Labor market A new collective agreement was created for the chemical industry, a two per cent increase in wages

For the chemical industry a new two-year collective agreement has emerged that will raise workers ’wages by two per cent this year. The latter year is the so-called option year.

The collective agreement is valid from 18 January 2022 to 31 December 2023, unless otherwise agreed.

If no solution is found for the second year’s salary increase by the end of September 2022, the contract will expire on 31 December 2022.

General increase the share is 1.6 per cent, and 0.4 per cent is distributed locally, ie in companies.

The parties, ie the Confederation of Finnish Industry, representing the employees, and the Chemical Industry, representing the employers, announced the content of the agreement on Friday, after the administrations of both had approved the result of the negotiations, which had already taken place at the beginning of the week.

The plastics industry is also included in the agreement.

The board of the Confederation of Finnish Industry met on Wednesday and the Chemical Industry on Friday morning.

“Are very pleased that agreements were reached. However, the level of wage increases rose far too high in this round. The level does not take into account at all the fact that in the interest rate years 2020–2021, wages in Finland rose more than the EU average, nor that many companies have just risen from the interest rate gap to the level of 2019, ”says the director of the Finnish Chemical Industry Association. Minna Etu-Seppälä.

According to Etu-Seppälä, cost competitiveness was weakened by this solution, and the parties must bear their responsibility for this in the future.

“Are The Confederation of Finnish Industry is satisfied with the solution reached. The overall increase for all employees is now of exceptional importance and is in line with our targets. The agreements will also be renewed to the satisfaction of both parties. In fact, some of the agreed reforms were found to be almost identical in the parties’ negotiating proposals, ”says the Confederation of Finland’s Chemical Sector Director. Toni Laiho.

The agreement now covers the basic chemical industry, the plastics products industry and the chemical products industry, as well as the oil, gas and petrochemical industries.

These contracts cover a total of about 13,000 employees.

Chemical industry is a more important sector of the export industry in terms of staff, for which an alternative so – called main opener was also envisaged in this round of negotiations.

The reason was that in the technology industry, negotiations stalled late last year.

However, a collective agreement was concluded for the technology industry under the leadership of the National Mediator at the beginning of January. It affects about 90,000 employees.

According to agreement the wages of employees will be increased by 2% this year, of which the general increase will be 1.5% and the local increase, ie the share distributed in companies, will be 0.5%.

In industry wage increases now appear to be around 2 percent for employees. The percentages for white-collar and senior white-collar workers have been 1.8–1.9.

In the public sector, wage earners’ organizations do not very much accept that agreements in the export industry are any “Finnish model” or at least a cap on wage increases in other sectors.

In addition, multi-annual pay programs with additional pay rise percentages have long been demanded by employee organizations for teachers and caregivers, for example.

The programs aim to close the wage gap when there is little public slippage in the public sector in Poland.

Collective bargaining in the municipal sector started last week. They concern the working conditions of some 425,000 employees. The current agreements expire at the end of February.