Helsinki’s deputy mayor for education Nasima Razmyar (sd) says that the program “doesn’t change anything” – at least in the field of early childhood education.
Helsinki mayor Juhana Vartiainen (kok) defends the city’s wage development program.
HS said earlier on Friday that already well-paid doctors will receive the biggest salary increases thanks to the program.
The salaries of more than 700 doctors were increased by an average of 400 euros per month. This will cost the city a total of 280,000 euros.
At the same time, for example, the average increase of 50 euros given to the 3,000 nannies in early childhood education costs the city 150,000 euros.
“Our office holders have created division. I trust the office holders,” Vartiainen tells HS.
Strictly speaking, Vartiainen does not take a position on which sector has the greatest personnel shortage. Personnel shortages plague, for example, health care and early childhood education.
Major part of the wage development program increases came into effect on April 1.
The city council approved the program’s 14 million euro budget, but the politicians have not decided what kind of increases will be distributed to each industry. Job-specific salary increases were decided by the city’s human resources department.
Director of personnel policy of the City of Helsinki Petri Lumijärvi previously told HS that the program aimed to raise wages by 2 to 4 percent, depending on the position.
However, depending on the task-specific salary, doctors received a raise of around 6–8 percent.
The guard is happy that, in general, more raises have been distributed than in previous years.
According to him, the doctors in Helsinki are a “key group” from the point of view of the labor shortage: the city competes for doctors with neighboring municipalities and welfare regions, and the doctors working in Helsinki feel that they are in the pay hole.
At the beginning of 2022, a doctor working at the Helsinki city health center received an average salary of 6,400 euros per month.
“My job is to ensure that medical services can be provided. I think this is a balanced allocation,” says Vartiainen.
He justifies the increases granted to doctors by the fact that if the increases had not been made, the city would have committed to buying medical services as expensive purchase services.
Vartiainen also says that “the majority of the salary development program’s budget was directed to low-income earners”.
“We had a budget of 14 million euros, of which 280,000 euros were allocated to doctors. It’s not nice even for a low-income person if they can’t see a doctor.”
In others The ruling parties in Helsinki are not as satisfied with the program.
Helsinki Deputy Mayor for Education and Training Nasima Razmyar (sd) says that the program “doesn’t change anything” – at least in the field of early childhood education.
According to Razmyar, the industry is suffering from a serious shortage of personnel.
“There are thousands of employees in the early childhood education industry. If we want real impact and significant changes, unfortunately these sums simply won’t be enough,” he says.
In Razmyar’s opinion, the salary development program’s budget should be more like “several tens of millions”.
The deputy mayor considers the shortage of doctors to be a significant problem in Helsinki, but in his opinion, the salary development program is not fair in all respects.
“Basically, the plight of those who survive on a small salary is greater than that of those who live on a large salary.”
Razmyar says that he feels great concern about the state of early childhood education in Helsinki. According to him, in addition to wages, management and working conditions should be fixed in the industry.
In the salary development program it was decided to increase all task-specific salaries of less than 2,000 euros to at least 2,000 euros.
Salary increases for these low-paid positions, such as service workers or special assistants, will be implemented gradually. The task-specific salary will rise to the level of 2,000 euros for everyone, with the general increase that will come into effect on June 1 at the latest.
To this, the Deputy Mayor for Culture and Leisure Paavo Arhinmäki (left) is particularly pleased.
Arhinmäki still says that he paid attention to the fact that the increases given to doctors are relatively larger than the increases given to other positions.
“There is a crying shortage of doctors in Helsinki, and this is probably aimed at alleviating the shortage and hiring doctors.”
However, in Arhinmäki’s opinion, the shortage of doctors cannot be solved only by salary increases. He thinks that starting places in medical faculties should be increased.
Arhinmäki considers the wage development program to be fair in the sense that the lowest wages were raised. He also sees flaws in the program.
“On the Social Security side, I understand that many people who do heavy nursing work with little pay wonder how these [korotukset] have gone in such a relation.”
Like Razmyar, Arhinmäki calls for better organization and management of health care and early childhood education.
“We have such a cycle that when there are not enough staff, the employees have to do too much work, which makes them tired.”
Helsinki chairman of the city council and newly elected member of parliament Fatim Diarra (Vihr) openly says that it is disappointed with the wage development program.
“At that point, when we politicians were negotiating more money for the wage development program, my understanding was that the money goes where the need is greatest,” says Diarra.
Diarra also considers the shortage of doctors to be serious. However, in his opinion, more money should have been directed to low-paid female-dominated sectors, such as early childhood education.
He says that these fields have a “massive wage gap that weakens the city’s ability to provide the kind of services that city residents need.”
Diarra describes the personnel shortage in Helsinki’s health care as an absurd situation.
“We have to compete with outrageous amounts with taxpayers’ money,” says Diarra, referring to doctors’ salaries.
In his opinion, it is a broad public sector problem.
“Regardless of the task, employees in the public sector are less able to influence their own working conditions than in the private sector,” says Diarra.
“Unless we learn from this [yksityiseltä sektorilta], harm is done to the public sector. “
City announced its salary development program for 2023 at the beginning of April. Increases are paid to more than 7,500 employees.
They apply to the city’s permanent and temporary staff.
The city said in its press release at the beginning of April that the goal of the salary development program is to improve the city’s salary competitiveness and labor availability. In addition, according to the city, the raises were meant to show appreciation for the employees.
The city’s press release stated that they wanted to pay “special attention” to the lowest-paid employee groups.
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