A collective agreement is different from an employment contract

A collective labour agreement is an agreement on the conditions of employment of the sector. The federation of employers and the trade union of employees negotiate it with each other.

There are separate collective agreements in different sectors (such as the restaurant sector, the cleaning sector, the construction sector, etc.). They specify the general conditions of employment in the sector, that is, the rules according to which work can be carried out and commissioned. The collective agreement determines, for example, how much salary must at least be paid to an employee and what the working hours are in the sector in question. The collective labour agreement is concluded for a fixed term, usually for 1-3 years.

The public sector – the state, municipalities and parishes – also has regular employees in a service relationship, whose salaries and other conditions of the service relationship are agreed upon in collective bargaining agreements on civil servant salaries.

The conditions of employment entered into the employment contract must be at least as good from the employee’s point of view as the conditions of employment of collective agreements. Conditions of employment better than those of collective agreements can also be agreed upon in an employment contract.

When you start at a new workplace, ask which collective labour agreement is applied there. You can obtain a collective agreement from your workplace or the trade union of your sector or from Finlex’s online service.