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Helsinki (16.04.2021 - Heikki Jokinen) Forestry giant UPM has dismissed the salaried employees' shop steward at the Kaukas sawmill, according to the Trade Union Pro.

UPM labour market policy has reached the very depths of irresponsiblity, says Pro President Jorma Malinen. The Employment Contracts Act guarantees protection against shop steward dismissal, as well as the valid collective agreement.

"Prior to the sacking UPM Kaukas sawmill management insisted that there was nothing personal in the decision. Therefore, this can only be interpreted as a broad attempt to undermine the trade union movement", Malinen says.

Helsinki (26.03.2021 - Heikki Jokinen) The employers' association, the Technology Industries of Finland announced on 25 March that it will pull out of the national collective bargaining system. It has established a new association, which will henceforth handle all matters connected to collective bargaining.

According to the Technology Industries, its 1,600 member companies can then freely decide whether they want to join the national collective agreement, drafted by the new association, or make their own company level collective agreements.

However, the intention of this whole maneuver is pretty clear: to terminate the generally binding collective agreements in the technology industry.

Helsinki (25.03.2021 - Heikki Jokinen) One in four employers have unjustifiable sought to restrict employee and shop steward rights to express their views regarding their workplace.

This is the result of a survey, published by the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions SAK in March. SAK collected replies from 825 of their member unions shop stewards and occupational safety and health representatives.

The most common ways to restrict employees’ freedom of speech are by banning commenting on matters concerning the workplace in social media and when giving interviews to the media.

Helsinki (12.03.2021 - Heikki Jokinen) Plans to create a major new unemployment fund are proceeding apace. However, one of the funds originally expected to be part of the merger pulled out but will now be replaced by another fund.

In Autumn 2020, the Public and Welfare Sectors’ Unemployment Fund, the Unemployment Fund of Finnish Industrial Workers and the Unemployment Fund of the Construction sector announced their plans to amalgamate.

In February, the funds engaged in the amalgamation plans said that the Public and Welfare Sectors’ Unemployment Fund is no longer involved in the merger plans. But there is now another fund that wishes to join, Finka. This is a fund that covers journalists and perfoming artists, like musicians, singers and actors.

Helsinki (04.03.2021 - Heikki Jokinen) The question of so called local agreements seems now to be centre stage of the Finnish labour market debate. The problem is that it is not clear exactly what people mean when they speak about local agreements.

In general, the trade union side focuses on flexibility in issues like organising work shifts, fixing holidays, and introducing working hour accounts.

From the employers side, local agreements seem to mean the possibility to cut pay below collective agreements and make working hours longer than agreed. Also, an opportunity to sidetrack unions and shop stewards in this process would appear to be important.

Helsinki (12.02.2021 - Heikki Jokinen) The forest industry giant UPM announced on 8 February that it will no longer participate in negotiations on collective agreements for salaried employees at any level in Finland. This unilateral refusal to engage in collective bargaining is not just based on a whim.

UPM had obviously decided to prepare well in advance and with a big budget for the more aggressive labour market actions it now pursues. After the Finnish Forest Industries Federation pulled out of collective bargaining last October, UPM hired two experienced chiefs from the Federation labour market department.

The highly competent UPM labour market staff has without doubt analysed very well the risks and costs of this new move. One factor is who will have more resources at their disposal in the event of strikes or lockouts: UPM or the unions?

Helsinki (10.02.2021 - Heikki Jokinen) The Finnish multinational forest company UPM announced on 8 February that it will no longer engage in any kind of collective agreements at any level for salaried employees in Finland. All terms of work will be negotiated on an individual basis.

Jorma Malinen, President of Trade Union Pro, sees this as the beginning of a serious effort to destroy the whole Finnish culture of collective agreements, as well as a determined assault on our welfare state.

Trade Union Pro estimates that switching from collective agreements to fully individual terms of work would mean, annually, a pay-cut of thousands of euro for those covered by the existing salaried employees collective agreements.

Helsinki (03.02.2021 - Heikki Jokinen) In 2019, a total of 476 million euro was granted by way of tax credits for household expenses in Finland. Since 2001, taxpayers have been able to claim costs for the acquisition of household services such as cleaning, renovations at home or in the summer house and child care to gain tax credit deductions for these services.

At present, the price of work can be reduced by 40 per cent for tax purposes, up to a maximum amount of 2,250 euros per person. The rules and maximum amounts that one can deduct have been changing over the years, as the issue is politically charged. The maximum amount ever that was deductible has been 3,000 euro and maximum percentage 60.

The purpose of the tax break is to improve employment in the service sectors included in the scheme and reduce tax evasion.

However, a new study by the Labour Institute for Economic Research PT and the Institute for Economic Research VATT suggests that these household deductions fail to meet both objectives. The study by Jarkko Harju, Sami Jysmä, Aliisa Koivisto and Tuomas Kosonen is published by the Prime Minister's Office.

Helsinki (21.01.2021 - Heikki Jokinen) Two Finnish trade union confederations SAK and STTK view the EU Commission proposal for a minimum wage positively and support its objectives. The federations issued a joint statement on this in December.

They attach much importance to the fact that the draft directive is strongly based on the promotion of collective bargaining. The federations place great value on promoting a system based on sectoral collective agreements in the member states as a key element in the proposal. This resembles the Finnish labour market model, too.

"The directive must support an increase in the minimum wage, especially in low-wage EU countries, and the best way to do this is through collective bargaining", the federations say. A comprehensive collective bargaining system is the wage and salary earners' best friend, experience has shown.

Helsinki (17.12.2020 - Heikki Jokinen) The Finnish Government proposes to amend the law to oblige employers to pay compensation to employees for all non-compete clauses in their employment contracts. Trade unions have long drawn attention to the fact that the existing law is unfair and has led to a fast and wildly growing number of such clauses.

At the moment, it is legal, under certain conditions and for a maximum of half a year, to limit an employee’s right to take a new job in the same trade or start up their own business in the same business area of their former employer.

The core of the problem is that - for up to six months - this kind of ban costs the employer nothing. The use of non-compete clauses has been extended to many professions where there are no real grounds for it at all.