Archive

Helsinki (15.05.2020 - Heikki Jokinen) Akava, the Confederation of Unions for Professional and Managerial Staff in Finland have two candidates standing in the race for next President. Elections will take place in August 2020.

The incumbent President Sture Fjäder is one of the candidates. So far, at least two major Akava unions, the Trade Union of Education in Finland OAJ and the Finnish Business School Graduates have said they are ready to back him.

And two other Akava member unions, Social Science Professionals YKA and the Finnish Union of University Researchers and Teachers have nominated Maria Teikari as a candidate.

Helsinki (08.05.2020 - Heikki Jokinen) The latest attempt to reach a deal in the local government collective agreement failed. Just before 1 May, two unions turned down the proposal put forward by the National Conciliator, whereas other unions involved would have accepted it.

Collective bargaining concerning local government began back in January and the existing agreements expired at the end of March. The agreement covers 420,000 local government employees.

The unions that rejected the proposal were Tehy - The Union of Health and Social Care Professionals in Finland and Super - the Finnish Union of Practical Nurses.

Helsinki (05.05.2020 - Heikki Jokinen) The Finnish state owned alcoholic beverages retail monopoly Alko has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Service Union United PAM and the global union IUF to promote respect for worker rights in the company's international supply chain.

This includes workers' rights to form unions and negotiate their working conditions through collective bargaining. The focus is especially centred around the production of grapes.

In this Memorandum Alko, PAM and IUT agree to exchange information on working conditions in the alcoholic beverages supply chain and to meet four times a year.

Helsinki (24.4.2020 - Heikki Jokinen) The long time court case between the Finnish Electrical Workers' Union and Polish company Elektrobudowa SA ended in March with an out-of-court settlement.

The company will pay compensation to the union to cover partly the unpaid salaries and partly the court expenses of the Union. The Union represents 186 Polish electricians.

Elektrobudowa has been working as a subcontractor at the Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant construction site on the Finnish West Coast. In 2011, it had some 360 employees altogether at the Olkiluoto construction site. The main contractor in Olkiluoto is the French company Areva.

Helsinki (08.04.2020 - Heikki Jokinen) Conciliation did not help bring about a local government collective agreement. The existing agreement expired at the end of March, but there has been no major progress in the negotiations so far.

The parties met - telecommuting - on 7 April with the National Conciliator for the third time. This did not break the deadlock and the next meeting will be held after Easter, on 14 April.

The coronavirus pandemic is making the negotiations more difficult. Municipalities say that they have even less money than before, due to the high healthcare costs right now.

On the other hand, the same crisis has highlighted the vital work of health care workers and aroused even more sympathy for their demands for a real pay rise.

Helsinki (06.04.2020 - Heikki Jokinen) A new collective agreement for the state sector came into effect at the beginning of April.

The agreement will be in place 1.4.2020–28.2.2022. The pay rise included in this 23 month agreement will be 3.07 per cent, which follows the general line in this round of negotiations.

The problematic 24 unpaid annual extra working hours - forced through by the right-wing Government in the agreement in 2016 - will disappear from 1 October 2020.

Helsinki (02.04.2020 - Heikki Jokinen) Redundancies and temporary lay-offs due to the coronavirus pandemic are rising at an alarming pace.

On 1 April, some 9,000 employees have been made redundant since 16 March and the number of temporary lay-offs was 58,000.

A total of 3,670 companies have called for co-operation negotiations, as the law requires, to negotiate on further temporary lay-offs or redundancies. On 2 April, this threatens the employment of 332,973 people.

These figures have been furnished by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. And they only include companies with 20 or more employees, as smaller companies do not have to report their temporary lay-offs and redundancies to the authorities.

Helsinki (20.03.2020 - Heikki Jokinen) The process involving temporarily lay-offs should be provisionally conducted swiftly in private companies, the Finnish labour market organisations are proposing.

The reason for this is clear: due to the coronavirus pandemic a big number of companies are in serious economic turmoil and might face bankruptcy if immediate steps are not taken to reduce their costs.

On 16 March, the Finnish Government declared a state of emergency restricting the movement of people. This and other measures against the spread of coronavirus have caused a sudden and serious liquidity problem in many companies, especially in services.

Published on 18 March, the proposal by the labour market organisations was unanimous. It has the full backing of all three trade union confederations Akava, SAK, STTK and both employers' associations EK and KT.

Helsinki (19.03.2020 - Heikki Jokinen) The Coronavirus pandemic is having an effect on the ongoing collective bargaining round, too. Agreements in industry and private services are more or less ready or approaching a decision, but very much open in the public services.

Several public services collective agreements are expiring at the end of March. Due to the coronavirus pandemic the public sector economy will face major challenges in the near future, and this does not make negotiations any easier.

There are different proposals as to how to cope with the situation. Tehy - The Union of Health and Social Care Professionals in Finland and Super - the Finnish Union of Practical Nurses propose that the collective bargaining in local government and private sectors should be interrupted due to the pandemic and a state of emergency declared by the Finnish Government on 16 March.

Helsinki (12.03.2020 - Heikki Jokinen) There is clear evidence that the income gap between employees and publicly listed company chief executives has widened significantly in the past year. Now, a private sector employee must work for 47 days to earn what a major listed company CEO earns in a day. A year before, it took 34 days' work.

March 9 was the moment at which the average private sector employee earnings of this year surpassed a private company chief executive’s daily pay. A year before the date was February 18.

The figures are calculated annually by the Finnish Confederation of Professionals STTK. They take into account the longer working hours of CEOs, too. The calculations are inspired by the Fat Cat Day in the UK.