An Yle poll has found overwhelming support for pay increases for nurses and social care workers, with nearly four in five respondents saying they deserved bigger increases than those working in export industries.
Some 79 percent of respondents said they agreed that social and health care workers should be paid more, while only 11 percent said they should not. Around 10 percent said they were unable to answer the question.
Three trade unions have called for salary increases for unionised workers in the social and health care sector, saying they want to see major pay rises over the next decade.
The Union of Health and Social Care Professionals in Finland (Tehy), the Finnish Union of Practical Nurses (Super) and the Trade Union for the Public and Welfare Sectors (JHL) have said that health care workers should get bigger pay hikes than those working in export industries in collective bargaining negotiations scheduled to start this spring.
Opinions divided on party lines
The overwhelming support for the proposed pay rises were somewhat surprising to pollsters at Taloustutkimus, the polling firm which carried out the survey, according to the company's research manager Juho Rahkonen.
"According to the survey, people in Finland value highly the work that health care professionals carry out. Most workers [in the country] earn around 2,500 euros a month, so they can relate to the everyday lives and financial situations of the nurses," Rahkonen said.
The political leanings of people who support the idea of paying nurses more include the Social Democrats, Left Alliance and Christian Democratic parties. The biggest pushback against salary hikes came from National Coalition Party supporters, according to the poll.
Public finances stretched
Pollsters interviewed just over one thousand residents at the beginning of December and had a margin of error of around three percentage points in either direction.
The chair of the health and social care union Tehy, Millariikka Rytkönen, said she was grateful for the support seen in the survey results. She said that salaries in the health care sector are low and that residents appear to understand that the calls for salary hikes are not excessive.
Meanwhile, the Local Government Employers association's (KT) labour market director, Markku Jalonen, said municipalities' economies are in historically bad shape at the moment.
He said that if the financial burdens of municipalities grow due to the proposed pay hikes, it would result in layoffs within the social and health care sector and municipal taxes would go up markedly.
