I often wonder what causes these sudden changes to shift rosters and whether they are the kind of changes that are allowed under the provision of the general collective agreement for the municipal sector (KVTES) on changes to the shift roster.
This provision of KVTES states that a unilateral change to the shift roster by the employer requires a justified reason and that only those changes are made which are necessary for the operations.
The Labour Court has issued decisions on changes to shift rosters
The first example of a Labour Court decision concerns the cancellation of a night shift.
According to the decision of the Labour Court, it was possible to cancel a night shift if no children came to night care. In this case, the Labour Court considered the employer’s right to change the shift roster in a particular situation. However, the existence of a justified reason requires the employer to look into the possibility of offering the employee other work in such a situation.
In other words, the absence of a child from night care is not automatically a reason to change an employee’s shift roster, and the employer must always determine whether a justified reason exists for the change. A justified reason could be, for example, that there is no other work to be done during the night shift. The employer must therefore always consider the justified reason on a case-by-case basis.
Another example of a Labour Court decision concerns the timing of a change to the shift roster.
The Labour Court found that the employer has the right to change the shift roster one or more times for a justified reason. However, all changes based on this single justified reason had to be made at the same time.
Early childhood education professionals – contact Tehy if you need to
Sometimes it may be justified to change the shift roster by removing a night shift when there are no children in care, and sometimes there is no justified reason even if no children come to night care.
At the start of a night shift, there may still be children at the daycare centre whose guardians will come to pick them up for the night and, similarly, the first children of the morning may be dropped off at the daycare centre by their guardians before the morning shift starts.
When cancelling a night shift, the employer will also, at the same time, inform the employee when they will be rescheduled to work the cancelled night shift hours. If, at this time, the employer does not inform the employee when the hours will be worked, the shift roster will be incomplete for these hours. However, this has no impact on pay.
Making changes to shifts and rosters is not a straightforward matter, and these situations can be complicated. You can always contact a Tehy union representative if you are uncertain of whether your employer followed the proper protocol when changing the shift roster.
If the matter cannot be resolved through a union representative, please contact Tehy’s e-services.
If you do not have a Tehy union representative in your municipality, see the guidelines (in Finnish only) on how to choose a union representative. Tehy will train the union representative, and the time spent on training will be paid.
