Editorial The national mediator must have enough authority

Editorial|Editorial

application period the term of office of the National Conciliator for the next four years shall end on Wednesday 25 May. The current national mediator, Vuokko Piekkala, has not said whether he will apply for an extension or not. Piekkala has weighed the matter in public in a one-on-one style.

That is the style of the problem. Piekkala has been so dissatisfied that he may go for an exchange, whether he applied for an extension or not.

The wage earner has expressed his dissatisfaction with Piekkala for a long time. Part of the reason was the interviews he gave. In them, Piekkala said that if a so-called general payline has emerged in the labor market, it is useless to come to him to apply for more.

The policy made me ask where the mediator was even needed if he just copied and pasted the number agreed upon by others in his presentations. Wage earners were asked to change mediators even in the middle of the season.

Piekkala became national mediator in 2018, when her predecessor Minna Helle moved to an employer camp before the end of her term, as the labor market leader in the technology industry. He later became the vice president of the organization.

Helle had been chosen as the national mediator on the employee’s side, having worked for a long time at both STTK and Akava. He was also a key player in Tehy’s 2007 mass resignation threat. Therefore, the Municipal Employers would not have wanted Helle to take office.

Piekkala has kept a low profile during his tenure. He has not had the same charisma – nor authority – as many of his strong-willed and sometimes loud predecessors. Perhaps Piekkala’s previous career explains the matter: he became the national mediator from the bread of the church’s delegation delegation, the church employer.

The thinness of Piekkala’s expertise has also been pointed out. For example, Piekkala’s proposal was considered by the employees ‘unions to be dictated by the Employees’ Unions of the Municipal and Welfare Areas.

Labor organizations by agreement this time the employer side nominates a candidate for national mediation. As you know, Piekkala has been told that it is not worth applying for an extension. Although the turn of the presentation varies between employers and employees, it is a good idea to have a mediator candidate fit for the other party as well.

The success of Piekkala can be criticized, but the current labor market node would not have been an easy piece for anyone. The conciliation board set up to resolve the municipal wage dispute did not succeed in opening it.

At the beginning of April, Minister of Labor Tuula Haatainen (sd) appointed a conciliation committee on the proposal of Piekkala. Undersecretary of State Elina Pylkkänen was elected Chairman of the Board. After about a month of sitting, the board issued a settlement proposal that was valid for the municipal employer but not for the employees. In addition, the show raised a lot of bad blood.

The proposal made the people of the South Shore see red, but it did not please the wage earners in the industry either. Perpetual movers had been built on the proposal: for five years, employees in the municipal sector would receive about one percentage point more than the so-called general line of industry in the wage program every year. Thus, if the Confederation of Finnish Industry had negotiated increases of about 2 per cent in the autumn, the municipal sector would automatically have received increases of about 3 per cent. In the next round, the Confederation of Finnish Industry would then have tried to catch up with the increases in the municipal sector. In this model, the danger of a wage spiral was real.

The Confederation of Finnish Industries EK has tried to guard the so-called Finnish model: the export industry would set a ceiling for wage increases that others must not exceed. The Conciliation Board’s proposal for a municipal wage dispute would have turned the Finnish wage model upside down.

Labor market are now so confused that there is not much consensus on many issues. However, an agreement may be reached on the replacement of the National Mediator.

The editorials are HS’s statements on a topical issue. The writings are prepared by HS’s editorial staff and reflect the magazine principle.