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JHL (20.04.2015 - Heikki Jokinen) JHL Chief Executive Officer Päivi Niemi-Laine is satisfied with the latest report about tax-avoidance and public procurements. It is published by Finnwatch, the Finnish industry watchdog which is also supported by several trade unions.

The criteria for public procurements are subject to constant debate, centred round the question of how to take into account social responsibility.

Niemi-Laine says that the Finnwatch report confirms the fact that the legislation itself does not present obstacles for setting criteria of responsibility concerning public procurements.

Helsinki (16.04.2015 - Heikki Jokinen) The Social Democrats emerged as clear winners in the Industrial Union TEAM elections. Their candidates received 73.3 per cent of the votes. The share of votes for the candidates of the Left Alliance was 26.7 per cent.

These elections were the first for TEAM, as the union came into existence in 2010 following a merger of the Chemical Workers' Union and Media Union. Now the 36 000 members with the right to vote have elected 155 delegates to the union congress which will be held in June.

The total number of candidates was 636. Only these latter two political groups put forward candidates. Both also had some nonaligned candidates on their lists.

Helsinki (13.04.2015 - Heikki Jokinen) What is the cost of long-term unemployment to society? Now it is possible to determine the cost with the aid of a web page calculator.

Courtesy of the Finnish Confederation of Professionals STTK, there is now an indicator that can measure or assess the price tag of long-term unemployment in Finland. The figure is running at 216 euro per second, 12,963 euro per minute and 18.7 million euro per day.

”No one can calculate these costs with 100 per cent accuracy”, says Ralf Sund, the economist at STTK, who is behind the calculator. But it is possible to ascertain what the costs are, on the basis of costs of unemployment including unemployment benefits, other social welfare benefits, losses in tax revenue and losses to the pension systems.

Helsinki (27.03.2015 - Heikki Jokinen) Four per cent of all employees in Finland work with zero-hours contracts. Statistics Finland estimates that some 83 000 employees aged between 15 and 64 fall into this category. According to a recent survey more than half of Finns would like to see a law passed to have zero-hours contracts proscribed.

Zero-hours contracts set the weekly working hours from zero to 40, also giving the employer the possibility to hire staff with no guarantee of work. Employees therefore work only when they are needed by employers and cannot usually know in advance how many hours they can expect.

A majority of those with zero-hours contracts, 57 per cent, were women. Those who worked on zero-hours contracts were mainly young: nearly one-half were aged under 25, and 65 per cent were aged under 30.

JHL (27.03.2015 - Heikki Jokinen) JHL is taking a proactive role in the forthcoming Finnish parliamentary elections. It is pushing for very clear policy commitments from the new parliament and has been most active in stimulating political debate and other activities around the country. At least 126 JHL members are standing as candidates for the next parliament.

The JHL election campaign is centred round support for the welfare state and public services. Public services, taxation, working life and security are the four planks of this campaign.

JHL’s campaign goes to great lengths to drive home the fact that good and comprehensive public services serve to maintain a secure and unified society. And this is the backbone of competitive Finland and key when it comes to supporting business and employment.

Helsinki (17.03.2015 – Heikki Jokinen) The Finnish engineering company Wärtsilä has set up an internal trade union at its factory in Khopol, India to keep the genuine trade unions out, according to a recent report by the Finnish industry watchdog Finnwatch.

The mock trade union at the Wärtsilä factory (which is not officially registered as a trade union) in Khopol in the state of Maharastra is an internal union appointed by the factory. All regular workers are automatically members of it. It is, however, affiliated to the General Kamgar Union.

The factory directors told Finnwatch that they themselves had approached this union and invited it to come to the factory to avoid collective bargaining, typically held every 3 - 4 years. All discussions on pay are conducted on an individual basis. A Kamgar Union representative visits the factory only once a year.

Helsinki (03.03.2015 - Heikki Jokinen) The Finnish labour market system whereby trade unions, employers’ organisations and the government negotiate and agree on major issues receives a clear endorsement from the Finnish people.

This can be gauged from a new survey commissioned by the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions SAK. When asked whether you would vote, in the upcoming parliamentary elections on April 19th, for a candidate or party that would seek to weaken the existing tripartite system, 77 per cent answered no. Only 16 per cent said yes.

And a similar result was evident in another recent survey, commissioned by the union  Akavas Special Branches. In their survey the question was again whether tripartite agreements are important in labour market negotiations.

Helsinki (27.02.2015 - Heikki Jokinen) The unemployment rate is now 8.8 per cent, up slightly from 8.5 per cent in January 2014.

According to the latest employment figures of the Ministry of Employment and the Economy the number of unemployed people in Finland went up by 32,000 since January last year. There are now 359,600 registered unemployed persons in Finland.  

Unemployed young people aged 15 to 24 now total 47,900. This is some 5,000 more than that for the same time the year before.

And the number of those who have been unemployed for more than a year also rose. Now that figure is 101,500, which is 16,000 more than in January 2014. Unemployed people over 50 years of age total 131,700. That makes 11,200 more than one year ago.

Helsinki (19.02.2015 - Heikki Jokinen) Negotiations to reform the labour market bargaining system broke down after more than one year of work. The trade unions say the reason for this was the employers’ determination to focus solely on the issue of raising fines imposed for illegal strikes in spite of the many other issues on the table.

The national pact for employment and growth in September 2013 included a decision to set up a working group to assess the effectiveness and need for reform of the current bargaining system. Negotiations were held between trade union confederations and employers' organisations.

Helsinki (12.02.2015 - Heikki Jokinen) In certain Stora Enso factory units or operations pay is too low and the use of overtime can be excessive, says a new human rights report. This comprehensive assessment has been published by Stora Enso and was drafted by the Danish Institute for Human Rights.

The report looked at 43 human rights issue areas, covering labour rights, community impacts and controls for suppliers and business partners. It covered 93 units in 22 countries, as well as some joint operations in Brazil, Uruguay and Pakistan.

The report lists some problem areas. Working hours raised concern in some countries, where the number of staff has been reduced without new recruitments, like in Poland, Austria and Germany.

In China, Latvia and India pay was deemed too low to meet the cost of living. In particular entry level wages were a problem.