Helsinki (07.07.2009 - Juhani Artto) In Finland there is no minimum wage legislation. Instead, in most sectors of working life, national collective agreements determine what the lowest level of wages should be.
Recently, Yle News (published by the Finnish Broadcasting Company) said that the union confederation SAK and its affiliated unions will strive to raise, in the next round of collective bargaining, all minimum wage levels to at least EUR 1,500 per month. This new demand concerns all those working regular working hours as full-time employees.
Realisation of the demand would not radically change wages and salaries but, still, it would mean for tens or hundreds of thousands of employees a clear improvement in their standard of living. In certain types of job the approximately EUR 8 per hour minimum wage makes for, in terms of full-time employment, a monthly income of only about EUR 1,300.
And those kinds of wages can be found both in the service sector and in industry, and in both public and private sectors. Thus realisation of the EUR1,500 minimum would raise monthly wages by about EUR 200 per month in several job categories.
"For people in temporary jobs it is difficult to get pay rises. Therefore, the pay level has to be dealt with during collective bargaining, the goal being not to leave anybody below the level of a living wage", SAK leader Lauri Lyly argued in the Yle News interview.
According to Lyly, it will be the first time that Finns address the question of minimum pay through minimum pay definitions in the collective agreements.
Read more:
Minimums defined by collective agreements: For many low paid jobs that means around 8EUR per hour (04.05.2007)