Translation: Soili Hämäläinen | Photos: Björn Ekman, Leo Mustonen, Sanna Koivusaari and Digmarit
Carried away with association activities
Kaarina Pehkonen is the longest-serving chairperson in Digmarit's history. A passion for learning and great people winged me forward in association work.
I became a member in 1990. The reason for joining was my ignorance and what it caused me. I was working for a marketing communications company with an American background. The company's operations ceased quite suddenly when the funding from America was stopped. I was left without half a year's salary because I didn't know about wage security, and I didn't belong to any trade union. I didn't know my rights. Later, when I talked about this to my colleague, she was appalled. And she advised me to join the union. That's where it started.
The trade union was Erto, the Union for Private Sector Professionals, and my own association was MaMa, founded in 1973. The founders were working for a big marketing research company and took along advertising people they knew. The registered name for the association was Advertising and Marketing Research Employees MaMa Assoc. This association is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. The name has been changed twice when new fields of operation joined in, from MaMa to DigiMaMa to Digmarit.
I went to MaMa's meetings and ended up on the board after being persuaded by my colleague. First, I acted as an alternate member, and in 1997, I started as a full board member. I was in charge of PR first and then also for the vice presidency.
In 2002, I was elected as the chairperson of the representative Board of the Erto and the unemployment fund's representative board. That was a step into the unknown. I hadn't even entered their meeting room before.
My term of office as the chairperson of my own association started in 2005 and went on to the end of 2019. I spent my days on my breadwork for a marketing research company. And in the evenings and weekends, I had time for MaMa. It was hard at times. But it was exciting to follow and learn how society works in the world of work and how we can make things move forward.
I got carried away with association activities. We aimed to get a collective agreement in the fields of our association. But the problem was that the employers were not sufficiently organized. However, we managed to reach a so-called framework agreement that our members still use.
We did salary and employment surveys among the members and organized different training and meetings in various towns with the members every year. We also took part in Suomi Arena a couple of times by arranging panel discussions there. The workload felt huge, but we took along cooperation partners. I want to thank Grafia Visual Communication Designers, The Apple User Group Finland, Corellia Helsinki, and Erto for their excellent companionship. Our members were the main reason for the work we did.
The board met once a month in Helsinki. People travelled there from their hometowns in different parts of Finland. Our meetings were weekend seminars, and we managed to do a lot when we met face-to-face.
During the years, working life changed. It became more common to work as a freelancer and self-employed. We worked to be able to acknowledge their needs and working conditions. We organized training for entrepreneurs and freelancers, together with Erto and the entrepreneurs in STTK, The Finnish Confederation of Professionals. The work to improve the conditions for the self-employed and freelancers continues.
In 2016, MaMa got members from Erto's Information Industry Association, 1,500 new members at the same time. The name of the association was changed to DigiMaMa. The new members changed our operations, for example, in terms of the training we organized, and we also got new members to the board from the new industries.
I am proud that we always had a good and well-working board. And that people enjoyed their work for the association. The cooperation was good. We worked well together with everybody. That's why we were able to get things forward. And we always developed something new along the way, for example, this magazine, the first number of which was published in 2006.
The best thing about being a chairperson was the versatility and breadth of vision. It was easy to cooperate with Erto and the presidents of other associations in it. I got to know the Finnish working life - problems, but also achievements. ■
