Part-time work
Learn how to negotiate extra hours for yourself – support from training and encouragement for discussions
Ismo Karstinen says that getting the extra hours you are entitled is a factor in part-time employees’ income. Photo: Marja Seppälä
Do you wonder whether extra hours at your workplace should be coming your way or not? Training sessions on entitlement to extra hours are available to part-time workers to increase their knowledge and skills.
Why does my employer not offer extra working hours? This question crops up every time in PAM’s regional training sessions on entitlement to extra hours, and it has been the same this autumn. You can help to make sure that extra working hours are shared out fairly at your own workplace, for example by checking what hours have been worked and by negotiating with your employer. You can get help with this at PAM’s training sessions (Kotka 30.10 or Forssa 17.11) entitled Do you want extra working hours – come and hear about extra work entitlement.
Planning and running of the training sessions on extra work entitlement are managed by trade union official Ismo Karstinen of the Häme-Southeast Finland region, and the subject is close to his heart. He has run training sessions on extra hours since the 90s, first as a head shop steward in a consumer cooperative and then at PAM, having become a trade union employee eight years ago.
Karstinen welcomes anybody to the training sessions who might benefit from them, whatever their occupational field. The aim of the training is to give members up-to-date information and the means to negotiate how extra working hours are shared out with their own employer. So participants do not need to be shop stewards, for example. The training sessions use practical examples to run through how extra hours come about and what extra hours any part-time worker may be entitled to.
Although questions about extra hours and how they are shared out are always topical, they crop up especially in spring and before Christmas when companies are recruiting more workers.
“There are many cases where an employee works for example 25 hours a week and a substitute is offered maybe 35 hours. That’s a bit odd”, Karstinen comments.
He hopes that those who attend the training sessions are encouraged to start a discussion with their employer and keep it going.
“These negotiations are never easy for an employee. But you shouldn’t give up even if you don’t get extra hours straight away. I strongly advise people to be persistent and keep discussions going whenever new employees come to a workplace.”
