Cities | Espoo quietly began the collective bargaining negotiations: “An ugly holiday wish”

Espoo the city has quietly started cooperation negotiations, i.e. yt negotiations.

The negotiations include the organizational reform of the city’s administrative and support services. The cooperation procedures concern a few hundred city employees, but they do not lead to personnel reductions, at least in terms of permanent personnel.

Mayor Jukka Mäkelä on May 20, the finance director made the so-called portfolio decision on starting the reform Ari Kontta’s under. Folder decision means a civil servant’s decision, where the decision has not been submitted to political decision-makers in trust bodies, such as the city council.

Organizational reform and informing about it has caused indignation behind the scenes of Espoo’s decision-making.

The Greens of Espoo announced in a press release published on Thursday that they would resign from the organizational reform “hastily started” by the mayor.

According to the Greens of Espoo, the Yt negotiations and the scale of the organizational reform came as a surprise to the managers and trustees of the units. The city government only got to hear about it on Monday, at the end of the meeting held just before the summer break, off the agenda.

“We found out about it the minute the last meeting of the summer ended, so we didn’t have time to react”, the 1st vice-chairman of the city council interviewed by HS Henna Partanen (green) says.

“It seems quite expedient to go behind the council’s back with this.”

Although there is no intention to lay off permanent employees, according to Partanen, the information may have come as a shock to, for example, temporary workers whose duties may not be extended. Many also go on vacation without knowing what tasks they will end up with in the future.

In addition, some of the employees who ended up in the scope of the procedures heard about it through the city’s communications, because the superiors had not been given time to tell about the situation themselves, says Partanen.

Chairman of the Green council group Mikki Kauste commented in the press release that the green group is resigning completely due to the treatment of the city’s personnel.

“Starting negotiations right before the summer holidays is an ugly holiday wish from the mayor,” he says in the announcement.

Mayor Jukka Mäkelän according to the purpose is to examine and evaluate tasks mainly related to administration and staffs in the situation after the health and safety reform, so that the operation would be as expedient as possible.

“In its budget decision, the council has mandated that such a report must be made. It has now been launched, and our operators and personnel have been properly informed about it.”

According to Mäkelä, the information to the personnel has taken place through the city’s electronic message channels.

Ari Konttas, Finance Director, Head of the Preparation Group, would prefer to talk about an organizational review instead of an organizational reform at this stage. He is confused by the Greens’ claim that the matter came to the city council as a surprise.

“Probably everything will come as a surprise if you don’t remember what you were deciding. There are two council decisions in the background.”

Mäkelä says that the matter was discussed earlier also in the personnel committee of the city of Espoo, where they asked if there was a need to be concerned about the organizational reform.

“I answered some time ago that there is no need to worry. Here we are just looking for alternatives to see if we can organize administrative tasks more rationally.”