Tehy demands that the Government abandon this needless project, which will push not only the female-dominated social and health care and early childhood education sectors, but also other female-dominated service sectors into a permanent pay gap.
– However, the Government seems to be stubbornly pushing forward with the bill, which hardly anyone apparently wants in practice. Judging by some comments, not even the Government itself, says Tehy President Millariikka Rytkönen.
According to Tehy, a major problem with the Government’s proposal is that it ignores the goal of equal pay. The Government is thus evading its constitutional responsibility to promote gender equality and equal pay. This issue was also addressed by the Finnish Council of Regulatory Impact Analysis, whose statement called for an impact assessment on the development of equal pay in Finland.
– We have called for the law to clearly state the promotion of equal pay as a justification for deviating from the so-called general level of pay adjustments. We are reiterating this demand now that the Government’s proposal is going to Parliament. Big things are at stake there, Rytkönen says.
Rytkönen points out that equal pay is not achieved by wishing for it, but by negotiating wage solutions that promote it at the negotiating table.
– This was also the case in the 2022 round of negotiations, when concrete progress was made towards the goal of equal pay for the first time in a long time.
According to the employers’ calculations, the pay development programme adopted at the time and the contractual solutions in the municipal and county sector will reduce the pay gap between men and women by 0.35 percentage points per year, with a projected reduction of 1.77 percentage points over five years.
Enquiries:
Tehy President Millariikka Rytkönen, can be contacted through a special advisor, tel. +358 (0)400 540 005, mila.huovinen(at)tehy.fi
Tehy lawyer Jarkko Pehkonen, tel. +358 (0)40 531 5464, jarkko.pehkonen(at)tehy.fi