Positive Labour Court decision for PAM: Maximum trial period for workers employed on a permanent contract in the facilities services sector may be no longer than four months

The Collective Labour Agreement for the Facilities Services Sector includes a provision concerning the trial period. The currently effective Collective Agreement for the Facilities Services Sector states that the trial period of a worker employed on an indefinite employment contract ‘shall not exceed four months, unless otherwise provided by the Employment Contracts Act’.

The employer organisation Real Estate Employers and Service Union United PAM disagreed on how to interpret the Collective Agreement when determining the duration of the trial period.

According to the interpretation of Real Estate Employers, the Collective Agreement clause and its references to the Employment Contracts Act meant that the duration of the trial period in indefinite employment relationships is determined in accordance with the Employment Contracts Act in force at any given time.

– This interpretation would have meant that employees in the sector would have been subject to longer trial periods. PAM disagreed with the employer organisation’s stand, explains Jaana Ylitalo, PAM’s Collective Bargaining Director, and goes on to state:

– In our opinion, the maximum trial period of four months specified in the 2006 Collective Agreement cannot be diluted during the validity of the Collective Agreement in a situation where a new provision to extend the trial period is included in the Employment Contracts Act.

The duration of the trial period is six months in the Employment Contracts Act currently in force and it may be extended if an employee is on family leave or unable to work. Real Estate Employers interpreted this to mean that the duration of the trial period in any new employment contracts to be signed in the sector would have to be determined in accordance with the Employment Contracts Act. In other words, this would have lengthened the trial period of people hired for the sector.

– In our opinion, the employer organisation’s interpretation of the issue undermined employees’ rights and was in contravention of the effective Collective Agreement. We could not agree to that. This is why the dispute was resolved by the Labour Court. We are satisfied with the Court’s decision, Ylitalo says.

The consideration of the dispute concerning interpretation of the Collective Agreement started in September and the Labour Court issued a judgement on Thursday, 12 October 2017.In its judgement, the Labour Court stated that if a collective agreement refers to a specified provision of the law or a limited subject area, it is not self-evident that a legislative amendment, for example, would affect the content of the collective agreement during its period of validity.

Item first published in Finnish on 12 October 2017