132 local agreements have been submitted to the authority

In 2025, a total of 132 local agreements from different sectors were submitted to the occupational safety and health authority. The most common areas of bargaining have been flexible working hours and salary payment dates.

In the spring, agreements were made especially in the industrial sectors, where, among other things, the accrual of general pay increases and transfers of public holidays were agreed. After the summer, the focus shifted to the retail sector, where the agreements concerned, for example, the introduction of an unpaid lunch break and the self-reporting practice of sick leaves. 

Local agreements have included the following:

• The amount and calculation base for compensations in accordance with the collective agreement: for example, night work compensation, bodily waste bonus and on call compensation.
• Working time bank: for example, it has been agreed that the holiday bonus can be traded for time and saved in the working time bank or that regular working hours can also be saved in the bank. 
• Length of the shift or daily rest: the average regular working hours have usually been the basis, and it has been agreed that the shift may be over 12 hours or daily rest 9 hours, for example. Normally, the shift would be 8 hours, and the daily rest period would be at least 11 hours. 
• In the industrial sector, the transfer of public holidays to the weekend, for example, the holidays of Ascension Day and May Day were held on Friday. 

Only certain agreements must be submitted to the OSH authority

Approximately one out of five agreements submitted should not have been submitted to the occupational safety and health authority. A local agreement must be submitted to the authority if:

• the employer is not a member of an employers’ association 
• the agreement is based on a collective agreement that the employer complies with on the basis of its general applicability
• and the agreement has been concluded in a collective manner, not just with an individual employee. 

“In other words, the employer must identify whether they are applying the collective agreement on the basis of general applicability or because they belong to an employers’ association. There is also no delivery obligation if the local agreement is directly based on law,” advises Legal Counsel Aki Eriksson from the Occupational Safety and Health Division of the Regional State Administrative Agency for Southwestern Finland. 

In some cases, employers have not noticed that the collective agreement is no longer generally applicable. The information can be checked at the Finlex.fi website on the Collective Agreements page. 

“If you are not sure about the delivery obligation, you should visit the Local Agreements page at the Tyosuojelu.fi website or call the occupational safety and health authority’s telephone service,” says Eriksson. 

If still unsure, Eriksson encourages submitting the agreement just in case, as failure to do so may result in a negligence fee. The minimum negligence fee is EUR 1,000 and the maximum is EUR 10,000.