The mediation of the university labor dispute continued on Wednesday

No agreement on salary increases or teaching hour caps. The collective agreement negotiations for universities have been ongoing for over three months.

Under the leadership of the National Conciliator, the labour dispute has been conciliated intensively, but no settlement proposal has been reached yet.

The main contentious issues in the negotiations are salary increases and the teaching hour cap, which is intended to protect those engaged in teaching and research from excessive workloads.

Finland’s thirteen universities and their teaching, research, and supporting administration form the cultural foundation of society.

– Finland’s future is built on expertise, and it is the employees of the universities who make this possible. Therefore, fair, general salary increases and working conditions that support well-being are not a matter of negotiation but a necessity, emphasize the organisations representing university employees.

There are thirteen universities in Finland, employing a total of 35,000 people.

The labour dispute in a nutshell

• JUKO aims for salary increases that improve purchasing power and solutions to the increased workload of staff in the university collective agreement negotiations.
• University staff have not been offered salary increases in line with the general level.
• The Finnish Education Employers, representing university employers, is pushing for the removal of teaching hour caps.
• Teaching hour caps are an essential and important protective mechanism written into the collective agreement, which protects teaching and research staff from being overburdened at work. Teaching hour caps are important to all university sector unions representing JUKO’s teaching and research staff and their members.
• Negotiations have been ongoing intensively since early February, and the contract period ended at the end of March. Despite active negotiation efforts, no solutions were found at the negotiating table. In mid-April, the labour dispute was referred to the national conciliator.
• As a solution, JUKO has proposed, for example, local agreements and working group work based on research and expertise to explore how working time regulations could be developed from a university perspective.

Further information on yliopistotes.fi-website

Up-to-date information on the conciliation can also be found on JUKO’s Facebook (in Finnish).