It is now official: Santa Claus lives in
Finnish Lapland, close to the Arctic Circle. In addition to his reindeer, he needs a great
many helpers to make Christmas come true. You can actually meet some of these Santa's
helpers in the SantaPark, where everybody is very busy at Christmas time.
Overworked or unemployed
Kaarina Kalin is not just an ordinary Santa's helper. She is also a shop steward
amongst the 39 other Santa's helpers at a Christmas theme park, the SantaPark, in
Rovaniemi on the Arctic Circle. This theme park consists of a huge grotto which has been
excavated underground and has been operational for about 12 months. Most of the staff on
the payroll are Santa's helpers and they are organised in the Union of Technical and
Special Occupations, TEKERI. These Santa's helpers have a company-specific agreement which
will remain in force until next April. Kaarina Kalin, and all of these Santa's helpers
are, for the time being, employed as part-time workers by the theme park. According to
their terms of employment their weekly working hours may vary, from nil to forty. During
the autumn and the spring, when it is quiet, Santa's helpers may be laid off for some or
even all of the time.
The possibility of having no paid working hours at all, a condition which is included
in their terms of employment, annoys both Kaarina Kalin and Timo Siivola, who is another
shop steward. Every attempt will be made during the next bargaining round for this
condition to be removed.
- "With this 'nil hours' condition written into the contract, the employer may
keep people in suspense without work, or may give the full weekly hours to some and none
at all to others. For example, last winter some of Santa's helpers were working flat out
and full-time, whilst others remained laid off", says Kaarina Kalin, indignantly.
The average age of Santa's helpers is 25 and being employed only for part of the time
means that many of them are constantly looking for other work or for some educational
establishment at which they can study, and therefore there is a very high turnover of
Santa's helpers.
Christmas is the busiest time for Santa's helpers, since planeloads of people arrive to
see Santa and meet his helpers. There are often as many as eight charter flights per day.
Most of these visitors come from abroad, mainly from Britain and Japan.
Tough bargaining for pay
The pay that Santa's helpers received, before they joined the Union, was
"indecently low" to quote Kaarina Kalin's words, being from 28 to 35 Finnish
marks per hour. The employer took a hard line, some of the helpers being paid at a better
rate than were others, although the work was just the same for all of them. Santa's
helpers were also made to understand that, if they didn't like the pay they could start
looking for work elsewhere. Negotiations with the Employers' Confederation of Service
Industries, on the terms and conditions of employment, went quite well until the question
of pay was introduced. The ensuing bargaining was very tough but resulted in an increase
in pay, Santa's helpers now receiving an hourly rate of between 35 and 45 Finnish marks.
