New collective agreement for the commerce sector accepted

On Wednesday PAM’s Agreement Sector Commissions for Commerce recommended and PAM’s board approved the collective agreement for the commerce sector. According to the collective agreement, wages, working hour bonuses and shop stewards’ compensation are raised by 2 percent as of 1 May 2022. The pay increases for the second year shall be negotiated before 15 December 2022, and if an agreement cannot be reached the collective agreement can be terminated. The collective agreement period is from 1 February 2022 to 31 January 2024. 

“The pay increase is at the level of the highest increases agreed in other sectors thus far. I consider the result reasonable and am pleased that we could come to an agreement”, PAM president Annika Rönni-Sällinen says.  

She contends, that the employer coordination is increasing year by year. 

“Working hour bonuses haven’t been raised in many years, so now a part of the raise clearly goes to those who work difficult hours”, says Rönni-Sällinen. 

During the corona pandemic, the workers in the commerce sector have been under a lot of stress. Problems with coping have been raised in several surveys.  

“We wanted to find solutions that would guarantee workers the possibility to recover from work”. 

In the new collective agreement, among other things, the minimum length of daily rest has been prolonged, single days off between night shifts have been banned and the minimum number of double day leaves has been increased. 

To better the income of part time workers, PAM and Finnish Commerce Federation have agreed to a model for offering full time work and on additional instructions on how to do reviews of working hours. 

The negotiating parties have accepted the collective agreement for the commerce sector, the collective agreement for supervisors in retail, the collective agreement for warehouse and logistics supervisors, as well as the protocol for commerce sector ICT officers, and the protocol for Hankkija’s salespersonnel.