FINLAND can ill-afford to abandon its consensus culture, underlines Antti Rinne, the chairperson of the Social Democrats.
“We can’t afford a self-inflicted lack of confidence. We should know better. We’ve always known how to agree, conciliate and negotiate. We’ve had different opinions, but we’ve always found common solutions through negotiation,” he declared in his speech at Helsinki’s Railway Square on May Day.
“We have to hold on to this resource. The contract society is an advantage, not a burden, for our competitiveness.”
Rinne on Wednesday pledged that the next government will develop working life in a fairer direction, and put an end to trampling on employee rights, cutting five per cent from the benefits of unemployed job seekers and applying pressure with forced laws.
The emphasis, he added, will be put back from dictation to negotiation, force to reconciliation and conflict to agreement.
“These will be the most noticeable differences in labour market policy between this and the previous electoral term,” promised Rinne.
“Finnish wage earners must be able to have confidence that they can live on their wages. And people who have lost their job must be able to have confidence that they get help in finding a new job instead of someone making their already difficult situation more difficult by cutting their income. That’s why the cuts in the activation model will be cancelled.”
Rinne on May Day also reiterated his promise to raise all state pensions of less than 1,400 euros by 100 euros a month, citing expert assessments that the proposal would lift 55,000 pensioners out of poverty.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
Source: Uusi Suomi
