Public sector workers warn of another strike from April 22

The Trade Union for the Public and Welfare Sectors JHL, the Negotiation Organisation for Public Sector Professionals JUKO, and Trade Union Pro on Monday issued their second strike warning for selected state sector workplaces from April 22, said the unions in a press release.

The unions termed the strikes as exceptional because about forty years have passed since the previous strike of state sector public servants.

The new three-day strike will be observed from 22 April at 12.01 am to 24 April at 11.59 pm, if agreement is not found on pay rises for the 76,000 state sector employees before that.

The strike will be enforced at Police administration, Customs, Government ICT Centre Valtori and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

As per the strike schedules, work in all units of the Eastern Uusimaa Police Department and in all units of the Southeastern Finland Police Department, work at customs for mail at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport, work in government ICT Centre Valtori at all locations in the city of Rovaniemi, excluding tasks that are connected to the county and municipal elections work and work in the Finnish Meteorological Institute (only JHL and JUKO) at the Weather, Sea and Climate Service Centre will remain suspended due to the strike.

Work tasks that must be performed in order to protect people's life or health or to prevent significant danger to property are excluded from the strike.

A week ago, the employee organisations issued their first strike warning for 15 and 16 April.

That potential strike concerns work at the specified units of the police administration, Prison and Probation Service of Finland, State Treasury, the Finnish Government Shared Services Centre for Finance and HR (Palkeet), and Government ICT Centre Valtori.

The unions are going to observe the strikes to press home their demand for collective agreement negotiations regarding pay hikes.

The Office for the Government as Employer has offered total pay rises of 6.3%. That is significantly less than the general level, which has settled at 7.8%. The low pay offer has been justified with the state of public finances.

The organisations that represent the employees in the collective agreement negotiations remind that the state sector employees should get the same pay rises as the others.