Employers announce cowardly lock-out
Service Union United PAM has been in negotiations with the Finnish Hospitality Association MaRa on collective agreements for ski centres and activity programmes. MaRa broke off negotiations on 14 November and today announced a lock-out. PAM President Ann Selin considers the employers’ actions incomprehensible.
It is unprecedented for employers to announce a lock-out and it shows an unwillingness to agree on wages and working conditions through negotiations.
- I consider MaRa’s action to be very atypical for them. First they break off negotiations and now they want to transfer the conduct of negotiations from themselves to the National Conciliator by announcing a lock-out at a stage when negotiations between the parties on pay have barely begun.
- Is this employers acting responsibly on contractual matters?, Selin asks.
The financial situation in the tourism sector is now good and the outlook for tourism in the upcoming winter season is very good. Selin fears that by their actions employers are endangering growth expectations and considers the lock-out to be provocation.
- It is incomprehensible that employers are willing to endanger growth in the tourism sector by announcing a lock-out. Announcing a lock-out will not improve the negotiating situation, it will make it more difficult. We consider restricting the lock-out to PAM members to be a discriminatory action that falls foul of the Non-discrimination Act, Selin states.
- I would have liked us to be able to conduct union-specific negotiations in a constructive spirit based on the requirements of the sector and the economic situation.
If necessary, PAM’s Executive Committee will consider the situation very promptly.