BREAKING NEWS: TEHY and local authorities accept pay deal to avert mass resignations by nurses

Nursing staff to receive 22-28% wage increases over four years

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On Monday afternoon, the council of Finland's Union of Health and Social Care Professionals (TEHY) unanimously approved a settlement proposal put forward by the mediation board set up to resolve the labour conflict, in which over 12,000 nurses had threatened to resign en masse on Monday night.
      The decision thus averts a situation that had caused alarm and fears that the country's health service would be more or less paralysed.
     
The nurses have struck a deal bringing wage increases ranging from 22% to 28% over a four-year agreement period.
      This will amount to between EUR 350 and EUR 650 a month over the four years.
      There will also be a "Christmas bonus" of EUR 270.
      The wage increase will apply only to TEHY members.
     
The Commission for Local Authority Employers (KT) has also given its unanimous approval to the contract, while warning that it will inevitably cause municipalities to tighten their local taxation.
      KT's head of labour market affairs Markku Jalonen said he believes that the agreement will force one municipality in four to increase the tax percentage. He also warned that customer charges for public sector health care services would increase.
     
We will have more on this breaking story in Tuesday's edition, but the main point is that a threatening labour dispute has been brought to an eleventh-hour resolution.
      With approval of the deal from both sides, preparations need no longer go ahead for the implementation of measures called for by the recently-passed patient safety legislation. The law, voted on by Parliament on Friday, would have allowed local authorities to compel some of the nurses taking part in the threatened industrial action to stay at work in order to perform tasks considered vital for the survival of patients.
      The TEHY nurses have enjoyed a broad measure of popular support for their claims, in spite of parallel public worries over the possible fallout from the planned mass resignations.

More on this subject:
 Unanimous mediation board recommends settlement in nurses' pay dispute

Previously in HS International Edition:
  Mediation board begins efforts to reach settlement in labour dispute between nurses and municipal employers (1.11.2007)
  Health care workers threaten mass resignation in labour dispute (10.10.2007)
  Nurses´ union accuses municipal employers of illegal industrial action (31.10.2007)
  Union of Salaried Employees offers to support Tehy (16.11.2007)

Links:
  TEHY, The Union of Health and Social Care Professionals

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