The Union of Insurance Employees in Finland VvL and Trade Union pro are set to merge from the beginning of 2021. The VvL Council agreed to the amalgamation during a meeting in October. The Board of Pro has already approved the decision and it will be endorsed at the Pro representative body meeting in November.
The field of work of VvL is insurance, finance and the investment sector. Trade Union Pro organises trained professionals, experts and managerial staff in both the private and public sectors.
“It is significant for both the insurance sector and for the whole finance sector that advocacy should be concentrated in one place”, says Liisa Halme, President of the VvL.
Jorma Malinen, President of Trade Union Pro sees it as sensible and indeed essential that advocacy be collected in one place should the trend to stray away from national collective agreements continue. This will give unions more strength to negotiate and make deals in every sector.
Malinen refers to the forest industry’s recent decision to end all national collective agreements and only negotiate at company or factory level.
The Union of Insurance Employees in Finland has some 8 000 members and 20 local chapters. It has a generally binding collective agreement for the insurance sector. The union was founded in 1945.
Trade Union Pro has 120 000 members of whom 90 000 are in the labour market. It has 318 local chapters, 75 collective agreements and 153 employees. Pro was born in 2011 after the merger of two unions, TU and Suora.
Both unions are members of STTK, the Finnish Confederation of Professionals and the UNI Global Union.
Helsinki (14.10.2020 – Heikki Jokinen)