At the request of Minister Arto Satonen, the social partners have launched discussions in November with the aim of agreeing by early 2024 on a common labour market model to strengthen the economy and promote employment, in line with the government programme.
Prime Minister Orpo’s government has included a so-called export-driven wage model in its programme. If implemented, this would limit the ability of the national conciliator or conciliation panel to offer higher wage increases than the “general line”, which is usually based on the results of private sector negotiations. This would likely hamper the potential of wage programmes in publicly funded low-wage sectors.
Several trade unions have announced that they will organise political demonstrations in the workplace in the coming weeks to protest the government’s proposals for changes to social security and labour legislation. Last week, SAK affiliates announced conditional large-scale political industrial action. It will take place on Thursday, 14 December unless the government opens the way for genuine negotiations with the workers’ organisations. According to SAK, the extension of negotiations to other labour law changes decided in the government programme and the suspension of the preparation of unemployment benefit cuts are prerequisites for reaching a common understanding on the labour market model.
Akava’s bargaining organisations the Federation of Professional and Managerial Staff YTN and the Negotiation Organisation for Public Sector Professionals JUKO are involved in the negotiations, and the Akava front wants to believe for the time being that the negotiations will reach a solution. The bargaining organisations have not taken any decisions on industrial action and FUURT is following the direction set by the bargaining organisations. The Union would like to remind members that in workplaces on strike, members should respect the principle of neutrality, i.e. those who are not members of a union or who are members of another union are not obliged to carry out tasks subject to industrial action that they would not normally do. They have the right to refuse to carry out such strikebreaking tasks.
The Akava Board discussed the situation on Monday, 11 December and noted that it had already responded to the government’s request to present alternative solutions in October. Unlike the government’s solutions, the ones proposed by Akava are balanced and consider the needs of expert work. Akava decided on countermeasures that we will follow unless the government balances its proposals. The Union Board will discuss the situation next at its meeting on Friday.
Read more (in Finnish)
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Executive Director Johanna Moisio
Senior Adviser, Labour market policy Nina Hahtela
Emails are form: firstname.lastname(at)tieteentekijat.fi