HELSINKI: The board of directors for the Finnish Confederation of Salaried Employees (STTK) has condi-tionally approved the competitiveness agreement. The conditions put forward by STTK include approval of the agreements by the Central Organi-sation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK) and the Finnish Metalworkers’ Union, and all the labour market organisations find that the negotiated outcome of the competitiveness agreement is com-prehensive enough.
“Best wishes to the Metalworkers Union, with the hope that they will make a deal this weekend,” STTK Chairman Antti Palola said after the meeting. Palola added that it would be a huge disappointment, if the agreement still failed. “Over this year, however, we have seen that every time we have come close to a promising solu-tion, along comes a bump a road,” Palola said.
According to Palola, the emergence of the agreement at the STTK board meeting caused a debate. “There is one flaw in the agreement, and that is that the pay for public holidays will be cut by 30 percent,” Palola told reporters after the meeting. According to Palola, the board’s package of measures to support the agreement were significant and considerable.
Palola hopes that the coverage will be as broad as possible. The coverage of STTK’s field is more than 80 percent at this time. STTK unions that are still negotiating include the banking sector, the private education sector and universities.
Meanwhile, SAK also announced that it had approved the competitive agreement as long as the Finnish Metalworkers’ Union and Service Union United (PAM) accept the agreement. The coverage of the agreement, according to SAK will only become sufficient when these two trade unions are bound by the agreement.
According to the chair of SAK Lauri Lyly, the decision of the board was unanimous. Lyly estimated that the competitive agreement coverage will reach 85 percent. The negotiations with technology industry, PAM, education employers as well as with social and health workers are ongoing. Lyly said the measures announced by the government on Thursday were clear and sufficient. According to Lyly, the government’s tax policy will safeguard employees purchasing power tak-ing into account that the cuts on the holiday bonuses had left the purchasing power on the nega-tive.
