Negotiations on the university employees’ pay rises for this year continued on Tuesday 24 January. The parties’ next scheduled negotiation is on Friday 27 January. The negotiations affect 34,000 employees in total.
On Friday 20 January, the parties presented their negotiating goals.
“As inflation continues, university employees’ real earnings have fallen. We, too, need pay rises that boost purchasing power,” Tarja Niemelä, the chairperson of the university advisory committee and executive director of the Finnish Union of University Professors, stresses.
The parties negotiating for a general collective agreement for universities and teacher training schools are: JUKO, the Negotiation Organization for Public Sector Professionals; the Pro Trade Union; JHL, the Trade Union for Public and Welfare Sectors, and Finnish Education Employers.
Katja Aho, Head of Collective Bargaining at JUKO, the Negotiation Organization for Public Sector Professionals, says that if agreement on pay is not reached in the negotiations in January or February, the two-year collective agreement signed in spring 2022 may be terminated with effect from the end of March.
In that case, all the universities’ staff would be without a collective agreement as of 1 April. Without a valid collective agreement, the provisions of the old collective agreement are observed, but industrial action is also possible.
The members of Akava trade unions on behalf of whom JUKO negotiates work in roles such as research, teaching, administration and management.
The negotiations are part of the two-year university collective agreement signed in April 2022. In that agreement, the parties agreed that the pay rises for 2023 would be negotiated by the end of January.
University facts
Main contractual parties | JUKO; Pro Trade Union; JHL, the Trade Union for the Public and Welfare Sectors; and Finnish Education Employers
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)
The universities’ general collective agreement covers an approximate 34,000 employees. The members of Akava unions represented by JUKO work at universities in such areas as research, teaching, administration and management.
We will provide weekly information about the negotiations in our Negotiations News email and on our website at www.juko.fi. Follow us and the conversation on Facebook and Twitter: @JUKOry. Our hashtags are #MeOlemmeYliopisto and #neuvotellen2023.
It’s also worth visiting the Yliopistotes.fi website regularly. This online information bank from JUKO and its member unions has all the essential information about the universities’ collective agreement.
Further information
Katja Aho | head of collective bargaining | university sector | +358 50 592 1646 | katja.aho@juko.fi | Twitter @aho_katja @JUKOry
JUKO, the Negotiation Organization for Public Sector Professionals, negotiates collective agreements on behalf of, and thus represents, 200,000 members of Akava member unions. We bargain collectively on behalf of employees and officials of the municipalities, well-being services counties, the state, universities and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, as well as in Avainta sectors*, the National Gallery and the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. (*Private companies and foundations operating under the aegis of municipalities, as well as private service providers for the municipalities.)
We are an association of associations: JUKO consists of 11 member associations, which have 35 member unions.
