JHL filed a strike warning in the private social services sector
Trade Union JHL is speeding up the collective agreement negotiations with a strike warning in early childhood education and care and 24-hour assisted living.
The Trade Union for the Public and Welfare Sectors JHL has filed a strike warning in the private social services sector. The reason is that negotiations are in a deadlock.
– The employer party should do the right thing and start negotiating seriously. The private sector’s pay raises must comply with the public sector’s pay raise level. We’re not ready to compromise on this. This has to do with the sector’s ability to attract new employees and hold on to the old ones during a shortage of employees, JHL President Päivi Niemi-Laine states.
The strikes apply to 24-hour assisted living facilities in Pirkanmaa, Kanta-Häme and Päijät-Häme, and early childhood education and care units around Finland.
The strike applying to assisted living facilities will start on Tuesday 23 May 2023 at 12.01 am. It will end on Saturday 27 May 2023 at 11.59 pm. The industrial action will apply to work shifts that start during the strike.
The work stoppage in early childhood education and care applies to work shifts that start between 12.01 am on Tuesday 23 May 2023 and 11.59 pm on Wednesday 24 May 2023. The work stoppage will last until the end of the ending shift.
JHL’s goal is for the private social services sector to get pay raises that will level out the unjustified pay gap compared to the public sector.
– For this reason, there is an entry in the previous agreements in which the employer party commits itself to fixing the issue of these pay gaps, JHL’s Bargaining Specialist Tanja Tuunainen-Vainio states.
– Together with other organisations, JHL has come up with many suggestions for levelling out the pay gap. We’ve tried to compromise but the employer party hasn’t been happy with our compromises, JHL’s Bargaining Specialist Hanna Katajamäki explains.
JHL started a ban on overtime and shift swaps in the private social services sector on Tuesday 2 May 2023 at 1 pm. It will end on Tuesday 16 May at 1 pm.
Work tasks that require an employee’s constant and immediate presence because of a customer’s state of health, and that are necessary to prevent the customer’s life from being endangered, are ruled out of the work stoppage.
In Finland, there are thousands of workplaces that produce services within the sector. The sector’s professionals work in, say, private day care centres, assisted living and nursing homes, housing services for people with disabilities, mother-and-child homes, shelters, substance abuse centres, child protection, and as personal assistants. Over 70,000 employees work in the sector.
Employees are represented in the the private social services sector’s collective agreement negotiations by the Trade Union for the Public and Welfare Sectors JHL, Talentia Union of Professional Social Workers, social services sector alliance Salli ry and health and social services sector’s negotiation organisation Sote ry. The employer is represented by the Finnish Association of Private Care Providers.
More information about the strike and strike locations.
More information:
President Päivi Niemi-Laine, 040 702 4772
Bargaining Specialist Hanna Katajamäki, 050 513 7701
Bargaining Specialist Tanja Tuunainen-Vainio, 050 463 2243