Social partners have agreed on a broad labour market pact. The ‘so called’ competitiveness contract pact is a result of a long negotiation process. One precondition for the pact becoming effective is that the government abandons its plans, announced in September 2015, to impose serious restrictions on collective bargaining rights, holidays and wages through legislation. The agreed pact will make the annual working time 24 hours longer on existing wages. The holiday pay for those working in the public sector will be cut by 30% for the next three years. Employees' pension insurance contribution will be raised by 1.2%. The unemployment insurance payment for the employees will also be raised by 0.85%. In addition, the pact will see the existing collective agreements last an additional 12 months and freeze wages for this period. Finally, the pact includes a new crisis clause to help businesses overcome extraordinary difficulties. The position of the unions regarding the deal is not homogeneous, as four major member unions of the blue collar union confederation SAK have walked away from the labour market deal. The board of SAK has provisionally accepted the pact and is hoping that government will now roll back its proposals for further spending cuts and tax hikes.
English: http://heikkijokinen.info/en/trade-union-news-from-finland/976-a-broad-labour …
http://yle.fi/uutiset/sak_gives_provisional_green_light …
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Willy De Backer wdebacker@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. Since June 2013 readers can consult our archive and search through all articles in our database at www.cbnarchive.eu. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.
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