Let us go back in time a few years, when it was also spring. The agreement period of the general collective agreement for the health and social services sector had ended in late February 2022, and the negotiations for a new collective agreement had reached a stalemate. In order to speed up the agreement negotiations, Tehy had declared an overtime and shift-trading ban in Kymsote (Kymenlaakso Joint Municipal Authority for Health and Social Services), which meant that the employees only worked their regular shifts. There was no strike in Kymsote at any point.
During the industrial action by employees, Kymsote as the employer assigned emergency work for a total of 28 times from April to October 2022. Nearly all of the cases involved an employee who was supposed to come to work, but who had become ill. Often, only one employee was ill. With the exception of one single case, the authority supervising compliance with the Working Time Act found that the emergency work had been assigned against the law.
The supervisory authority found that emergency work had been assigned against the law.
According to the Regional State Administrative Agency, absences of personnel can be considered regular events, for which the employer must prepare during its normal operations. Even though the employer receives the report of an absence suddenly or unexpectedly, the employer must plan its operations so that the consequences of such events can be corrected without assigning emergency work.
The industrial actions by employees after the end of the collective agreement could not have come as a surprise to the employer, and the employer should have prepared for them in advance. Kymsote only notified the supervisory authority about the emergency work done in October, even though emergency work had already been assigned for the first time in April, and according to the law, the notification must be submitted without delay. Neither was an employee representative heard appropriately, even though the employer is obliged to do so by law.
By doing this, the employer made sure that the supervisory authority could not prohibit the unjustified assignment of emergency work or stop the prevention of industrial action. Both Tehy and the Regional State Administrative Agency filed a report on an offence concerning Kymsote’s illegal actions.
The proposal sounds very strange in a democratic European country governed by the rule of law.
Now the Government wants to legalise actions by the employer such as the ones described above. The Government intends to ensure that employees can be forced to work by assigning them emergency work when they exercise their right, protected by the Finnish Constitution, to improve their pay and terms of employment by means of industrial action as the last resort. To a lawyer’s ears, this Government proposal sounds very strange in a democratic European country governed by the rule of law.
What about the impact of dismissals and temporary lay-offs?
For citizens, industrial action naturally causes an unpleasant, but temporary inconvenience in everyday life. Nevertheless, some may even support the aims of the striking employees. But what about the exceptionally massive dismissals and temporary lay-offs by wellbeing services counties in 2025? Will they not affect the availability of social and healthcare services for citizens?
According to the annual survey for municipalities and wellbeing services counties by the Local Government and County Employers KT, the temporary lay-offs expected this year are exceptionally large. They apply to more than four per cent of the personnel of municipalities and wellbeing services counties, or approximately 18 500 people. This year, approximately 2 600 people will be temporarily laid off in municipalities and 15 900 in wellbeing services counties, when only last year, the number of temporary lay-offs in wellbeing services counties was three times lower. The number of dismissals is also expected to be higher than usual this year.
The temporary lay-offs expected in 2025 will apply to more than four per cent of the personnel of municipalities and wellbeing service counties.
For instance, the Seinäjoki Central Hospital with extensive emergency care services in the Wellbeing Services County of South Ostrobothnia has announced two days of temporary lay-offs in the surgical ward in order to create savings on May Day Eve, 30 April, and the day after May Day, 2 May 2025.
The employees have been rightly concerned about how patient safety can be guaranteed, if the temporary lay-offs take place during one of the busiest holidays in Finland. Perhaps some public official with a sense of irony will suggest using emergency work as a backup option.
The legislator is currently enacting a law that will force employees to work in the name of patient safety, but it seems that the wellbeing services counties themselves do not have an obligation to guarantee patient safety. Quite the opposite - wellbeing services counties are pressured to make increasingly drastic cuts.
From the perspective of the patients, one would think that it makes no difference whether the employees are not at work because they have been temporarily laid off by the employer or because they are on a legal strike. However, the legislator only sees the last scenario as a problem.
