The company-specific collective agreement at Tampere-based Gofore is alive and well. TEK Magazine last wrote about the agreement in 2022, after it had been signed and the first few months under the agreement had passed.
Now, TEK Magazine went back to see how the agreement is doing. According to Gofore’s Chief Shop Steward Staffan Österholm, employees are still extremely happy with the company-specific collective agreement. Other companies have also expressed their interest in the agreement, which has gained followers in the labour market.
“While negotiating the company-specific collective agreement was a laborious task, the annual revisions have been quite effortless to make,” says Österholm.
“We may need to put in even less effort in the future, as the agreement and the salary settlement it contains are now valid indefinitely, whereas before, revisions would be negotiated once a year. Revisions can be suggested by both the employer and the employees whenever the need arises.”
Salary settlement has worked well
Gofore is an expert company in digital services. It has around 1,200 employees covered by the collective agreement. The company-specific collective agreement was first negotiated in 2021 and came into force at the beginning of 2022. Since then, it has been updated annually. Gofore previously complied with the national collective agreement for the IT service sector.
A special feature of the agreement is the salary settlement, which is tied to the company’s growth and profitability.
Salaries are increased four times a year on the basis of quarterly performance.
“But if the company made a loss in a particular quarter, salaries would not be cut,” says Chief Shop Steward Österholm.
“And I must say that the raises under this company-specific collective agreement have, at least so far, been better than what the general agreement for the IT service sector would have provided.”
When the collective agreement was last updated, the parties discussed a proposal from the employee side to change the way time spent caring for a sick child is calculated.
Previously, the agreement stipulated that employees could take care of a child for four days without loss of pay. This section of the agreement has now been amended to allow part-time home care of a sick child for a total of 30 hours over seven consecutive calendar days.
“This was a necessary change, because caring for a child does not necessarily require a full day, but care may be needed for more than four days,” explains Österholm.
Gofore’s company-specific collective agreement includes many social benefits that exceed the level provided in the general agreement for the sector.
For example, a birthing parent is paid salary for a total of 40 weekdays of pregnancy leave. In addition, both the birthing and the non-birthing parent are paid salary for 36 weekdays of parental leave, or about 6 weeks.
“Employees are entitled to take up to two days off with full pay to take care of a sick family member or relative, such as their spouse or parent. This kind of benefit does not exist in the general collective agreement for the sector.”
When drawing up the company-specific collective agreement, legislation occasionally threw a spanner in the works. The company would have liked to formulate provisions that the law does not allow.
“An example of this is counting Saturdays as holiday days,” says Österholm.
“We would have liked to do away with the idea that Saturdays count as holiday days so that only the days from Monday to Friday would be holiday days. This was not possible in the way we wanted because of the current legislation. Similarly, we were unable to formulate the provisions on flexitime the way we wanted due to working hours legislation.”
Differentiating factor in the labour market
Like Staffan Österholm, Laura Tero, Head of HR at Gofore, praises the benefits of the company-specific collective agreement. Tero believes that the agreement “looks just like us” and is “a differentiating factor”.
“Negotiating the first collective agreement and the annual revisions have both gone very well, with no need to wrestle over things. Everyone here understands that both the employee and the employer side are playing on the same team.”
“I would even go so far as to say that we have built a culture of mutual trust, and that is a great asset when formulating the provisions of the collective agreement.”
Several other companies in the IT sector have also introduced company-specific collective agreements.
“We’re not jealous of ours,” says Tero with a laugh.
“It’s a good thing that other companies have followed suit.”
The overtime and additional work provisions of the agreement have very rarely been applied. Projects are planned in such a way that overtime is generally not required.
According to Gofore’s collective agreement, trainees are paid at least 85% of the minimum salary associated with the task in question and inexperienced summer interns 75%. However, according to Laura Tero, this has not translated into an increase in the number of applicants. Then again, there has been no shortage of trainees and summer interns either.
Tero believes that the commitment of Gofore’s employees to the company is illustrated by the fact that around 60% of them own shares in the company. The company has its own employee share savings plan, where employees can acquire and hold shares in the company.
“Not a silver bullet”
The majority of the parties taking part in the negotiation of company-specific collective agreements are satisfied with the outcome of the negotiations and the atmosphere in the IT service sector and forest industry. This was revealed by an analysis conducted by the Industial Employees TP entitled Yrityskohtaiset työehtosopimukset. Selvitys neuvotteluista metsäteollisuudessa ja tietoalalla (“Company-specific collective agreements. Report on negotiations in the forest industry and IT service sector”).
The report examined the views of employees’ and employers’ representatives involved in the negotiations on the negotiation process and the outcome of the agreements.
Negotiators in the IT service sector were particularly satisfied. Of them, 39% were very satisfied and 51% fairly satisfied.
Labour Market Director Teemu Hankamäki at the Academic Engineers and Architects in Finland TEK has some reservations about the results.
“It obviously bodes well if you have a positive feeling about the agreement drafting process and the final outcome. However, I believe that only time will truly tell how successful the agreement, its terms and conditions and its application will be,” says Hankamäki.
“IT service companies have thrived in the past, but now, in the face of a recession, there are signs in the air that a company-specific collective agreement may not be a shortcut to happiness for employees. Salary increases and textual terms seem to be more flexible in company-specific agreements than in national agreements.”
Nearly one in four have had disputes over interpretation
Respondents working in companies were also asked whether any disputes over interpretation had emerged between the negotiating parties concerning the content of the agreements after they had been concluded. According to 45% of respondents, this had hardly ever happened, but 23% said that there had been disputes over interpretation after the agreement had been concluded.
Shop stewards reported experiencing these more often, 31%, than employers’ representatives, 14%.
In their open answers, negotiators stated that the disputes had been about pay and remuneration, and holidays and absences. In 68% of the cases, the disputes over interpretation had been resolved locally. In 22% of the cases, the dispute had been settled between the union and the employer. In 15% of the cases, the dispute had remained unresolved.
According to Teemu Hankamäki, no more disputes concerning the application of agreements have been referred from companies to the union than those concerning the application of national collective agreements.
“In any case, we only have experience of the IT service sector, since there are no agreements for senior salaried employees in the forest industry. But I do know that negotiating salary increases for this year has been extremely challenging at company level,” says Hankamäki.
“Employers have proposed salary settlements where the overall level has not been very high, and the so-called general raise has been quite moderate. During the negotiations, the shop steward may also be at a loss if they have to decide between a small pay hike or a change negotiation.”
Pressure for local deteriorations
The report found that 21% of shop stewards had experienced pressure during the collective agreement negotiations at their workplace.
In their open answers, they said that the aim of the pressure was to try to conclude an agreement as proposed by the employer without negotiation or to reach an agreement before the union got involved in the negotiations.
Of the shop stewards, 36% reported that the employer had tried to bring about deteriorations in the terms of employment through negotiations. In the open answers, the most common areas where deterioration attempts were reported were working hours, mid-week holidays and salary.
Teemu Hankamäki believes that company-specific agreements can, at best, work well for TEK members.
“But it appears that company-specific agreements are not a silver bullet, despite what employers, in particular, suggest. For small companies, having their own agreement is ultimately a cumbersome way of dealing with basic employment terms and pay. Larger companies have more resources and expertise. And the fact is that the terms and conditions of a national contract are more resilient when the world is in turmoil.”
Industrial Employees TP is a cooperation, research and lobbying organisation with 15 member unions, including the Academic Engineers and Architects in Finland TEK.
Henrik Muukkonen