Article: General increases that clearly improve purchasing power are YTN’s top objective
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In this autumn’s round of negotiations, YTN wants to ensure salary increases that improve purchasing power and are focused on general increases for its members. In previous rounds, employees have made compromises and settled for moderate increases.
“For many years, Finland’s cost competitiveness has been maintained with lower salary increases than in its competitor countries. This cannot be a permanent solution for Finland to succeed in the international market,” says Samu Salo, Chairman of YTN.
Negotiations are being held on the collective agreements of the technology industry, the consulting sector and the IT services industry. The first two of these are universally binding, while the IT services industry’s collective agreement is normally binding. The current agreements will expire at the end of November.
ONLY A MINORITY RECEIVE MERIT INCREASES
So far, the negotiations have not progressed very far in terms of concrete questions.
“There have been a few meetings. The atmosphere has been the same as in previous rounds. It is still a bit unclear what the employers’ most important goals are,” says Salo.
However, it has become clear that the opposing party to the negotiations – the Technology Industry Employers of Finland – has a quite different view on the level of salary increases than YTN. There are also different views on the necessity of a general increase; employers would like to emphasise local agreements on salaries.
“The general increase is a key factor in the salary formation of senior salaried employees. According to our salary surveys, only about a fifth of the respondents receive the merit increases distributed by employers, and this proportion has remained about the same every year. If companies cannot agree on salary increases locally, the general increase provided by the collective agreement will ensure that everyone receives something, which is why we will stick to it,” says Teemu Hankamäki, Vice Chairman of YTN.
It is also yet unclear who will make the first collective agreement in this round of negotiations. Traditionally, this role has belonged to the Industrial Union which made the collective agreement of the technology industry. The salary increase level of this agreement has defined the so-called general line, i.e. employers in other branches have not agreed to salary increases above its level.
“YTN does not specifically aim to act in the role, but we also do not evade taking responsibility,” says Samu Salo.
The situation is confused by the government’s plan to introduce a law that would anchor the salary increases in all branches to the export industry’s salary settlements. There has been widespread opposition to the law on the part of employees.
BETTER QUALITY IN ADDITION TO SALARY
In addition to salary increases, YTN also aims to improve the quality of its collective agreements. The improvements include, for example, increasing well-being at work, strengthening the rules of remote work, extending annual leave and the possibility to partly or fully exchange holiday pay for time off.
The promotion of qualitative goals is hampered by the fact that the counterparty is wary of anything that could cause additional costs outside of salary increases.
“Employers think that the price of the agreement texts must not increase at all. The Confederation of Finnish Industries and its member unions monitor this very closely and have coordinated the entire field of employers,” says Hankamäki.
Although measures that support well-being at work and reduce the mental load of experts would not put much strain on companies’ wallets, the problem is the general reluctance of employers to make collective agreement entries on the matter. According to Salo, this has become clear in previous rounds of negotiations.
“We have been surprised that employers do not seem to be interested in well-being at work. Senior salaried employees do demanding work and want to do it well. Coping also increases productivity.
GOVERNMENT ACTIONS CAUSE CONFUSION
The difficulty factor of the negotiations is increased by the fact that the government is legislating to change the structures of Finnish working life for the benefit of employers. In addition to the export-driven salary model, such legislative projects include making dismissal easier, extending local agreements to unorganised companies and the prohibition of agreeing, for example, on lay-off notice periods in a collective agreement better than is recorded in the law.
The planned amendment to the Employment Contracts Act, according to which a “substantial reason” alone would be sufficient for the employer to give notice instead of the current valid and compelling reason, is particularly problematic from the perspective of senior salaried employees.
“This could lead to the possibility that if performance targets are not achieved, this would be grounds for dismissal. Nearly all of our members have defined personal goals, and in many companies, the goals have been set at the top,” says Samu Salo.
The matter may potentially become apparent at the negotiation table if employers seek to amend the provisions of the collective agreement on dismissals that comply with the current legislation in accordance with the government’s plans.
Text: Mikko Nikula
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