Nordic model

The Finnish government challenges the Nordic model of collective bargaining

Yesterday the Finnish right wing government put forward a new labour market proposal in the form of a new mandatory legislation proposal, which will be applied at the end of the current collective bargaining agreements, which ends in 2017. This proposal will remove or reduce certain benefits and rights of Finnish workers and simultaneously limit the social partner’s freedom to make collective agreements.

This interference is done in the name of increasing competitiveness of the Finnish economy and come after talks tripartite discussions on a social contract to boost the Finnish economy broke down. However, the proposed labour market reforms are a serious interference and violation of constitutional and international rights which protect the social partner’s freedom to negotiate. Collective bargaining between independent social partners is the fundamental of the Nordic model. The behaviour of the Finnish government challenges the future of collective bargaining’s and tripartite cooperation in Finland.

The measures that the Finnish government has introduced are supposed to raise employment rates and increase productivity by 5% and includes the following measures that diminished workers benefits covered by collective agreements:

•    Two paid public holidays will be changed into unpaid public holidays
•    The benefit level for sick days will be reduced so that the first day of sickness in the future will be unpaid and during day 2-9 workers will be paid 80% of their wages.
•    Overtime pay will be lowered from 100% to 50% and overtime payment for work on Sundays is lowered from 100% to 75%.
•    Summer vacation of public employees will be reduced from 38 to 30 days.

The Finnish trade unions will challenge these reforms as they are an attack on workers’ rights and will have negative consequences for the whole society. These reforms seem to meet employer’s wishes for lower labour costs. These reforms will particularly hurt low paid workers and women, especially those who work shifts and those who work weekends and evenings, for examples hotel and restaurant workers.
The government also proposes reforms which are supposed to strengthen the right and assistance of those who made redundant and unemployed workers.