News in English

Atalpa expansion finally starting

The long-awaited expansion of the university sports centre Atalpa will finally begin next summer.

The new part of the building will house a 300-square-metre multi-purpose hall. The old aerobics room will be changed into a gym and the changing rooms and showers renovated.

The renovation will be finished by autumn 2009 and is estimated to cost 3.5 million euros.

To cover the renovation costs the annual Atalpa fee will go up from the current 30 euros to 60-65
euros.
“The quality of the gym and other facilities will improve considerably and 60 euros is not that bad a prise compared to private gyms", points out Pertti Liljeroos CEO of Atalpa Ltd.

Tamy´s representative in the Atalpa board, Lotta Nuppola, also sees the prise raise as quite reasonable.

“University sports services at UTA are still some of the cheapest in Finland even after the prise raise. The annual sports services fee at TUT is also higher than ours at Atalpa", Nuppola reminds.

There will be 1,000 square metres of new facilities at Atalpa, part of which will be reserved for the Department of Education. Because of the high usage rate of the facilities, measures will be taken to keep them open during renovation.

“There is no decision on summer 2009 but there will be large scale renovation of the walls, for example. We might have to close down Atalpa for at least a part of summer 2009", Liljeroos ponders.

The new hundred-person multi-purpose hall will replace the old aerobics room. The new part will also have showers and changing rooms. The old aerobics room will be converted completely into a gym, and the sports hall floor renovated.

SAMOK sued over temporary employment

Some time this autumn, the Labour Court will rule whether two-year temporary employment used in student unions and other student organisations is legal.

The parties in the case are the Federation of Special Service and Clerical Employees, ERTO, and the National Union of Finnish Polytechnic Students, SAMOK. ERTO was contacted by a SAMOK employee who argued that employment at SAMOK should be permanent.

The case was taken to the Labour Court because the SAMOK collective agreement refers to the Employment Contracts Act. This way the ruling will be on how the employment contract should be interpreted and no single employee will be a party in the case.

At the moment, all Tamy´s employees, except office staff, are on two-year temporary employment even though the titles and the work itself do not change.

The argument for temporary employment has been the nature of the work. Bluntly said the concern is that student organisations would end up having permanent posts occupied by 50-year-olds who have lost their motivation and contacts to student life.

Tamy has discussed the issue, but only tentatively.

“If SAMOK loses the case, then we will consider carefully what to do", says Simo Autio Chair of Tamy´s Executive Board.

Permanent employment would force Tamy to change their whole salary system. At the moment, there are, for example, only two experience increments: one after a year´s employment and another after two years.

Still, Autio does not believe that there would drastic changes to Tamy´s personnel costs. The effect could be greater on organisational culture but Autio does not see that as certain either.

210 candidates competing for seats in Tamy´s Council

There are 210 candidates in the elections for Tamy´s Council of Representatives early this November.
The number is down 30 from the last election two years ago.

The candidates are from thirteen different groups or coalitions some of which have further allied into electoral rings. The largest groups are the social democratic TASY (34 candidates) and Kokoomusopiskelijat (29) and the smallest are Vostokaatio (3) and Radica (4).

The Council of Representatives elects the Executive Board and the Secretaries and decides on Tamy´s budget and membership fee. Forty representatives and eighty reserve members are elected to the Council.

Employers finally paying for trainees

Employers are taking part in traineeship costs more than before. In 2000, employers paid for every fourth traineeship month. By 2006, they were paying for every third traineeship month. Meanwhile, unpaid traineeships have become extremely rare.

UTA students do their traineeships in private companies more often than before. In six years government traineeships have gone down by 40 months while municipal traineeships are up by 70 months and private traineeships by 130 months. The numbers are from a Career Services report.

Internet advance voting

The advance voting in Tamy´s elections will be available only on the web. Advance voting is open on 31st October and 1st November on Tamy´s website www.tamy.fi.

On the site , the voters sign in to a “voting booth" using their university basic user accounts. In the booth, they are provided with voting instructions and a list of candidates. After choosing to begin the actual voting process, the voter has five minutes to pick a candidate. If a choice is not made in five minutes, the system will ask the voter to sign in again.

Tamy´s Election Project Secretary, Jukka Kiho, hopes that Internet advance voting will increase voter turnout, which has been around 25 percent in the last two elections.

“This is an easy way to vote because you can vote on your home computer or from abroad."

Electronic applications to universities by 2010

The Ministry of Education seeks to bring all Finnish universities into an electronic application system by 2010. The web-based application system might be tested in some universities next autumn.
The goal is that an applicant would only fill one form to apply to a maximum of nine courses in priority order. The applicant would be enrolled to the highest priority course for which they had enough points.

Hopes are the web-based application system would make things easier to both the applicants and the universities.

The plan was reported by Aamulehti on 16th October.

Translations: Aatu Lehtovaara