Industrial action

Various means of industrial action are used in situations where no agreement or understanding is reached with the employer party, and it is not possible to take matters forward only by means of negotiating.

Trade Union JHL looks after its members’ terms and conditions of employment, also by means of industrial action, if necessary.

Industrial actions and means of exerting pressure include walkout, ban on overtime and shift swaps, embargo and work stoppage, i.e. strike. A demonstration or protest either opposes or stands for something, or it is arranged in the hopes of achieving a change.

Industrial actions always have a clear aim. Means of exerting pressure are always undertaken after a decision made by JHL and in a way that complies with the decision. Although taking industrial action is not our goal in itself, branches must always be sufficiently prepared to put industrial action in place.

Strike

Employees do not go to work during a strike. A strike is always the heaviest possible means of taking industrial action. It is always the last possible option in case no agreement is reached with the employer party. The decision to go on strike is made by the union’s Executive Committee, and it is binding on the members.

You will not be paid a salary during a strike. However, if you’re a member of our trade union, you can apply for strike benefit from JHL after the strike is over.

For more information about participating in a strike, visit the strike page.

Current strikes

During 2024, Trade Union JHL is organising political strikes that oppose the Government’s unfair policy of making cuts. Read the current strike information on our Serious Grounds page.

Preparing for a strike, being on strike and returning to work after the strike

The industrial action notice, or strike warning, always describes what work the strike applies to.  A strike decision by JHL is binding on its members.

A strike warning always indicates the time of day when the strike begins and when work must end. After that time, no one should go to work.

Other JHL members, members of other unions and non-unionised employees are not allowed to do work subject to the strike action.

Work covered by a strike cannot be outsourced to temporary agency workers or other temporary workforce. In accordance with international practices, job agencies must not supply employees to companies subject to a legal industrial action.

Once a strike warning has been issued, you cannot schedule an annual holiday for the strike period.

How to prepare for a strike:

  • Work normally in accordance with the shift roster until the strike begins.
  • Do not do work in advance.
  • You must also not leave any work undone before the strike.
  • When you leave the workplace, take with you any personal belongings that you need during the strike. At the employer’s request, you must hand over any fringe benefits (such as a phone or computer).
  • Check that you have the contact information of your shop steward and/or strike committee.
  • Follow the union’s communications: JHL’s website, social media channels, member letters and other communications. Your shop steward will give you more information.
  • Check your membership information in myJHL (e-mail address, phone number, employer, workplace, occupation). In the event of a strike, we will send messages to members’ personal e-mail addresses and phone numbers.
  • Check your membership information in myJHL.
  • Also recommend your non-unionised co-workers to join the union.
  • Follow the union’s instructions
  • Participate in monitoring the strike by, say, being a picketer or a picketer supporter
  • Prepare in advance and notify the shop steward and/or strike committee if the employer tries to exert pressure.
  • Attend strike meetings
  • JHL members who are not on strike will continue to do their own work, they do not do the work of those on strike.
  •  Follow the union’s communications
  •  Remember that the only reliable source of information during the industrial action is the union.

Do not do work that is covered by the strike!

The employer must not exert any pressure on you in any way if you are taking part in a union-organised industrial action! JHL is prepared for countermeasures. For more information, contact your shop steward or the regional office.

Return to work according to the shift roster or the agreement on ending the strike.

The agreement on ending the strike sets forth the measures and conditions to end the strike.

When the strike is over, you can apply for strike benefit.

Ban on overtime and shift swaps

When collective agreement negotiations are not moving forward, a ban on overtime and/or shift swaps is used as a method for exerting pressure.

What does a ban on overtime mean?
During a ban on overtime, everyone works only regular hours. No overtime work is done.

Overtime work is work that exceeds regular working time. The work is done on the employer’s request and with the employee’s consent. Doing overtime work is always voluntary in an employment relationship.

During a ban on overtime it is forbidden to do the following outside of one’s regular working time:

  • accrue flex hours
  • do overtime work
  • be on call if one’s working time extends to overtime work during the time one is on call,
  • travel.

Public servants cannot refuse overtime work, if working overtime is necessary because of the nature of the job and extremely weighty grounds.

The union will notify separately on whether ordering additional work falls within the ban on overtime.

What does a ban on shift swaps mean?
During a ban on shift swaps, everyone complies with the confirmed shift roster.

The ban on shift swaps concerns a shift swap suggested by the employer. Swaps can be made if the employees can agree on them with each other in accordance with established practice. It is possible that the employer will prevent the employees from taking own initiative to swap shifts as a countermeasure to the ban on overtime and shift swaps.

During a ban on overtime and shift swaps, a shop steward does not make any local agreements initiated by the employer concerning working time.

There is no obligation to notify of a ban on overtime and shift swaps in advance, contrary to notifying of a strike. This means that the ban may be put into place quickly.

Collective agreements may include stipulations on changing the confirmed shift roster. Check your collective agreement.

General instructions for ban on overtime and/or shift swaps

  • If you are asked to continue your shift, to swap it or to work an extra shift, refuse on the grounds of the ban on overtime and/or shift swaps.
  • If your employer orders you to continue your shift despite this, you should stay at work. You will then avoid a groundless termination of employment. Immediately notify the shop steward or the union’s regional office of the matter. Demand your employer to give the order in a verifiable format: e-mail, text message or with the form named “Order given by employer”. Hold on to the message you received and deliver it to your shop steward or regional office.
  • If there is pressuring involved in the situation, or if the employer representative is threatening you, contact your shop steward or the union’s regional office immediately. Tell the employer representative that this kind of action is inappropriate.
  • This is a ban that your trade union has declared. You are not personally responsible for the ban or its consequences. If you suspect that you will be under pressure from your employer, contact the shop steward or regional office.
  • The ban has been put to place with your interests in mind. Its purpose is to put pressure on the negotiating table.
  • JHL members follow JHL’s instructions. The instructions given by the unions may differ from each other.

The employer may not necessarily settle for being subjected to an industrial action. They will likely take active countermeasures. JHL is prepared for the countermeasures. For more information, contact your shop steward or the regional office.

Is your information correct in our membership register?
myJHL asks for your e-mail address, mobile phone number, occupational title and your employer. Go check these and, if necessary, update them!

When your membership information is up to date, you can be sure that the right messages from JHL will reach you. These messages may be, say, instructions on industrial action measures in your workplace.

If you’ve already logged into myJHL previously, log into the service with your username and password.

In case you’ve never visited myJHL before, read instructions on how to log in on the myJHL info page.

Also see the frequently asked questions about the ban on overtime and shift swaps.

Demonstration or protest

A demonstration or protest takes place outside one’s working time. The activities are not aimed at working, it is not an industrial action. Demonstrations or protests are usually arranged because people stand for something, oppose something or want something to change.

Demonstration is a right based on section 13 of the Constitution of Finland.

Emergency work

Emergency work is based on the Working Time Act. It is the employer’s duty to promptly notify the occupational safety and health authorities of the emergency work in writing.

The emergency work stipulation must be interpreted narrowly:

  • Emergency work can only be required in a situation in which there is a sudden reason that could not have been known beforehand. The need to order employees to perform emergency work is therefore unforeseeable and of a kind that the work cannot be postponed to be performed at a later date.
  • The employer must prepare for regularly occurring unforeseeable events so that the consequences of these events can be rectified without the need for emergency work (e.g. sick leave and annual holidays). A strike for which advance notification has been provided is not an unforeseeable event that would afford the right to require the performance of emergency work as stipulated in the Working Time Act.

If, during a strike, something unforeseeable were to occur that enables the employer to require emergency work, emergency work may be ordered with strict limitations.

A strike is not grounds for requiring long-term, extensive emergency work.

Employees’ unforeseen refusal to work overtime may constitute grounds for requiring the performance of emergency work. If, however, the employer is aware in advance that the employees will refuse to work overtime due to a ban on overtime, for example, there are no grounds for emergency work.

An employee cannot refuse to carry out emergency work.

It is the employer’s duty to promptly notify the occupational safety and health authorities of the emergency work in writing.

It is imperative for the shop steward to attach their opinion to the emergency work notice!

When can emergency work be required?

Emergency work is based on the Working Time Act. It is the employer’s duty to promptly notify the occupational safety and health authorities of the emergency work in writing. The emergency work notice must also include an opinion by the employees’ shop steward or elected representative or, if neither of these has been elected in the workplace, the OSH representative. In the absence of any kind of personnel representative, each of the employees covered by the notice must be reserved an opportunity to express their view.  More information is also available on the työsuojelu.fi website.

Emergency work is regulated in the Working Time Act (872/2019), section 19 as follows:

  • An employer may require an employee to perform emergency work when an unforeseeable event interrupts or seriously threatens to interrupt regular operations or to put life, health, property or the environment at risk.
  • Emergency work in addition to regular working time may only be required to the extent necessary and for a period of no more than two weeks. Emergency work may derogate from what is stipulated in sections 8, 17 and 24–27.

Once emergency work ends, the working time must be averaged out to no more than what is stipulated in section 18 and the employee must be granted a compensatory rest period as stipulated in section 25, paragraph 4 and section 28, paragraph 2.

Instructions for investigating misuse of emergency work

When the employer provides notice that they are requiring employees to perform emergency work, the shop steward must ensure that the emergency work notice has been filed as required by law.

The shop steward must without exception attach their opinion to the emergency work notice, giving their view of whether the reason for the emergency work required by the employer is an unforeseeable event, and whether it puts life, health or property at risk.

In accordance with the Working Time Act, the Regional State Administrative Agency supervises the requirement of performance of emergency work. Send the emergency work notice to the Occupational Safety and Health Division at Regional State Administrative Agency of Southwestern Finland.

The shop steward must carefully gather all the information related to emergency work:

  • the work done
  • dates and times
  • number of employees
  • copies of records of the hours that the employees have worked
  • a copy of the emergency work notice and shop steward’s opinion.

The occupational safety and health authority may intervene in emergency work by limiting it or stopping the employer from requiring it.

If there is an unclear situation that should be investigated in the union, send the information to JHL’s central office by e-mail to kirjaamo@jhl.fi with “Emergency work notice” as the e-mail subject.  We will investigate the matter and contact the controlling authority.

Is your information correct in our membership register?

The myJHL service asks for your e-mail address, mobile phone number, occupational title and employer. Go check these and, if necessary, update them!

When your membership information is up to date, you can be sure that the right messages from JHL will reach you. These messages may be, say, instructions on industrial actions in your workplace.

If you’ve already logged into myJHL previously, log into the service with your username and password.

In case you’ve never visited myJHL before, read instructions on how to log in on the myJHL info page.

Guidelines in case of another union’s industrial action

Trade unions operate independently in their decisions to engage in industrial action. A single trade union can only decide on its own members’ participation in an industrial action.  SAK, STTK and Akava have agreed on common ground rules in situations where members of different central organisations are employed by the same workplace and one of the unions launches industrial action.

The shop steward at the workplace must ensure that JHL’s members comply with the principles agreed on between the employee confederations and refuse to perform work covered by a strike. If non-compliance is observed, the union’s regional office must be contacted. 

  • Members of unions that are not part of the industrial action perform their own work, but not the work that is covered by the industrial action.
  • This principle is complied with also in situations where the work is the same or nearly the same as the work that is subject to the strike action.  They therefore do not perform other people’s work by changing their shifts, working overtime or by stepping up the pace of their work.

The exception to this rule is emergency work and, for public servants, protection work, which carry an obligation to be performed in order to safeguard human life, health or property. If the employer demands that certain work be performed as protection or emergency work during the industrial action, they must always contact the respective shop steward before such work is started.

Impediment to work because of another organisation’s industrial actions

If the employee’s work is impeded by another organisation’s industrial actions (e.g. strike), the employee must notify their employer that they are at the employer’s disposal. Thus, the employer is obligated to pay salary to the employee.

The collective agreement KVTES makes it possible to change work duties temporarily for eight weeks. The employee then has the right to a salary that corresponds to their actual job. Temporary work must not be work subject to the strike action. If the employer refuses to pay salary, one must inquire the employer what their reasons for this are. The employer’s answer must be written down for possible future investigation.

If the employer’s measures impede the employee’s work and salary payment, the employee has the right to the union’s strike benefit in this situation.

Working in an agreement sector other than the sector of one’s own union

A member of JHL is on strike if they work under the agreement sector of another trade union that is part of the SAK confederation of trade unions and the trade union in question engages in industrial action. In such cases, the member complies with the strike guidelines of the trade union in question. The union organising the industrial action pays JHL’s member the strike benefit.

This approach also applies to members of other trade unions that are part of the SAK confederation of trade unions, in the event that the industrial action has been decided by JHL. In such cases, the members of other SAK-affiliated unions apply for their strike benefit from JHL.