Women to bear the brunt of looming insecurity

A planned legal amendment aimed at easing the termination process of individual employees spells the hardest consequences for those sectors where the workforces are mostly made of women, said Ann Selin and Päivi Niemi-Laine, presidents of Service Union United (PAM) and the Trade Union for the Public and Welfare Sectors respectively, on Sunday.

The proposed bill will relax the conditions for sacking individual workers by businesses employing less than 20 people.

In particular, the amendment will affect most the employees in service and public services sectors where businesses often lack regulations on job termination in their collective agreements, said a Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK) press release.

SAK said almost 70 per cent of those working in the `two sectors are women.

If the bill is passed, employees in sectors with male-heavy workforce might manage to cope with the weakened job security, at least until the next round of collective agreement negotiations, observed Niemi-Laine, but, she said, the sectors that primarily rely on female labour will immediately feel the pinch of a blighted job security situation.

The government has no real rationale for amending the law, claimed the trade union leaders, and there is no research finding indicating that the existing regulations make recruiting people more difficult.

Ann Selin said the proposed bill once again shows the inadequacy of the Prime Minister Sipilä’s government in carrying out background check and preparatory work when it comes to making a move for legislation. She also decried the information that no gender impact assessment was carried out while drafting the proposal.

Selin and Niemi-Laine stressed that the current position of women in the labour market is already weaker than men’s and there is a real danger that the gap is going to get even wider.

The consultation period for the draft bill to amend the Employment Contracts Act ended on August 16 during which the trade union movement in its submission opposed it emphatically.