No progress on Finnish framework

Unions and employers in Finland met last month to discuss the government’s proposed changes to the bargaining framework, which would result in the pay levels agreed in export sectors setting an effective ceiling for pay rises in other sectors. Unions are concerned that this would make it impossible to deal with low pay, which tends to be concentrated in non-export sectors, like social care, which also employ large number of women.

However, the parties, meeting on 16 January, failed to reach any agreement on the way forward. Jarkko Eloranta, chair of SAK, Finland’s largest union confederation, said that combined with the other changes the government was introducing, the plan to introduce legislation giving primacy to the export industries would “create more problems than solutions for the labour market”.