Commodore Brother Petteri Valkamo manages Finland’s NATO office 7,000 kilometers from Helsinki in Norfolk, USA. The office is the link between the Finnish General Staff and NATO’s operational management ladder. Valkamo is the Finn who has worked in Norfolk the longest.
Norfolk is one of the workplaces of Finnish NATO officers. A total of forty Finnish soldiers have moved to work abroad after joining NATO. There are a few of them in Norfolk.
Work 7,000 kilometers away from headquarters
Valkamo’s task is to identify which decisions and projects Finland should influence in NATO and how to do it.
He should also take on tasks where the Finnish Defense Forces could offer their expertise to NATO. And the same in the other direction: what would the defense forces benefit from NATO’s research and development work.
Valkamo moved to the United States to develop cooperation between Finland and NATO in 2020, when Finland was only a partner country of NATO.
Society was half shut down because of the corona. It took up to half a year for Valkamo and his spouse to settle into a new environment – from purchasing an apartment to registering a car. Getting used to the new job was slowed down by the fact that it was almost impossible to meet coworkers.
– It has been much nicer since then. Especially when work is done with a growing Finnish team.
According to Valkamo, there would be more use for Finns’ know-how than Finland can send. The interest is especially related to Russian forecasting and operations in the cold conditions of the north.
A Finnish officer monitors the survival of the wounded from the war in Ukraine
Tasks vary in different NATO staffs. Norfolk is home to both the joint operations management level responsible for the defense of Northern Europe and the transformation headquarters, whose task is to look to the future and develop NATO’s new capabilities.
Kim Kalima is fresh from Norfolk. The work of the medical commander captain is directly related to NATO’s preparedness.
Kalima’s job includes collecting lessons from the war in Ukraine: How lives are saved and lost in war, and what kind of injuries occur from long-range weapons or in a settlement center battle. He is involved in developing a network for the fighting forces, with the help of which people can be evacuated and saved in a certain time.
Is this your dream job?
– Yes, at least until now.
At the same time, Kalima has learned thousands of abbreviations and settled into a new work community. According to Kalima, it has taken half a year to get the basic things in life – housing, cars, children’s school and hobbies – in order, and everyday life has been filled with it.
– Everything is quite organized. Children’s hobbies are related to school, and adults should participate in school leisure activities.
The Defense Forces and the Officers’ Union have been trying to agree on salaries for a year
At home, the Union of Officers and the Ministry of Defense have been trying for almost a year to agree on the conditions under which officers leaving Finland will in the future work and get paid in the NATO command structure. Command structure refers to NATO’s numerous staffs that lead regional defense or different defense branches.
The views are far from each other.
The Ministry of Defense decides on the salary of the officers, while the Ministry of Finance decides on the level of foreign assignment allowances.
The basic salary of officers currently consists of a task-specific part and a performance part. According to the Officers’ Union, the average salary of officers serving in NATO is 5,000-6,200 euros.
The Defense Forces would like the officers working in NATO to receive a total salary. It would be slightly higher than the usual basic salary.
At the same time, the compensation of extra work, on-call and training with money would end separately. Until now, they have made up a significant part of the total earnings.
The total salary level proposed by the Ministry of Defense is not valid for the Officers’ Union. According to the officers’ union, the proposed total salary increase would be only a few hundred euros higher than the basic salary. You would get the same amount of extra in just one duty shift at home or in NATO.
– You should be compensated somehow, so that (salary development) is not negative when you go on a mission abroad, says the chairman of the Officers’ Association Ville Viita.
Based on some examples, the union estimates that a person going abroad could lose up to 10,000 to 20,000 euros per year compared to continuing to work at home, which includes a lot of military exercises, extra work and on-call duty.
Other unions whose members will work abroad in the future also participate in the negotiations.
The Ministry of Defense does not open up differences in salary negotiations when the negotiations are in progress.
– Our assessments with the organizations differ in some respects, says the head of negotiations at the Ministry of Defense Jari Kajavirta.
According to Kajavirta, the negotiations have lasted a long time because information about the nature of NATO’s tasks has slowly accumulated. The ministry is aiming for a reasonable salary that would bring competent personnel to NATO. According to Kajavirta, the current salary and working time agreements do not fit into the NATO command structure.
– We are not aiming for savings here.
Kajavirta adds that salaries must, however, be in the same frame of reference as other government personnel costs.
In addition to the salary, it is about other compensations: Children’s schools and daycare, compensation for domestic holiday flights once a year and compensating the spouse’s income in some way. In the United States, the spouse does not receive a work permit.
According to the ministry, several improvements have been prepared to the current compensation conditions.
Moving abroad with the family is stressful, and many people put a lot of effort into the whole thing.
– The package is not assembled, and people hesitate whether it is worth leaving, says Viita.
Finland’s goal is to get more than a hundred officers to work for NATO. This should be achieved in six years.
The Ministry of Defense will later also prepare the conditions for the salaries of those who leave for NATO’s peacetime missions and the possible compensation for those who participate in NATO’s standby missions.
The officers’ negotiations will continue after Epiphany, and it should be ready in mid-February.
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