Reader's Opinion | The government's labor market policy is in line with expectations

Real Finland Sdp chairman Niina Alho questioned (HS Opinion 13.2.) the promises and transparency of the election programs of the governing parties before the elections. Alho let it be understood that voters were cheated in the election programs and that after the elections, it was established Petteri Orpon (kok) the government's program and activities in matters of working life are not based on the promises made. Alho also argues that organized labor has started extensive political strikes because of this.

Parties election programs are special programs of parties for a specific national election. They are very different both in nature and in detail for the different parties. What they have in common is the setting of goals, not so much the precision of the program of measures, which Alho apparently misses. This is not even possible, because the future composition of the parties in power is not known before the elections. The goals are harmonized in government negotiations into a government program.

It is a stretch of the truth to claim, like Alho, that, for example, the working life goals of the Prime Minister's Party coalition were not as crystal clear as they were before the elections. The policies of the fundamental Finns of the government's second main party are more open to interpretation, but relations between the trade union movement and the party are known to be tense.

Alhon the claims are cast in a strange light also because he interprets that Orpo's government is abandoning the tripartite labor market model. The tripartite labor market model was already buried in 2015, i.e. eight years ago, when the Finnish Confederation of Business and Industry announced that it is no longer a negotiating party in the labor market and will therefore no longer make any kind of centralized income policy agreements. Orpo's government has nothing left to reject.

The working life poll conducted by the research company Verian (formerly Suomen Gallup/Kantar Public) in February of this year shows that wage earners in working life do not share Alho's view on voter fraud. The support of the coalition of the main government parties and basic Finns for those who go to work has remained unchanged from the fall of 2023, regardless of the strike operation of the ay movement. On the other hand, the support of the Sdp represented by Alho among those in working life has decreased. What can we conclude from this?

Mika Oranen

Master of Political Science,

master of theology, Helsinki

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