Engineers have now been organised in Finland for one hundred years. The first association of engineers was established in Tampere in 1919. Now the Union of Professional Engineers in Finland IL celebrates its first centennial.
Tehy and JHL, the unions in the field of health care and public services demand a targeted pay rise in the forthcoming collective bargaining round. This would to a large extent be a gender equality allowance as the workforce in these sectors is primarily made up of women.
The winter collective bargaining round must secure higher pay increases for low-wage sectors than those of export industries in order to close the wage gap. The era of unpaid working hours is over: JHL targets a return to the level of working hours preceding the Competitiveness Pact, or else fair compensation for working extra hours.
The plans for the next state budget seem to be a move in the right direction, but when it comes to the detail there are things that could be done better, say the three trade union confederations.
In 2016, the three-year national Competitiveness Pact added 24 extra annual unpaid working hours for a majority of Finnish wage and salary earners. This has not had any positive effects at all on working places, quite the opposite according to a survey conducted by SAK, the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions.
It is legal, under certain conditions and for a maximum of half a year, to limit an employee’s right to enter a new job in the same trade or start up their own business in the same business area of the former employer.
The negotiation round for the new collective agreements will begin in the next few weeks. One of the first of those to negotiate is the Industrial Union.
Akava, the Confederation of Unions for Professional and Managerial Staff in Finland will open its own office in Brussels. In 2016, Akava left the joint Brussels office Finunions of all three Finnish trade union confederations.
Migri, the Finnish Immigration Service announced in July that it has given deportation orders to 139 Uzbek construction workers this year.
The activation model for unemployed people is to be scrapped, the Minister of Social Affairs and Health Aino-Kaisa Pekonen (Left Alliance) said on 3 July.
Pay differences in Finland are smaller than in most other countries in Europe, according to a new study conducted by the Labour Institute for Economic Research. The average wage and salary earners monthly income in 2015 was 3,386 euro in Finland.
During the summer time the JHL Central Office and the Regional Offices will apply shorter opening hours. The Membership Services and Bargaining Department hotlines will be at your service on working days until noon. The Unemployment Fund will be open the whole summer.
Helsinki (7.6.2019 - Heikki Jokinen) The Union Congress of the Service Union United PAM (4 - 6 June) unanimously elected Annika Rönni-Sällinen as its new President. Ann Selin, PAM President since 2002, had already made it clear one year ago that she would not be running for re-election.
The trade unions are happy with the new planned government programme. The incoming PM Antti Rinne government published a general outline of its programme on 3 June.
The five party leaders participating in the negotiations to form a new Government released on Monday, June 3, a 193-page draft government programme. It promises cooperation in the labour market instead of confrontation which was one of the hallmarks of the outgoing right wing Government headed by PM Sipilä.
The Finnish Unions agreed in 2016 to sign up to an exceptional national Competitiveness Pact under heavy pressure from PM Sipilä’s right-wing Government. The pact added 24 hours onto annual working time and cut holiday pay for those working in the public sector by 30 per cent for three years.
The national labour confederations of Finland (SAK, Akava and STTK) are reopening their summer job information service. The service is open until the end of August. The free advisory service hotline is open between 09.00 and 15.00 on ordinary weekdays. Advice will be available in Finnish, Swedish and English.
The Finnish Electrical Workers' Union filed an offence report asking Police to investigate measures taken by 20 companies during the union backed overtime ban in February and March last year.
Trade union members are once again well represented among the members of the Finnish parliament. A majority of the MPs elected on April 14 most certainly belong to a union.
Finland will elect a new Parliament on Sunday 14 April. The campaign Nation of the Free is striving to get labour market issues onto the electoral agenda.
The fragmentation and precarisation of working life affects trade union membership, too. According to a new study union density has declined.
The Industrial Union has declared an unusual embargo on the Lapwall company. The reasons for this have their roots in the strike action that occurred last October.
The tripartite working group was unable to agree on new rules for unemployed jobseekers. The group was working along the lines of a so called activation model two, the Government proposal on the additional criteria jobseekers must meet to get uncut unemployment benefit.
Helsinki (21.02.2018 - Heikki Jokinen) Debate in the Finnish Parliament on the citizens' initiative to stop the so called activation model took a peculiar turn. At the beginning of the debate on the initiative signed by 140,944 citizen not a single MP from the Government parties turned up.