Collective agreement

What is a collective agreement?

Collective agreements are negotiated between organisations that represent employees and organisations that represent employers. In some cases, companies also participate in the negotiations. Once the organisations reach an agreement, the collective agreement applies to all work in the sector in question.

A collective agreement specifies things such as the following:

minimum wage, meaning the minimum amount that employees must be paid
general pay increases
working hours
holiday
pay during sick leave.

The additional information is not available in plain English.

Which collective agreements does Tehy negotiate?

Tehy negotiates the following collective agreements. For more information, click on the name of the agreement. The additional information is in Finnish and not available in plain English.

SOTE agreement: general collective agreement for the health and social services sector; applied in the wellbeing services counties, for example.
KVTES: general collective agreement for the municipal sector; applied to the work of childcarers in early childhood education and care, for example.
HYVTES: general collective agreement for the welfare sector; one of the agreements applied in the wellbeing services counties and joint authorities for health and wellbeing.
Other collective agreements for the public sector: agreements applied to the employment relationships of Finland’s central government, universities, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, and the Åland Islands.
Collective agreements for the private sector: collective agreements applied to the employment relationships of private service providers, meaning businesses.

If you do not know which collective agreement applies to your workplace, check your employment contract or ask the union representative at your workplace. An employment contract must always specify the collective agreement that applies to the workplace.

You can also ask Tehy if you have any questions about collective agreements. On the Tehy website, you can find information on the different collective agreements and negotiations related to them.

Watch the video to find out what a collective agreement is

More information on collective agreements

Tehy negotiates collective agreements for certain sectors. Additionally, Tehy oversees that workplaces comply with the agreements.

There are union representatives present at workplaces. They monitor workplaces to make sure that they operate according to the rules of the collective agreement. A union representative can help you if you have any questions or a problem at work. If a union representative needs help or more information, Tehy’s experts can help them.

You can also contact Tehy directly.

If a workplace does not comply with the collective agreement, Tehy will intervene. A union representative can negotiate with the employer. If that does not help, the union representative can ask Tehy for help. Tehy helps union representatives and can also offer legal aid to Tehy members. The page is not available in plain English.

There are two types of collective agreements. An agreement can be either normally binding or generally applicable.

A normally binding collective agreement applies to employers who have signed the agreement themselves or who belong to an employers’ organisation that has signed the agreement. Most Finnish employers are organised. This means that they belong to an employers’ organisation and therefore comply with the collective agreement for the sector in question.

A generally applicable collective agreement requires employers in the sector in question to comply with the collective agreement, even if the employer is not a member of an employers’ organisation.

A collective agreement sets out the basic terms and conditions of employment for the sector. For example, the employer and employee can agree that the employee’s pay will be higher than the minimum wage specified in the collective agreement.

Collective agreements are national, meaning that they apply to all workplaces in the sector in question in Finland. Some collective agreements state that employers and local branches formed by employees or union representatives can also draw up their own local agreements through local collective bargaining. These local agreements deviate from the provisions of the general collective agreement for the sector.

A local agreement only applies to a specific workplace. In many cases, a local agreement concerns working hours or pay.

Why are collective agreements important?

The collective agreements for each sector specify the minimum amount that employees must be paid in the sector in question. The agreement also sets out other minimum terms and conditions for the sector. These include working hours and how many days of holiday employees get, for example.

Finnish law does not specify how much employees should be paid in Finland.

If there were no collective agreements, each employee would have to negotiate these basic terms themselves. It is difficult for individual employees to negotiate an agreement that would be as good as a union of employees is able to negotiate. This is why trade unions and collective agreements are important.

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