Unions accuse employers of "collective agreement shopping"

(Helsinki 11.02.2008 – Juhani Artto) In the last few years “collective agreement shopping” has become more common in the Finnish labour market. In the trade union dialect, collective agreement shopping means that employers remove employees from the collective agreement they started out under to one which from the employees’ point of view, is much less to their taste.

This accusation was recently levelled at employers by the Trade Union for Public and Welfare Sectors JHL and three other unions at their common press meeting. According to these groups both public and private employers have used this unfair practise.

There are dozens of these “shopping” cases, in various parts of Finland. Internationally known companies, such as ISS, Sodexho, Nordea and Itella, were mentioned as some of these “shoppers”. Among those involved in the unfair practise are employers, for example, from the financial sector, catering, municipal sector, construction industry, cleaning services, hospitals and postal services.

Victims of the new kind of “shopping” are to be found at various levels of work organisations, from the low pay jobs to senior salaried employees, the four unions explain.

In most cases, forcing employees into less favourable collective agreement situations have occurred in connection with outsourcing. There are employees who have lost hundreds of euros per month and part of their vacation rights as a result of their employers’ collective agreement shopping.

According to Rune Takamaa, a JHL union official, this “collective agreement shopping” manoeuvre is like a domestic version of jobs being removed to China and other low pay countries.

In the public sector, politicians should take responsibility and halt the new unfair practise, leaders of the four unions urged.