– What happened along the way?
Text: Mikko Nikula
Images: Opa Latvala, Markus Sommers
The collective agreement negotiation round lasted more than six months. The employers sought reductions, and the senior salaried employees used industrial action to promote their own goals, such as sufficient general increases.
“The main reason for the length of this round was that we and the employers had very different views on the increase level. The employers also wanted reductions for the texts of the agreements that we did not accept,” says Samu Salo, Chairman of YTN.
The negotiations that began in September did not progress for a long time. It was not until April that YTN’s agreement situation started to progress when the collective agreement for senior salaried employees in the technology industry was accepted. It is a three-year agreement, and the final year is an option year, i.e. it can be terminated by both parties. During the agreement period, salaries will be increased by a total of 7.8 per cent and the share of general increases will be 5.0 per cent.
The employers wanted to discuss the level of salary increases only after discussing the agreement texts.
“This has been the tactic of employers for several rounds of negotiations. We did offer them the option of leaving the texts unchanged and purely making a salary settlement but, for some reason, the Technology Industry Employers of Finland did not accept this,” says Salo and adds that YTN’s agreements and their terms of employment are very employer-friendly.
DID THE PUBLIC SECTOR ACTUALLY DETERMINE EVERYONE’S SALARIES?
Most of the negotiation rounds have been described as being dependent on the agreement negotiation tables of the technology industry, where the Technology Industry Employers of Finland negotiated with YTN, the salaried employees’ Trade Union Pro and the employees’ Industrial Union. According to the prevailing interpretation, negotiations in the other branches could only progress once the salary level of the export industry had been defined, and the agreement made by the Industrial Union in particular has been regarded as a decisive opener.
However, Samu Salo has a different view of what the order of events was. In his opinion, the salary increase level in the export sectors essentially depended on the amount of salary increases that could be paid to the public sector – mainly according to the government’s estimate.
“The employers in the private sector and the Finnish government were waiting to see if the salary programme of municipalities and wellbeing services counties would continue or not. When it became clear that it would continue, it set a ceiling for the increases, from which the impact of the salary programme was deducted. This defined the general line and the maximum increase level for the private sector. This low salary increase level in the private sector, which was eventually formed again in Finland, naturally made making agreements more difficult and, above all, led to a long negotiation round.
This is my understanding, and I strongly suspect that this happened,” says Salo.
Before an agreement was reached, YTN used pressure measures in some branches. There were strikes in the technology industry on five Fridays and a strike in the chemical industry on one day. There was a threat of a strike in the architectural design sector, but the strike was cancelled when an agreement was made for the branch at the end of May.
“With the technology and chemical industries, the issue was more that the negotiations were not progressing, which is why people wanted to transfer them to the National Conciliator rather than that the strikes would have put pressure on employers to reach negotiation solutions. The idea was that the Conciliator’s office would get things moving. With the architectural design sector, the situation was different. The branch was doing particularly poorly, the employers were not ready for increases, and it was considered that the threat of a strike would create pressure for them to make an agreement, which is what happened in the end.”
YTN PREVENTED REDUCTIONS IN PROTECTION AGAINST TERMINATION IN THE EXPORT SECTORS
Teemu Hankamäki, Vice Chairman of YTN, considers it positive that the collective agreements last three years and include a general increase.
“Of course, future inflation is not yet known, but in the light of the current forecasts, it seems that these increases will really improve purchasing power. It was also a good thing that the agreements include tailgates and they do not have instalments, as was the case in the previous round.”
A tailgate means that if no agreement can be reached locally on the implementation of salary increases, the collective agreement entries will be followed. This secures general increases for all senior salaried employees.
For a long time, the Technology Industry Employers of Finland strongly promoted reductions to the texts, i.e. reducing protection against termination, during negotiations in the export sectors. The aim was to change the sections of the collective agreements to correspond to the upcoming legislative text, as Petteri Orpo’s government intends to make a legislative reform after which “weighty grounds” would no longer be required for termination of employment on person-related grounds. Instead, merely “proper grounds” would be sufficient.
“We managed to stop this attempt, and the protection against termination in the collective agreements for senior salaried employees was not changed in any way. In addition, the shop steward remains the primary signatory in local agreements.”
The government’s plans and future legislative reforms were also invoked in the negotiations of the chemical industry, as the employers wanted to reduce the notice period for change negotiations from six weeks to three.
“Three weeks is a very short time when a large company needs to have extensive negotiations. This dispute was discussed with the National Conciliator, and eventually the notice period was changed to four weeks. There were no disputes over money in the chemical industry,” says Hankamäki.
INDIRECT IMPACTS ALSO FOR NON-CONTRACTUAL SECTORS
Senior salaried employees do not have a generally applicable, national collective agreement in all sectors and industries. However, Hankamäki believes that this spring’s salary settlements will also at least be reflected in the non-contractual sectors.
“Yes, the existence of these collective agreements will also affect the sectors that are beyond the scope of contract work. There will be additional pressure to increase salaries even where there is no obligation to do so; at least if there is any competition for labour force.”
In many companies, it is an established practice to voluntarily follow the path indicated generally applicable collective agreements.
“In the construction industry, for example, senior salaried employees do not have their own collective agreement, but the employer often applies the practices of the salaried employees’ collective agreement to them. There are differences between companies, of course. Some are affected by the collective agreements, some are not.
TERMINATION PRACTICES IN DIFFERENT BRANCHES MUST BE CLOSELY MONITORED
“This was an exceptional round of negotiations in that the first collective agreements were made outside the export sectors. When their negotiations were stalled, the financial sector and the EPA sector [=Palta’s special sectors] opened the round in March,” says Riku Salokannel, Vice Chairman.
This was helped by the fact that the collective agreements of these branches were shared with other unions and crossed the borders of the central organisations.
“The line had been formed when SAK’s unions and Pro had already made other agreements.”
The changes to the collective agreements in the service sector concerning qualitative matters were minor; the texts remained largely unchanged. There was one less subject of the dispute because the person-related grounds for termination had not been recorded in the collective agreements of the service sector, unlike in the industrial sectors, where there were tough negotiations as employers attempted to weaken the protection against termination.
“During the agreement period, we need to benchmark and assess the significance of the legislative reform. In other words, will there be different termination practices in different branches when some comply with the new legislation and others have a collective agreement that is better than the legal text? If the significance is high, it will certainly be necessary to assess whether collective agreements should extensively strive to strengthen protection against termination.
EMPLOYERS WERE “FLYING THE FLAG OF VICTORY” EVEN BEFORE THE NEGOTIATIONS
Ville-Veikko Rantamaula, Vice Chairman of YTN, felt that the working life reforms of the government, which were attractive to employers, had shaped the atmosphere of the negotiation round from the beginning.
“It was apparent that the employers were flying the flag of victory before the negotiations had even started. They had a rather strong attitude.”
At the service sector’s negotiation tables, Rantamaula was bothered by the other party’s passivity. In the negotiations with YTN, the employers’ Palta awaited, as usual, the conclusion of collective agreements in the export sectors.
“Many rounds of negotiations have not resulted in unique solutions in the service industries, and this has been a big disappointment for me. Palta takes a strong stance on working life matters in public, but they are not prepared to take the initiative themselves. Even now, the technology industry was only helped and money was prioritised in the solutions.”
The dominance of the technology industry was reflected, among other things, in the fact that the National Conciliator also proposed an individual guarantee model for the salaries of service sectors, which had been copied directly from the technology industry.
“It would not have been suitable for the service sectors, and we did not accept it.”
EXCESSIVE ROUNDS WITH DISPUTES ARE NOT FOR THE BENEFIT OF ANYONE
The labour market is now peaceful, but what can be expected during the agreement period and will the agreements remain in force for the entire three-year period?
“Hopefully they will remain in force, and at least now it is hard to see why any party would stand in the way of termination. The terminating party should get something better with the new collective agreement than with the current one, and it would not be an easy exercise,” says Teemu Hankamäki.
“But it would be good to get back to the procedure that used to be the main rule. In other words, the negotiation results were reached quite quickly, without awful disputes and the help of the Conciliator,” Hankamäki continues.
Ville-Veikko Rantamaula also considers the most recent round to be proof that the current negotiation system does not serve the employees or the employers.
“It took seven months to give birth to the solution, and it was painful. Industrial action was needed. This state of affairs needs some changes. In the next round, the relationship between national and local agreements will in any case be a big issue.”
Samu Salo says that the next government’s working life agenda may once again affect the negotiation round.
“However, I believe that regardless of what the next government will be like, the measures taken by the current government to weaken the working life will not be cancelled. No legislation is changed every four years.”
During the agreement period, Salo would like to see the working groups of the contract branches develop collective agreements and prepare proposals for the negotiation tables. For example, collective agreement entries that would improve coping at work have been a long-term goal of YTN.