Archive

Helsinki (28.09.2014 – Heikki Jokinen) The intense negotiations between labour market organisations concerning employment pension reform have ended with many proposed changes to the existing system. The agreement was signed by two of the three trade union confederations.

The minimum retirement age will be raised gradually from 63 to 65 for persons born after 1955. Also, the system of accumulation of pensions will change.

At the moment the pension system offers an incentive to keep people in working life longer a with better pension accrual the longer one works. The usual 1.5 per cent of earnings accrual per year is to be raised to 1.9 per cent for each working year between the ages of 53 and 62 and to 4.5 per cent from age 63.

In the new agreement the pension accrual will be 1.5 per cent in a year of employees' entire earnings throughout their working careers between the ages of 17 and 65.

Helsinki (23.09.2014 - Heikki Jokinen) Two trade unions have won important cases at the Labour Court. Both cases were connected to positions held by shop stewards.

The Electrical Workers' Union took a case to the Labour Court where both the shop steward and industrial safety delegate of a company were demoted to lower income work.

They had been working on piecework pay but the employer decided that from now they should be on time rate pay.

And at the same time the company was trying to force employees to accept piecework at lower rates of pay. Employee representatives were made to suffer personally for defending the rights of the workers.

JHL (22.09.2014 – Heikki Jokinen) The Finnish health care company Med Group is pressuring its employees to take individual pay cuts without mandatory consultation with personnel representatives, warns the Trade Union for the Public and Welfare Sectors JHL.

The Union is adamant that the employer has no legal grounds for cutting salaries. The Act of Co-operation stipulates that in all undertakings with more than 20 employees matters affecting personnel must be dealt with by co-operation negotiations with employee representatives before the employer makes decisions in such cases.

Helsinki (19.09.2014 – Heikki Jokinen) The question concerning permission to build two new nuclear power reactors is a very hot topic at the moment in Finland. The major industry trade unions strenuously support nuclear energy and the building of more plants.

The government decided to grant the Finnish Fennovoima company permission to go ahead with a new minority shareholder partner after the German E.ON withdrew from the nuclear project. It was replaced by the Russian state owned Rosatom, who would like to build the new reactor in Pyhäjoki.

JHL (16.09.2014 – Heikki Jokinen) JHL local chapters for those working for the City of Helsinki will take industrial action against the planned corporatisation of several public services by the city. This will stop trams and underground metro trains in Helsinki for one day on Tuesday 23 September 2014.

The goal of the stoppage is to show that city employees are opposed to the corporatisation of city services currently run by the municipal enterprise Palmia which takes care of city real estate services, catering services, cleaning services, security services and telephone and well-being services.

The plan was voted on in the City Group Division of the City Board earlier in September. Five Division members supported corporatisation and four for keeping Palmia as a municipal enterprise. The City Council will vote on the matter a day after the JHL action.

Helsinki (10.09.2014 – Heikki Jokinen) Finland’s national flag carrier Finnair has signed an agreement with the Norwegian crew management company OSM Aviation on outsourcing its cabin services.

The company will provide cabin services for wholly state owned Finnair’s routes to Hong Kong and Singapore - on the first phase, says the Finnair press release.

Finnair is planning to outsource cabin crews on 20 routes in the near future. OSM Aviation is going to recruit all new personnel from Hong Kong and Singapore. Salaries will be paid according to levels in these countries.

Helsinki (28.08.2014 - Heikki Jokinen) The long struggle for a language skills supplement for sales assistants is beginning to bear fruit. Seppälä, one of the major clothing shops, is to start paying the supplement, as stipulated in the collective agreement.

The decision is based on a ruling by the Labour Court. The case was raised by the Service Union United PAM on behalf of the sales assistants at Seppälä Lappeenranta stores.

In accordance with the collective agreement for the commercial sector shop assistants are entitled to a five per cent pay supplement when they use more than one language "almost daily" in the course of their normal daily customer service. This wording has been subject to dispute since it was agreed in 1975.

JHL (25.08.2012 - Heikki Jokinen) JHL chairperson Jarkko Eloranta is worried about the planned new cuts in state payments to the municipalities. This year the cuts amount to 1.1 billion euro. About a third of this, 362 million euro is from new cuts.

"The municipal economy has been shrinking during the whole government period", Eloranta says. "According to our surveys negotiations to cut personnel expenses have been held in one fifth of the municipalities."

Many municipalities have been looking to make savings by not employing new personnel to replace those who retire. Temporary lay-offs have been put into effect in 15 municipalities.

Helsinki (21.08.2014 - Heikki Jokinen) Labour market organisations are struggling to negotiate a reform of the pension system. The reform aims to ensure the sustainability of the earnings-related pension system for the future. It goes without saying that a substantially larger number of Finns will be retired on pension and will live longer than in the past.

The need for reform was agreed in the pact on employment and growth between the labour market organisations in October 2013. The reform should be ready at the political level during autumn 2014 and implemented at the beginning of 2017 at the latest. The Finnish Parliament will formalise the final legislation.

Helsinki (13.8.2014 - Heikki Jokinen) More than half of Finnish politicians believe that outsourcing makes it more difficult to get equal access to welfare services. This came out in a survey on opinions offered by politicians and political leaders.

A total of 55 per cent of those replied agreed that outsourcing would make it more difficult to get equal services. Equal accessibility will become better, replied 16 per cent. Outsourcing doesn't influence services at all, said 29 per cent.

Out of national level politicians those who most staunchly held to the weakening accessibility position were the Social Democrats (91 per cent) and members of the Left Alliance (83 per cent). The figure was also high among activists of the Finns Party (53 per cent) and the Green Party (50 per cent).