stora Enso and Metsä Group – are suing the former Chairperson of Trade Union Pro, Antti Rinne, for strike action in 2012. The 16 companies behind the suit are claiming 700 000 euro in damages.

Antti Rinne is now Chairperson of the Social Democratic Party and former Minister of Finance. In spring 2012 he was the head of Trade Union Pro and made the decision to go ahead with a planned strike earlier than announced.

At the time in question the collective agreements were no longer in force and negotiations aimed at new ones were ongoing. According to Finnish stipulations strikes shall be announced two weeks in advance and this was what Pro had done.

But the forest industry companies used this time to widely recruit strike-breakers. For this reason the Union felt compelled to start the strike a few days earlier than planned.

JHL (05.11.2015 - Heikki Jokinen) JHL's Chief Executive Officer Päivi Niemi-Laine is seriously concerned about the measures Prime Minister Sipilä Government's is taking and which will severely affect women and children. The Nordic welfare state is coming to the end of the road if these actions are put into effect, she says.

The Government is planning to cut staffing for care of elderly people. This may lead to a situation where family members are obliged to take more responsibility for care of elderly people. At the moment 700,000 people - mostly women - are taking care of their ageing parents.

The Government is also planning changes to early childhood education and care. As of now the law stipulates that parents are entitled to place their child in public day care. The Government now wants to impose restrictions on this right, setting certain conditions in order to get day care.

Helsinki (04.11.2015 - Heikki Jokinen) Finland will lose one of its national industrial icons. The Fiskars Corporation has decided to close down the Arabia ceramics factory in Helsinki. It has been producing tableware since 1873 and its products are widely recognised as key works of Finnish design.

According to Fiskars, it intends to ”transfer the manufacturing operations from the Helsinki ceramics factory to a partner network outside Finland” in March next year. 120 out of the 130 people working at the factory are set to lose their jobs.

”Product development, portfolio management as well as design and brand related decisions will continue to be made in Finland”, says Fiskars. In practical terms this means moving the entire production mainly to Thailand and Romania.