Remote work guidelines a university talking point
In the current collective agreement, the provisions regarding total working hours for teaching and research stuff are loosely defined. Their stated goal is to increase the flexibility of working arrangements, improve research qualifications, facilitating artistic activity, developing research-based teaching and new, more encouraging teaching and learning methods.
english translation marko saajanaho
Can these goals be achieved by working solely within university-determined spaces? Now, that is a tough question indeed. Many teachers and researchers have noticed their work can get done just as well, sometimes even better, remotely.
Universities are now discussing whether guidelines for physical workspaces of employees covered by total working hours should be in place. In practice, this would entail a minimum amount of time teachers and researchers should spend in the workplace each week, for example. Even if these would initially be recommendations, those tend to turn into practices and eventually regulations over time. Such recommendations cannot be considered to support the total working hours goals set in the collective agreement in any way. An employee working a total number of hours has a significant discretion to choose where and when their primary work is carried out. The best result is reached when the worker independently decides on the allocation of their working hours and the place in which they work.
The university sector’s collective bargaining negotiations began on 4 February 2025, at which time the university representative Finnish Education Employers and the university worker representative organisations – i.e., Akava members’ JUKO, Pro, and JHL exchanged their written objectives. JUKO’s primary objective is, of course, percent-based general raises for everyone. This is our most important goal of all, but those at the negotiating table have plenty more details to hash out, one of them being the aforementioned total working hours provisions.
This spring will be busy. The current collective agreement is in effect until 31 March 2025, and the negotiators have already scheduled meetings up until that point. In the negotiations, the support of every university worker is needed to achieve an acceptable outcome.
