Uniarts Helsinki has made over 170 fixed-term academic positions permanent in the last few years – staff policy development continues

The employee-employer discussions have led to various significant measures, including the establishing of a new university arts teacher position. Next up in the process, the parties will reflect on joint guidelines concerning total working time practices for Uniarts Helsinki’s three academies.

Uniarts Helsinki has taken significant measures to make the shift from staff’s fixed-term employment relationships to permanent employment relationships. Since 2020, the university has made over 170 fixed-term academic positions permanent, which is a considerable number in the university sector. In 2018, 73% of professors and 58% of lecturers at Uniarts Helsinki had fixed-term employment relationships, while the current percentages are 10 and 11.5, respectively.

In 2020, Uniarts Helsinki invited 30 professors and lecturers to take on permanent positions as part of the introduction of the career system. In December 2020, the Labour Court gave its decisions regarding the grounds of the fixed-term nature of the employment relationships of two professors of Uniarts Helsinki. The Labour Court found that the nature of teaching positions in the arts sector did not constitute sufficient grounds for signing fixed-term contracts and found that the employment relationships under review were permanent. Due to the Labour Court’s decision, the university reviewed all fixed-term academic staff positions. Based on the review, the university signed permanent employment contracts with 80 more teachers and researchers and also offered eight staff members other permanent positions.

Another important step towards long-term employment relationships was the new university arts teacher position, which was established in summer 2022 to improve the standing of part-time hourly-paid teachers. This unique local experimental agreement was made possible by the active and constructive dialogue between the employee and the employer representatives.

“We are very happy with the agreement and the good negotiation connection that we had. Staff is our most important resource, which is why we have made big efforts to improve staff’s wellbeing and work conditions. Increasing the share of permanent staff also brings continuity to the university’s activities,” notes Rector of Uniarts Helsinki Kaarlo Hildén.

University arts teacher position brings stability for part-time teachers

The new academic university arts teacher position has a teaching focus, and it is only offered at Uniarts Helsinki. University arts teachers follow the total working time system and receive monthly salary just like professors and lecturers, but the difference is that their work is teaching-centred: their work plans include less administrative work and no research or independent artistic work. The part-time university arts teacher position is suited for professionals who primarily work outside of the university, for example at a theatre or at an orchestra.

During the first phase of the experimental agreement, Uniarts Helsinki signed permanent employment contracts with 61 hourly-paid teachers, who now work as either university arts teachers or lecturers. Permanent employment contracts have been offered to staff members who have had over 220 hours of instruction each year within the past three years. The aim is to increase the stability and continuity in hourly-paid teachers’ work.

“The establishing of the university arts teacher position was the first step in improving the standing of hourly-paid teachers. The local negotiations were conducted in a constructive spirit. After a long series of negotiations, we were able to settle on an exception to be applied to the General Collective Agreement for Universities exclusively in the context of Uniarts Helsinki. This was also approved by the unions as the negotiating parties, and after this we were able to move forward with the practicalities fairly quickly,” says chief shop steward Hannu Apajalahti.

The local experimental agreement was developed because the collective agreement for universities does not take the special characteristics of teaching in the arts into consideration. Teaching in the arts entails extensive personal guidance and supervision and tailored small-group work. Different subjects and degree programmes have vastly different teaching needs depending on things such as the number of exchange students and the number of students studying the subject as their major. This is why the number of part-time hourly-paid teachers is so high at Uniarts Helsinki.

Towards joint total working time policies

The local experimental agreement concerning the university arts teacher position extends until summer 2025. The employee and employer representatives will monitor how the agreement works in practice. In spring 2023, the university will look into the possibility of extending the experiment to teachers with fewer teaching hours, as well.

Another aim is to have discussions about introducing more consistent policies concerning the total working time system. The nature of teaching is a bit different at all three academies of Uniarts Helsinki, which is why so far, each academy has agreed on working hours according to their own policies. The current goal is to draw up a joint calculation model, which will support wellbeing and put staff members on a more equal footing when it comes to the inclusion of artistic work and research in the total working time.

“We want to make sure that professors and lecturers, regardless of their unit, have an equal chance to include artistic work, research work or pedagogical development work in their total working time. In addition to this, the aim is to make the total working time realistic in proportion to the objectives set for each position. We will continue discussing these total working time practices with the staff so that we can find the best possible solution,” Rector Kaarlo Hildén says.

“Uniarts Helsinki needs joint guidelines for applying the total working time system, because the current practices vary and there are differing views on how the collective agreement should be interpreted. The number of teachers following the total working time system will increase due to the new university arts teacher position. Work plans have a big impact on the everyday work of staff members, which is why related policies are important to us all. We who act as shop stewards agree with the employer representatives on how necessary these discussions are,” says chief shop steward Hannu Apajalahti.

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