Only one in three OECD employees has a salary that has been agreed by collective agreements. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, with its 36 members, has become a strong advocate for collective bargaining to ensure that falling unemployment also leads to higher wages. [17] Collective bargaining is a bargaining process between employers and a group of workers for agreements regulating working wages, working conditions, benefits and other aspects of workers` compensation and workers` rights. The interests of workers are usually represented by representatives of a trade union to which the workers belong. Collective agreements entered into as part of these negotiations generally set out salary scales, hours of work, training, health and safety, overtime, complaint resolution mechanisms and the right to participate in labour or company affairs. [1] Collective agreements are generally applicable in Finland. This means that a collective agreement in an industry becomes a universally applicable legal minimum for the employment contract of each individual, whether a member of a union or not. For this condition to apply, half of the workers in this sector must be unionized and therefore support the agreement. It is important to note that once a CBA is concluded, the employer and the union are required not to adhere to this agreement. Therefore, an employer should hire a lawyer before participating in the collective bargaining process. In addition, there are usually binding collective agreements.

These extended agreements also bind non-unionized employers and the workers who work for them. The element of good faith is an important aspect of collective bargaining processes. Good faith negotiations aim to reach mutually acceptable collective agreements. If no agreement is reached, dispute resolution procedures ranging from conciliation to mediation to arbitration can be used. In Sweden, the coverage of collective agreements is very high, although there is no legal mechanism to extend agreements to entire industries. In 2018, 83% of all private sector employees were covered by collective agreements, 100% of public sector employees and a total of 90% (across the labour market). [10] This reflects the predominance of self-regulation (regulation by the labour market parties themselves) over state regulation in Swedish industrial relations. [11] Collective agreements are negotiated between a registered union and an employer […].