Tekijä (19.08.2026 - Heikki Jokinen) Employers are once again out to cut Sunday and overtime allowances and reduce public mid-week holidays. The Industrial Union calculates that this could cut a worker's pay by up to 5,400 euros a year.
The Confederation of Finnish Industries EK published their platform for the April 2027 parliamentary elections. Employers demand more flexibility in workplaces. In plain language, this means converting the mid-week public holidays Epiphany and Ascension Day into normal working days.
Another demand is to cut the Sunday and overtime allowances guaranteed by law. Now, work on Sundays or national holidays means 100 per cent higher pay than normal. For overtime, the first two hours allows for a 50 per cent increase, and thereafter 100 per cent. The practical details can be defined in a collective agreement.
Employers want all this abolished. Instead, they propose Sunday and overtime allowances to be agreed on at the company level, bypassing existing law and collective agreements.
Law sends a message
Timo Nevaranta, Head of Public Relations at the Industrial Union, views the employers' proposals as alarming. The Working Time Act does not regulate Sunday or overtime allowances just for fun.
- It's about big money, not about any extra benefits for employees, Nevaranta says.
- The payment of overtime allowances, especially, has an occupational safety perspective, too. The legislator wants to tell employers that, in this country, work is fundamentally carried out to such degrees that it benefits the employee's health.
Nevaranta reminds us that, particularly in work careers lasting for decades, the harmful health effects of long working days and shift work become more apparent.
- The origin of these allowances lies not with the fact that we have a labour movement, but rather the christian-conservative tradition that Sundays are holidays. And Finland is not the only country in this respect, it is widespread across Europe.
Collective agreements cannot prevent the implementation of proposals to eliminate mid-week public holidays and allowance cuts. Nevaranta reminds us that the governments of PM Juha Sipilä and PM Petteri Orpo attempted to bypass collective agreements by law.
He believes the proposals will not gain broad support before the elections. This might change, depending on which parties are in the Government after the elections.
- Sometimes it feels like some parties' stance regarding the interests of workers is positive before the elections, but in between elections, it turns negative.