PAM survey: Majority of working-age population are in favour of local agreement if negotiations are genuine

According to the PAM survey, carried out by TNS Gallup, the majority of the working-age population in Finland have nothing against local agreement if it can be ensured that the parties can genuinely negotiate employment terms without either party being able to dictate them. This was the view of almost 80 per cent of respondents.

However, the respondents consider that employers are in a better position to influence local agreement than employees are. Around 60 per cent of respondents consider that employers are better placed than employees to influence the final outcome. 22 per cent think that the parties have equal leverage and just 8 per cent think that employees have more leverage.

The survey indicates that the importance of local agreement is not very well known. 35 per cent consider that their understanding of what local agreement is all about is fairly poor or very poor, or don’t know what their level of understanding is. 

“This is just the point. People feel they are uncertain about what local agreement really is. Moreover, there are justified suspicions around local agreement”, says PAM’s collective agreement manager Ismo Kokko .

Over half of respondents (53%) think that a trade union shop steward  or trade union representative with training in negotiations should represent employees when employment terms are negotiated locally at the workplace. 18% would opt for a different employees’ representative, and 15% are in favour of each employee negotiating themselves.

Respondents want trade unions to agree matters on behalf employees also when these are agreed locally. This is the preference of 60% of respondents.

However, respondents don’t really think that local agreement will bring any improvement to their position in the labour market or working life in general. Among managers and entrepreneurs, over half think their position will improve, but among wage-earners, the unemployed and students more think their position will deteriorate rather than improve.

However, over half think that in the near future local agreement will become the most common way to agree employment terms between employees and employers.

The survey was conducted in November 2020 by Gallup Forum, an internet-based panel of respondents provided by TNS Gallup Oy. The target group of the survey was people of working-age (ages 18-65). 1126 individuals were interviewed for the survey. The statistical margin of error is ¬+/- 2.9 percentage points.