Business organizations praise the reform. Trade unions, on the other hand, fear that the changes in the law would erode companies' incentives to belong to employer unions.
The government the project to increase local bargaining in the labor market is progressing. The new laws are expected to enter into force at the beginning of next year.
The proposal changes several working life laws that regulate at what level and who can agree on the rules of the game in the workplace.
The Ministry of Labor and Economic Affairs presented the main points of the reform on Thursday. The actual report will be completed at the end of February. Helsingin sanomat newspaper already told last week about the reform and its effects.
The government in the proposal, the possibilities for agreement are expanded in such a way that, in the future, deviating from certain working life laws would also be possible in company-specific collective agreements and in unorganized companies, i.e. companies that do not belong to an employer's union.
So far, the opportunity has only been available to organized companies that follow national collective agreements, i.e. companies belonging to the employer's union.
If the collective agreement requires a shop steward to be a party to local bargaining, the absence of a shop steward currently prevents the conclusion of a local agreement.
In the future, the parties to the collective agreement could determine an alternative procedure in such situations. In the last place, a local agreement could be made together with the trust representative or the personnel covered by the collective agreement.
The government program envisaged that the employer could also enter into a local agreement “with a representative chosen by other personnel”. This ultimately did not materialize.
The changes affect private sector employees as well as some government employees.
“In the state, the changes mainly concern individual agencies, for example the Service Security Center”, a board advisor Jan Hjelt told reporters.
Presentation has been prepared in a tripartite working group, whose report is expected to contain differing opinions. On Thursday, business organizations praised the reform and trade unions criticized it.
“The legal reforms give both wage earners and companies the opportunity for excellent local bargaining”, says an expert from the Finnish Confederation of Business and Industry (EK) Summer Lahti-Leeve in the organization's bulletin.
Suomen Yrittäjät thought the reform was good, but also found room for improvement.
“Unfortunately, the reform does not include the right to agree otherwise, which Yrittäjät has been demanding for a long time. At the time, no consensus was reached in Säätytalo's board negotiations”, the labor market director Janne Makkula commented in the organization's press release.
Otherwise, the right to agree would mean that workplaces would have the opportunity to deviate from collective agreements, if agreed together.
Trade unions according to them, their views were not heard much in the preparation.
“Local agreements must be based on a balance of rights and obligations. Now, rights are only being increased for unorganized employers. The changes weaken the incentives for companies to organize, which can contribute to the erosion of the general obligation system”, a lawyer from the central staff organization STTK Sanna Rantala criticized in the announcement.
Akava's labor market director Ville Kopran in my opinion, the key problem is supervision.
“Somebody should take responsibility for ensuring that local agreements in the unorganized sector stay within the boundaries of collective agreements. The companies do not have this responsibility, and the authorities have not been consulted at all during the preparation,” he says in the press release.
According to SAK, the central organization of Finnish trade unions, the employee organizations proposed in the working group that the position of shop steward should be recognized by law also in unorganized companies, if the shop steward is elected there. This did not suit the employers.
According to SAK, the matter was wanted to be left unclear in the legislation, so that entrepreneurs can continue to dispute the status and rights of the shop steward.
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