SOL Palvelut starts co-operation negotiations – says 3000 employees need to go from the workforce
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SOL Palvelut, which only recently laid off 1500 employees, has started new co-operation negotiations covering all of the company’s employees. Head shop steward Forsman is worried about the scale of the reduction the company says it must make.
“The co-operation negotiations apply to all employees of SOL Palvelut Oy. The estimated reduction required is 3000 employees”, says Janne Forsman, who is the head shop steward at SOL Palvelut Oy.
“3000 employees is a staggering number. I just can’t see why the drop in cleaning work would be that big since there are around 1500 employees working on ships and in hotels. There might less work in hospitality sectors, but some of those 1500 workers will be needed back again”, he reflects grimly.
According to Forsman, the situation is challenging all round, because the employer has made no assessment of the locations where work will reduce. Since the impact of coronavirus cannot be forecasted, it is difficult to speculate about hotel capacity at the end of the summer, for example.
SOL Palvelut has only just completed the previous co-operation negotiations, begun in March, concerning lay-offs. As a result of these, 1500 employees have been laid off for a fixed period of 1-90 days. At this stage it is not known for sure what the outlook is for them.
“We now need to get the word out to these laid-off employees that there are new co-operation negotiations starting up”, Forsman stresses.
The new negotiations started on Wednesday 22 April and will last six weeks, until the start of June.