Finland: last minute agreement for the banking sector

Following five months of negotiations, and sector-wide strike action set for the start of April (c.f. article No. 10611), employers and unions have finally accepted conciliator Minna Helle’s second proposal. Unions are more or less satisfied and have lifted their strike notice as well as the ban on overtime hours they initiated in December 2017. The new collective agreement will be backdated to take effect as of 01 January 2018.
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The first bone of contention had been over salary levels. At the outset of the negotiations employers had adopted the principle of according a very low, almost symbolic overall rise in pay with employee remuneration to be supplemented by a significant performance related component. In the end they agreed to raise overall pay by 1.26% from 01 March 2018 with a further 1% on 01 February 2019. To this will also be added an average 1.2% increase from 01 October 2018, the arrangements and details fo

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