Nurses accept pay deal

The Finnish Union of Health and Social Care Professionals (Tehy) and the Commission for Local Authority Employers (KT) have approved the settlement committee's proposal. I must say that this is a welcome outbreak of sanity. Huzzah and all that.

There are slight differences of opinion as to what's in the agreement. According to KT (fi), the deal will raise Tehy members' salaries by 15.7 to 17.7 percent and cost about 500 million euros a year. According to Tehy (fi), salaries will go up by 22 to 28 percent. The real figure is at the moment anyone's guess, but either way, it's gonna cost ya.

Politically this counts as a victory for the government, I should think. The patient safety bill didn't doom the negotiations and the state didn't need to cough up extra money after all - although it remains to be seen whether the government agreed to do something for the municipalities later on. Vanhanen, Katainen, and friends must also be chuffed that the deal ends only after the next parliamentary election.