University employees and employer lay ground for salary negotiations beginning next Tuesday

The start of the spring season of university collective agreement negotiations began with an opening seminar for the employee and employer sides, which the negotiators attended to hear economic outlooks on Tuesday 10 January.

The negotiations for the pay rises of around 34,000 university employees begin next Tuesday, 17 January.

Tarja Niemelä (Finnish Union of University Professors), chair of the JUKO university advisory board, and Head of Collective Bargaining Katja Aho stress that the universities must be able to compete for talent as high-quality workplaces and pioneers of professional development.

“Salaries must also be comparable and competitive so our universities can recruit the best people and provide meaningful teaching and research for society and businesses.”

If the salary negotiations fail to make progress in January and February, the universities’ two-year collective agreement can be terminated to expire at the end of March, in which case university employees would be without a valid collective agreement. Without a valid collective agreement, the provisions of the old collective agreement are observed, but industrial action is also possible.

University facts

Collective agreements | Universities’ general collective agreement and the teacher training school collective agreement

Negotiators | Head of Collective Bargaining Katja Aho (JUKO), University Advisory Board Chair and Executive Director Tarja Niemelä (Finnish Union of University Professors), Special Adviser Hanna Tanskanen (Trade Union of Education in Finland, OAJ), Negotiations Manager Petri Toiviainen (Social Science Professionals)

Main contractual parties | JUKO, Pro Trade Union, the Trade Union for the Public and Welfare Sectors JHL, and Finnish Education Employers

The universities’ general collective agreement covers an approximate 34,000 employees.

It’s also worth visiting the yliopistotes.fi/en website regularly. This online information bank from JUKO and its member unions has all the essential information about the universities’ collective agreement.