In July 2001, the parties involved in the Finnish doctors' strike, which had run for a record 19 weeks, decided to establish a separate conciliation board to seek a resolution to the dispute over pay and working conditions. The strike was interrupted for three weeks to give the board time to make a proposal acceptable to both sides.
Download article in original language : FI0108195NFI.DOC
In July 2001, the parties involved in the Finnish doctors' strike, which had run for a record 19 weeks, decided to establish a separate conciliation board to seek a resolution to the dispute over pay and working conditions. The strike was interrupted for three weeks to give the board time to make a proposal acceptable to both sides.
In July 2001, the parties involved in the doctors' strike decided to establish a separate conciliation board in order to stop this dispute, which had so far continued for a record 19 weeks (FI0103182F). It was agreed that the strike would be interrupted for three weeks, at the end of which period the board would issue its proposal for a settlement. The conciliation board will seek to make a proposal which is acceptable to both the Finnish Medical Association (Suomen Lääkäriliitto, SLL) and the Commission for Local Authority Employers (Kunnallinen Työmarkkinalaitos, KT). However its decision - awaited at the time of writing (early August 2001) - will not be binding and the strike may continue after it is issued, while the board may continue its work after this point.
SLL had decided not to sign up to the two-year centralised national incomes policy agreement concluded in December 2000 (FI0012170F). Instead it started negotiations with KT over a separate collective agreement. KT offered a pay increase of 5.5% over two years, slightly above the level set out in the central incomes policy agreement (which provides for an increase in pay costs of 3.1% in the first year and 2.3% in the second) but this was rejected by SLL (FI0102176N). The doctors demanded a pay increase of 20% for regular working time. Furthermore, they sought changes in their increasingly pressurised working conditions and a reduction in the stress of emergency duties.
The national conciliator, Juhani Salonius, made a settlement proposal in May 2001, but it was rejected by the doctors' union, not least because the pay offer was still considered too low. After this Mr Salonius initially proposed the establishment of an external arbitration board, but the idea was rejected by SLL. Instead, the parties decided to establish a special conciliation board. Its task is to offer the parties an honourable way out of the deadlock. However, this board does not differ much from the existing conciliation body which earlier sought to resolve the dispute, because its membership is almost the same. Underlying the longest strike in Finnish industrial relations history are the increasingly stressful working conditions in the public sector and its financial crisis - which is a legacy of the recession in the early 1990s. The doctors claim to have lost ground in relation to other employee groups over many bargaining rounds and are seeking to upgrade their and working conditions, which they see as being poor.
Il-Eurofound jirrakkomanda li din il-pubblikazzjoni tiġi kkwotata kif ġej.
Eurofound (2001), Conciliation board to settle the doctors' strike, article.
