Echoing the position it adopted in 2007 the business leaders body for industry, EK, announced at the end of November that it was refusing to negotiate a new cross-industry framework agreement on salaries and working conditions because its members were calling for more responsibility including branch level and even company level negotiations. As a result the transport federation AKT of the main union confederation SAK blocked negotiations currently underway over government requested measures aimed at both reducing wage costs by 5% and decentralizing collective negotiations. Some observers see the current coalition government as running the risk of facing significantly more mobilization action than was seen in September 2015, something which is not at all common for Finland.
Many issues on the table. Under pressure from the government, Finland’s social partners have to renegotiate renewal of their collective agreements, set out an alternative to measures required by Prime Minister Juha Sipilä for reducing wage costs by 5%, and study a report putting forward a proposal to decentralize collective negotiations. Currently negotiations in Finland commence at national level between private sector business leaders bodies, the public sector, the church and the three union
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