Employer lawfully dismissed organiser but paid for skipping office closures

A Finnish employer that redistributes a dismissed employee's duties among remaining staff can have lawful economic grounds for dismissal even when the work itself has not visibly declined.Finlex In TT 2026:36 the Labour Court accepted that Auto- ja Kuljetusalan Työntekijäliitto AKT ry had to cut costsFinlex after its council lowered membership fees, leaving a structural savings need of EUR 600,000 for 2024Finlex. After change negotiations from 29 January to 12 March 2024Finlex it closed five of ten regional officesFinlex and cut eight postsFinlex, with one further retirement. The organiser dismissed on 10 April 2024Finlex with effect on 10 October 2024, employed since 1 June 2003, had his tasks divided among the remaining officesFinlex. The court held the post had ceased as a separate wholeFinlex, which under Työsopimuslaki case law meets the test that available work has diminished substantially and permanentlyFinlex.

The court rejected both discrimination challengesFinlex. On age, the full workforce figures showed 44 employees born between 1959 and 1990 before the cuts, eight reductions spread across birth years 1959 to 1978, a median birth year moving only from 1970 to 1971, and 14 of the remaining 36 employees as old as the claimant, born in 1968, or older. That pattern did not create a reasoned presumption of age discrimination under YhdenvertaisuuslakiFinlex. On political background, all five dismissed officers were social democratsFinlex against a 26-to-4 split among 30 officers, but the court held the employer could not lawfully have mirrored that quota when selecting for dismissalFinlex. The decision-maker himself belonged to the same group, and the one left-alliance officer in the affected functions held enhanced protection as an elected representative.

The re-employment duty also failed on both posts the claimant namedFinlex. The new organiser-assistant post went to an employee under threat of dismissal from the closed Jyväskylä office who had already done corresponding work on a smaller scale and was found clearly better qualified, with protection as an office-employees' elected representative. The Oulu member-register post had been offered as a workplace transfer to an employee of the closed Rovaniemi office with specialist employer-collection skills the claimant lacked; after his refusal the duties were shared out rather than kept open as a vacancy. Neither post had to be offered to the claimantFinlex.

The dismissal therefore stoodFinlex and compensation for unfounded termination was refusedFinlex. The breach lay in the change negotiationsFinlex. Savings targets, staffing numbers and alternatives were discussed, but the halving of the regional-office network and the plan behind it were never put up for discussionFinlex, and representatives were not given the plan information required during the talksFinlex, in breach of Yhteistoimintalaki 19 and 20 §Finlex. An oral statement at the final meeting that there was nothing to object to did not cure the defectFinlex, since the representatives later refused to sign the minutes for lack of a forward operating plan.

For that defect the court ordered AKT ry to pay the dismissed employee EUR 10,000Finlex under Yhteistoimintalaki 44 §Finlex, with default interest from 15 January 2026Finlex. The maximum at the time of the breach was EUR 35,000Finlex. The amount reflects a serious but partial breachFinlex of an employer expected to know the rules, with otherwise thorough negotiations and a twenty-year employment. Each side bears its own costs.

Legal basis: Työsopimuslaki (55/2001) 7 luku 1, 3 ja 4 §; Yhteistoimintalaki (1333/2021) 19, 20 ja 44 §; Yhdenvertaisuuslaki (1325/2014) 8, 10 ja 28 §.