Collective agreements
Collective agreements are not the same as employment contracts. A collective agreement (in Finnish “työehtosopimus”, often abbreviated in Finnish as “TES”) is an agreement on the terms and conditions of employment in the sector. The federation of employers and the trade union of employees negotiate this with each other.
Various sectors (e.g., hospitality and food service, cleaning, and construction) have their own collective agreements. They specify the general conditions of employment in the sector, that is, the rules according to which work can be performed and commissioned. The collective agreement stipulates, for example, the minimum wage to be paid to employees and the working hours in the sector in question. The collective labour agreement is concluded for a fixed term, usually 1–3 years.
The public sector – the state, wellbeing services counties, municipalities and parishes – also employs civil servants, whose salaries and other conditions of the employment relationship are agreed in collective agreements for public sector employees.
The terms of employment specified in an employment contract must be at least as favourable to an employee as those in the applicable collective agreement for either public or private sector employees. An employment contract may also provide terms of employment that are more favourable than those in the applicable collective agreement.
When you start at a new workplace, ask which collective labour agreement applies there. You can get the collective agreement for your own sector from your workplace, the trade union of your sector or Finlex’s online service.
You can also search for the collective agreement for your sector through the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions’ (SAK) online service (in Finnish, Swedish and English): start by clicking on the trade union’s introductory page for your sector (Get to know the union). At the bottom of the page, you will find a link to the collective agreements negotiated by the trade union.