Labour negotiations in the facilities services sector take a pause. Employers want to weaken the terms, not negotiate.
Today the Service Union United PAM cut short its negotiations with the Real Estate Employers on the terms and conditions for collective bargaining agreement in the facilities services sector. It was the second time around. According to PAM’s president Ann Selin, the negotiations have been characterised by the employers’ extensive list of impairments and simultaneous lack of genuine willingness to negotiate.
The proposals presented by the Real Estate Employers for the collective bargaining agreement would cut the employment costs by eight per cent, according to PAM’s estimate. Thus, the impact would be clearly negative for the workers.
“We have this list in our hands but, even so, we have not been given the chance to negotiate in earnest”, PAM’s president Ann Selin complains.
The collective bargaining agreement covering e.g. cleaners and property servicemen expired yesterday. PAM and the Real Estate Employers have met for negotiations only a couple of times and according to Selin, these negotiations have hardly increased the understanding of the opposing party’s objectives.
“It is difficult to move forward when the opposing party does not interact in negotiations. It is of no use repeating the same sentences over and over again”, Ms Selin says.
“Our objective, however, is still to negotiate the terms and conditions for this industry, together with the employers, in the normal process for collective bargaining”, Ann Selin claims.
The Real Estate Employers propose, for instance, abandoning all extra payments for work on Saturdays, Sundays, and public holidays and extending the daily working hours and giving the employer the unilateral right to order the employee for such work.
The typical salary for a full-time cleaner is 1,663 euros a month, according to the collective bargaining agreement.
“It is hard work and very important in Finland where we have problems with indoor air”, Ms. Selin says.
In facilities services, on the other hand, acute situations – for instance snow storms or water leaks – require rapid action and, in practice, long working hours.
“It is not a problem for snowblowers to run 24 hours a day but it is different for the machine operator”, Ann Selin says.
She claims that the lack of labour force, often complained by the employers, will certainly not get any easier if the labour terms are continually weakened.
PAM proposes to keep the wage trend of these employees the same as for the rest of the society. Further, PAM wants to have more detailed instructions for the use of the wage system. The employee should always benefit from his/her long work shifts and overtime work as opposed to the present situation where sick leaves or holidays in the middle of the week may eat them up.
PAM estimates that its proposals would increase the employers’ expenses by a total of 1.3%, without wage rises, if all of its proposals were implemented in the collective agreement.
The universally valid collective bargaining agreement of the facilities services sector covers about 70,000 workers.
Encl. Summary of collective agreement proposals presented by PAM and by Real Estate Employers