JHL campaigns for equal rights to people in atypical employment

JHL (27.12.2011 - Juhani Artto) The Trade Union for the Public and Welfare Sectors JHL began in May 2011 a campaign for equal rights to people in atypical jobs. The campaign has chartered its way forward in various forms and in many kind of events.

Just before to Christmas the 2011 campaign reached its climax when a 5-meter long scarf was presented to Lauri Ihalainen, the Minister of Labour and former President of the largest union confederation SAK. The scarf was knitted during those events by hundreds of people, each contributing a small section. Even Tarja Halonen, the President of the Republic, participated in this knitting-project in support of atypically employed people's rights.

Neither labour nor social legislation has provided fair treatment to atypical employees and the self-employed. The former do not have the same rights as permanently employed people. Also collective agreements need to be developed so as to make them free of any kind of discrimination of atypical employees. JHL and other trade unions demand that working people's rights and responsibilities must be identical regardless the form of the employment.

This demand has been heard among politicians. The program of Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen's government, appointed in June 2011, promises to improve the status of temporary employees and micro entrepreneurs. Currently a task force is seeking to identify the problems and working out its proposals on how to amend the legislation. Later on the proposals will be handled in negotiations between representatives of the government and the major labour market organizations.

JHL's President Jarkko Eloranta hopes that this process will be wrapped up soon with concrete results. "This is expected by a really large amount of working Finns", Eloranta stresses.

In Finland, some 700,000 men and women have temporary jobs or belong to agency labour or work as self-employed. They make up almost 30 per cent of working people.

JHL seeks to remind everyone that by offering or rather allowing atypical employees their due also plays a role in tackling poverty. Below the poverty line are 3 per cent of all wage and salary earners, 10 per cent of temporary employees and 17 per cent of self-employed. A majority of the people in atypical jobs and people belonging to the agency labour are low-pay women.

Last year, 62 per cent of women's new employment relations were temporary. The corresponding figure for men was 49 per cent.