Labor struggles | This is what the government’s presentation of the Patient Safety Act is all about

Government presented a patient safety law on Tuesday, the purpose of which is to secure essential healthcare and home care during possible strikes.

STT collected the key information about the bill’s step-by-step means by which the authority could intervene in the industrial action.

Negotiations regarding industrial action and protection work

The employee organization should not start a work stoppage or mass layoff before it has negotiated with the service organizer about delimiting the labor dispute or about sufficient protection workforce.

If the parties could not come to an agreement, the employee organization would have to give a notice five days before the work stoppage or mass layoff, how it intends to leave enough personnel for the job.

Postponement or suspension of work stoppage

If the parties could not reach an agreement or the employee organization did not comply with the agreement, the regional administrative agency (avi) could, at the request of the employer, postpone or interrupt the work stoppage or mass dismissal under threat of a fine, for a maximum of one week at a time.

The application could be made no earlier than five days before the industrial action. Avi’s decision could be renewed.

Exceptions to working hours and annual leave

If the means thought to be primary were not sufficient to ensure the safety of the patients, the employer could target the means to individual employees. The employer could exceed the regulated or agreed working hours for a maximum of two weeks.

In addition, the employer could make changes to the timing of the annual leave, but exceptions to working hours and annual leave should not endanger occupational safety or the health of the employee. The employee would have the right to be reimbursed for the costs.

The employee is assigned to other tasks

A municipality or group of municipalities acting as an employer could assign a social or healthcare professional in their service to other tasks corresponding to their professional skills, in addition to or instead of their usual duties. The employer could also assign the employee to another operating unit.

In addition, the employer could order the person participating in the industrial action to work in the operational unit of his employer. The employee would have the right to receive at least 1.3 times compensation and compensation for additional costs in patient security work.

The dismissed person is assigned to work

At its most severe, the avi could, on the employer’s application, assign a social security professional, who has resigned as a result of industrial action, to customer or patient security work on the basis of a threatened fine.

He could be assigned to his previous employer’s unit based on his professional skills. The law would also apply to industrial action announced or started before the law came into force, which continues or is intended to start when the law comes into force.

The order could be given regardless of the new employment or official relationship. The new employer should not terminate the employment relationship because of patient safety work.

The appointed person would have the right to receive at least 1.3 times compensation or at least the same salary as in the new job.

If assigned would take care of a child under school age at home, the municipality should organize early childhood education for the duration of the patient safety work. The order should not be issued if it would be a great inconvenience to the person, his relatives or the new employer.

Those who removed their information from the social and health care professional register (Terhikki) would not be available for patient safety work. In the preparation of the bill, it has been estimated that the register would not be removed on a large scale.

The story uses the government’s bill as a source and an interview with Eveliina Pöyhönen, head of department at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.