The new commerce sector collective agreement approved

Terms and conditions for employment of employees and supervisors in the commerce sector were agreed for a two-year period. With the agreement, salaries are raised by 2.0 per cent on 1 April 2020 and by a further 1.3 per cent on 1 April 2021.

Increased working hours in accordance with the Competitiveness Pact will be relinquished by amending the annual leave system. From now on, employees will earn a maximum of 9 days off instead of the current 7. The Collective Agreement for the Commercial Sector includes plenty of flexibility that is important for commerce.

Both parties had the common goal of preserving the current annual leave system, which works well and where employees earn days off according to actual working hours. The system is considered fair, especially for the part-time employees in the commerce sector.

Part-time employees have the opportunity to participate in the new flexible full-time employment through local agreements and pilots. This allows part-time employees the opportunity to reach full monthly salary. In addition, as part of the flexible working hours, the employee agrees to take additional hours in addition to planned ones, even at a short notice.

The commerce sector is undergoing a vast change. The parties want to increase employees’ capabilities for facing challenges and to strengthen their competencies. According to the principle of on-going negotiations, decisions were made regarding several projects and workgroups to take into account the change in commerce. The workgroups will focus on different forms of work and use of workforce, among other things. In addition, actions to promote the operating conditions of shop stewards were agreed.

“Reaching an agreement was hard and accepting it was not easy either. Front-loading the pay increases and removing the Competitiveness Pact hours while preserving the annual leave system were essential to accepting the agreement. The end result is better than strikes,” says Annika Rönni-Sällinen, President of Service Union United PAM.

“The goal of the Finnish Commerce Federation was to get a collective agreement for the industry that would enable stores that operate in Finland to succeed and employ as well as possible. With the flexibility of the reached agreement, commerce will be better able to answer to the challenges posed by tightening competition, digitalisation and the transformation of work,” says Anna Lavikkala, Labour Market Director of the Finnish Commerce Federation.

Detailed contents of the agreement will be published on Monday 17 February.

Further information:

Labour Market Director Anna Lavikkala, Finnish Commerce Federation, tel. +358 (0)400 406 088

Annika Rönni-Sällinen, President, Service Union United PAM, tel. +358 (0)50 378 0270