Irmeli Vesterinen will not forget

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Elisa dismissed 520 of its employees last winter. Slightly under half of them are still looking for new jobs.
     
      By Katri Kallionpää
     
      Surely you remember Irmeli Vesterinen - the serious-looking woman with large eyes, who last winter told the world on the news and in other television programmes what it felt like to be fired from telecoms operator Elisa after 28 years of service.
      Vesterinen provided a face for all those disillusioned employees who had believed that skills, commitment, and trying hard would guarantee them their jobs.
      That woman will not be out of work for long, I thought at the time, listening to Vesterinen's calm and convincing speech.
      I must make the trip to Tampere to ask Vesterinen how she is doing.
     
When we meet at restaurant Tillikka, I find out that I was gravely mistaken.
      No new job is in sight. Vesterinen has been offered employment only as a vendor of special milk capsules which are said to promote health. She received her last paycheck from Elisa in August.
      And has Irmeli Vesterinen been mollified? Not in the least.
      She plans to take legal action concerning her dismissal from Tampere-based Elisa subsidiary Soon Net.
     
Her trade union has already promised to work on Vesterinen's case. "The reason for my dismissal was that the functions were being concentrated in Helsinki. That is not true, my tasks were divided among other remaining employees. Elisa did not offer me another position, or any training."
      Vesterinen beings up the day's local newspaper Aamulehti, which wrote that the Tampere District Court has ordered Soon Com to pay a woman 18,964 euros for groundless termination of an employment contract in 2002. Elisa's total bill from the trial will amount to 35,000 euros.
      "I still cannot understand why Elisa threw out good, qualified workers", Vesterinen muses, picking at her food with her fork.
     
The dismissal was such a great insult that Vesterinen emptied her office on the spot and took sick leave.
      When a doctor told her that she cannot stay home on sick leave simply if she is annoyed, Vesterinen said she feels like punching the person who fired her in the nose. The physician then granted her a medical leave on grounds of "acute stress reaction".
      Vesterinen continues to switch channels if an Elisa commercial is aired.
      The Tammerkoski rapids stream peacefully under the windows of the restaurant. Vesterinen almost threw the gold watch that she received from her former employer in August for her 50th birthday into the water. She eventually decided against it, but exchanged the watch for a bottle of Chanel No 5 perfume.
     
What types of jobs are out there for Vesterinen?
      The Tampere employment office is located a couple of hundred meters away from the Tillikka restaurant. They report that at the end of August, they knew of 1,146 vacancies. At the same time, there were 14,613 unemployed people eager to find work.
      In fact, there are too many unemployed people with office and secretarial skills in Tampere. Vesterinen is one of them. Sales clerks, cleaners and waiters could find work much more easily. "There is also a shortage of metal industry and nursing professionals", Marita Salonen from the employment agency says.
     
Nursing is a field that could interest Vesterinen. In addition to her secretarial education, she has a basic degree in health care.
      Now Vesterinen is pondering whether or not to study to become a nurse. She is a bit sceptical about the three and a half year period in school, living off a student loan.
      "I would graduate at the age of 54. I wonder if that would be misusing the funds of our society", she muses.
      Her cell phone beeps: Elisa has sent another SMS message about the open positions in the group. This time around, they are looking for a business manager, a part-time sales clerk in Kouvola, and a fixed-term customer service worker in Tampere.
      Those jobs do not tickle Vesterinen's fancy. "When you have been dismissed, you have been dismissed. They should have offered me a transfer before they fired me."
     
Some of Vesterinen's former, dismissed colleagues have applied for new positions at Elisa.
      "The pay is lower. If you used to earn over 1,800 euros, now they offer you 1,500 euros for more or less the same responsibilities. They do not place any value on experience", one of the colleagues reports.
      Elisa dismissed 81 of its employees in Tampere during last autumn and the early part of this year. According to the company, half of them are still customers of employment offices.
      Elisa reports that the group that participated in the outplacement and other career transition courses the company provided - around one in three of those who lost their jobs - found new employment with the least difficulty.
     
Elisa cut a total of 520 jobs in the whole country, and slightly under half of those people are still unemployed.
      Vesterinen points out that her position is better than that of many of her former colleagues because she receives a widow's pension. Her husband passed away almost four years ago.
      The pension covers the expenses on her housing loan, which will be fully repaid next spring.
      Vesterinen's son Aleksi started school this fall. She plans to spend the fall at home, taking the time to ponder her future.
      But she has no intention of remaining at home permanently. "I am way too social to just sit at home", Vesterinen explains.
     
The Tillikka restaurant starts to fill up quite early in the afternoon. The group at the neighbouring table has already thrown back more than one drink.
      At the same time in Helsinki, ministers and members of Parliament are arguing about why the Finnish unemployment rate is not falling.
      The opposition, which has lodged an interpellation, accuses the government of sitting back and doing nothing. Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen is forced to admit that we are "at square one".
      Vesterinen says that she has carefully studied the recent news on mass dismissals.
      "I read between the lines that corporations only want to improve their earnings. They do not need to operate like charities, but they need to take some responsibility for their employees. Someone pockets the profits in the end anyway."
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 26.9.2004

More on this subject:
 FACTFILE: Number of unemployed rising

KATRI KALLIONPÄÄ / Helsingin Sanomat
katri.kallionpaa@hs.fi