PAM President Annika Rönni-Sällinen: Service sector employees now deserve decent salary increases
In the forthcoming round of collective bargaining, employees in the service sector must be properly remunerated for their work. Otherwise, the sectors will be threatened by a serious labor shortage in the future, PAM President Annika Rönni-Sällinen predicted at the union's council meeting.
The Service Union United PAM will start collective bargaining in September, when the salaries of employees in tourism, restaurant and leisure services will be negotiated. PAM's round of negotiations will end in the spring, after bargaining of 30 collective agreement .
The effects of the restrictions imposed as a result of the corona pandemic have been dramatic for workers in the sectors. For example, workers in tourism, restaurant and leisure services, cinemas and amusement and adventure parks have suffered from unemployment and layoffs and their earnings development has lagged behind. Annika Rönni-Sällinen, President of PAM, says that it must be possible to correct this backlog in a sepcific time frame.
In the big picture, economic and employment developments were regrettably negative last year. Still, Rönni-Sällinen's view of the future is not without hope. At the moment, the economic forecasts look positive and the Finnish economy has nevertheless performed exceptionally well in European comparison during the corona period.
According to Rönni-Sällinen, the line in the much-talked-about local agreement is that PAM does not accept company-specific agreements that are intended to weaken the minimum level of universally binding collective agreements. On the other hand, local agreement can be a good addition to the agreement repertoire in areas such as trade, facility services and private security. There has been quite good an economic development in some of the sector companies.
“Good results must also be reflected in agreements. Is the much-talked-about local agreement the means by which the general line is crossed? Time will tell”, Rönni-Sällinen mentioned in her speech.
However, according to her, there is now a decisive round ahead in many respects, where one thing affects another.
“In any case, employers and society's decision-makers need to recognize the valuable contribution of service sector workers and that contribution needs to be compensated. Otherwise, we will no longer have employees in the service sectors in the future", said Rönni-Sällinen.
In addition to the chairman and two vice-chairmen, PAM's council has 50 members from all over the country. The council meets for regular meetings twice a year. In the spring, the council discusses, among other things, the union's accounts and activity reports and outlines the activities and finances for the following year.