SAK seeks a two-year incomes policy agreement

Negotiations for a comprehensive incomes policy agreement are beginning in Finland. On 23 September the Executive Board of the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions - SAK decided that the organisation is ready to embark on these negotiations with a view to securing a two-year agreement.

Lauri Ihalainen, President of SAK considers a centralised incomes policy agreement to be justified by the prevailing uncertain economic situation:

"A centralised incomes policy agreement would ensure balanced and equitable progress in purchasing power for employees and would also be a good thing from the point of view of employment in these uncertain economic times."

The current two-year incomes policy agreement expires at the end of January 2003. SAK aims to negotiate a new settlement by the end of November of this year.

At its meeting the Executive Board of SAK also set the organisation's qualitative goals for the next negotiating round. These goals form a package seeking to improve employment and protect the status of employees amidst changes in working life. SAK aims to achieve this by such means as improving employee skills and job security, establishing additional resources for harmonising work and family life, supporting industrial welfare and individual working capacity, and improving co-operation in working life.

Security amidst changes in working life

SAK is seeking to bring employee job security up to the level of leading European countries. One of the proposals of the organisation in this respect is the idea of special severance payments payable by employers to employees who are made redundant.

SAK would improve the human aspect of working life and the welfare of families with children by assisting harmonisation of work and family life. The parents of small children in Finland are eligible for partial childcare leave. SAK is proposing improvements in the conditions for enjoying such leave and the associated financial benefit, and an increase in the maximum age of the child concerned so that parents would be entitled to partial child care leave until the child is ten years old. The right to time off work in order to care for a sick child should also be extended by two years to cover the parents of children up to the age of 12 years.

SAK is also proposing a minimum consecutive working shift of four hours. This working hours objective is especially important in the service sector where many women are employed, and in which hours of work are increasingly split into short stretches of only a few hours. On the other hand SAK is seeking to reduce working hours generally to keep pace with other leading European Union countries. However, no deadline has yet been imposed for achieving this objective.

Improvements sought in the status of shop stewards

SAK would like to extend the scope of local codetermination and co-operation agreements at the workplace, and to make the appointment of a shop steward a condition of any local agreement that deviates from the terms of a collective agreement. SAK also feels that where disputes arise the prerogative of interpretation should rest with the employee, as is the case in Sweden.

SAK is also seeking to reinforce the status of shop stewards and labour protection delegates. To support the work of these staff representatives, SAK is calling for an increase in the compensation payable to shop stewards and labour protection delegates, and for them to have the use of modern facilities such as mobile telephones and Internet connections.