Blog

Fixed-term contracts: an eternal question?

Fixed-term contracts at the universities are one of the themes I constantly deal with in my advocacy work, as they are a significant issue in the university sector in particular. Roughly 70% of universities’ teaching and research staff work on fixed-term contracts. The situation is, fortunately, slightly better among other staff, but not necessarily satisfactory …

We are the university

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine affects us all. In line with other EU member states, Finland is suspending its higher education and research cooperation with Russia. The action is aimed at supporting Ukraine, not against Russian students or researchers. A group of Russian researchers working in Finland is demanding an end to military operations in Ukraine. …

A look at the results of other negotiations

The current rounds of collective agreement negotiations is the first in a long time in which agreement is at least theoretically possible without external limitations. For the entire 2010s negotiations were tied to various competitiveness solutions, and a couple of years ago removing the additional “competitiveness agreement hours” required extensive negotiation. This time around, it …

How do we achieve what we are entitled to?

Sometimes, it’s all about the story. The story of how something was done. I wanted to write about how we union employees are working on members’ behalf, how we’re preparing for the collective agreement negotiations and how we’re meeting and genuinely listening to the members whose corner we are fighting. We began last year, in …

University employees’ working conditions must be improved

University employees have been overstretching themselves throughout the pandemic. As the rectors of the universities write, teachers have borne the burden of adapting remote working tools and new pedagogical solutions, and for two spring semesters in a row the universities have organized entrance examinations with extensive special arrangements. Academic research is the bedrock of our …

University sector collective agreement negotiations begin in February

The universities’ general collective agreement is in force until the end of March 2022. In the negotiations, the university employers are represented by Finnish Education Employers, and university staff are represented by JUKO (the Negotiation Organization for Public Sector Professionals), the Pro trade union and JHL (the Trade Union for Public and Welfare Sectors). JUKO …