Employment matters taken care of by the Union’s Legal Counsels

Alongside other duties, the legal counsels of the Union of Professional Engineers in Finland have taken care of numerous employment matters pertaining to salary arrears and disputes over terminations.

Removal from supplementary pension plan

The member had been removed from the companies supplementary pension plan, which the member should have belonged to. After lengthy negotiations the employers representative admitted that the member had been wrongfully removed from the supplementary pension plan and the member received a substantial compensation on around 200.000 euros.

Negotiating a mutual agreement to terminate employment relationship

The employer had very clearly requested the employee to resign. The employee had refused to resign and was offered to terminate the employment relationship by a mutual agreement. The offered mutual agreement was one months pay in addition to the one months pay for the notice period. The member was no longer interested in continuing the employment relationship and therefore we helped to negotiate a mutual agreement to terminate the employment relationship where the member received five months pay in addition to the one months pay for the notice period.

Age discrimination

The employment relationship of a member in managerial position was terminated. We had reason to believe that the member’s age played a part in why the member was chosen to be terminated and that the employer had not fulfilled there obligation to re-assign or train a employee to a new task. After lengthy negotiations with the employer, we where able to negotiate settlement agreement where the member received a payment equal to nine months salary.

Bonus agreement

A member had negotiated the terms for the bonus plan with the managing director at that time. No written agreement had been made about the bonus plan. After the change in managing director the employer refused to pay the bonus payment in accordance with the agreed bonus plan to the member. The evidence supported that the member had in fact negotiated about a bonus plan and we where finally able to convince the employer to pay the said bonus payment.

Cooperation negotiations

A member’s employment relationship was terminated on financial and production-related grounds. The employer had not followed the Act on Co-operation within Undertakings with regards to cooperation negotiations when reducing workforce because of financial and production-related grounds. The employer had conducted cooperation negotiations, but they did not fulfill the legal requirements for said negotiations. The member received 8.000 euros in indemnification from the employer.