Turku Court of Appeal orders City of Turku to pay €82,000 in damages to employees

The Turku Court of Appeal has ordered the City of Turku to pay a total of approximately €82,000 in damages to city employees involved in a long-standing dispute over work hours. The case arose when workers from Turku’s health and social sectors filed a lawsuit in 2015, claiming the city unilaterally altered their work time conditions.

The employees argued that the city changed their working hours from a shift-based system to a general working time model, effectively increasing their workdays without a corresponding pay increase. The dispute also centered around the management of meal breaks. Initially, both the district court in 2020 and the Court of Appeal in 2021 dismissed the employees’ claims. However, 26 workers sought appellate review from the Supreme Court, which issued a ruling last year.

The Supreme Court viewed the case differently from the lower courts regarding 25 of the workers. It determined that the City of Turku acted in violation of employment contracts when it unilaterally changed the working time model beginning in June 2015. While the employer has the right to determine employee breaks, the Supreme Court ruled that it cannot modify the essential conditions of employment contracts unilaterally.

Following this ruling, the Court of Appeal reconsidered the case for the 25 employees and concluded that meal breaks were not implemented regularly enough within the city’s operations, and guidance was inadequate when breaks were missed or interrupted. Consequently, the Court of Appeal ruled that employees suffered damages due to an increase in their workdays by half an hour. Each of the 25 employees is set to receive between €2,000 and €4,000, with total damages amounting to approximately €82,000. Additionally, the City of Turku will cover several thousand euros in legal costs across all court levels. There is still an option to seek permission to appeal the Court of Appeal’s decision to the Supreme Court.