Collective agreement negotiations in the energy sector interrupted – employers have refused to agree on minimum wages
Collective agreement negotiations of the energy sector were interrupted on Thursday 10 April. The employee party wanted to get an agreement on minimum wages to secure the terms and conditions of employment especially for posted workers, but the employer party showed no interest in fixing a situation that can distort competition.
Interruption of the collective agreement negotiations means that the obligation of industrial peace has ended and industrial action is possible.
The Trade Union for the Public and Welfare Sectors JHL and the Finnish Electrical Workers´ Union, who negotiate on the collective agreement on behalf of the employees, decided that it did not make sense to continue negotiating because the employers' associations Finnish Energy and Service Sector Employers Palta claimed that there is no need to specify a minimum wage level for the sector.
– In the Finnish labour market field, it is unheard of and shocking that some employers try to make agreements that go below the wage scales and that employers’ associations help in it. This is not how things used to be done. In the past, employer and employee organisations have sought to develop pay systems of the sector together. Unfortunately, this has now changed in employers’ associations. We cannot accept wage dumping, says Bargaining Specialist Kari Lehtinen, who is in charge of the negotiations at JHL.
– We have repeatedly reminded the employers that we do not have a statutory minimum wage because the minimum wage is determined in generally applicable collective agreements. The application of the European Posted Workers Directive in Finland is also based on the assumption that a generally applicable collective agreement protects the workers by specifying a minimum wage, explains Chief Negotiator at the Finnish Electrical Workers´ Union Jari Ollila.
Minimum wage has become a topical issue because the Finnish Government has amended the law so that local bargaining is possible also for non-unionized employers and foreign companies that post workers to Finland. They can quite legally agree locally on wages that are below the collective agreement pay schedules, and no one can monitor what kind of agreements are made.
The employee side has demanded in the collective agreement negotiations rules and limits to local bargaining.
– The employer side has simply not cared about it that local bargaining without unions allows some companies to improve their competitiveness by weakening terms and conditions of employment. One would think that it is also in the best interest of the member companies of Finnish Energy and Service Sector Employers Palta that competition is only based on competence, Ollila continues.
The collective agreement for the energy sector has expired on 31 March. The parties started negotiating on a new collective agreement on 24 February.
More information:
Kari Lehtinen, Bargaining Specialist at JHL, tel. 050 566 1567, kari.lehtinen@jhl.fi
Jari Ollila, Chief Negotiator at the Finnish Electrical Workers´ Union, tel. 050 60 302, jari.ollila@sahkoliitto.fi
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