Concensus reached to settle pensions dispute

17.03.2009 00:00

On March 11, the government and labour market organisations reached an agreement in their dispute over the retirement age. A list of measures was agreed on, including setting up working groups to prepare guidelines on earnings-related pension schemes.

The Finnish government took the unions and citizens by surprise in February by announcing its unilateral decision on raising the general minimum retirement age from 63 to 65 years. This decision was unprecedented on the Finnish labour market, where the tradition has been to negotiate issues related to employment conditions, social benefits and legislation in tripartite collaboration. Until now, both sides of the industry and the Finnish government have been involved in agreeing issues that affect the lives of employees.

All trade union confederations were strongly against the govenrment’s unilateral decision. Consequently, the Confederation of Unions for Professional and Managerial Staff in Finland Akava, Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions SAK and the Finnish Confederation of Professionals STTK joined forces to make the government take back its decision and to return to the negotiation table. Also the Confederation of Finnish Industries EK opposed to the govenrment’s decision and criticized the Government’s for its action in this issue.

Akava described the decision to raise the minimum retirement age as “unwise and hasty”, even if it agreed on the need of extending working careers in Finland. Akava and other labour market organisations stressed that incentives should be used rather than compulsion to increase the average number of years at work, and measures should be taken to promote well-being at work and to get young people into the labour force earlier.

Overall, there was broad consensus on the objective of extending working careers among Finnish labour market representatives who would not accept the fact that they were left out of the decision making process affecting one of the crucial earnings-related social benefits. Along the union members, the general public gave its support in an online petition against the govenrment’s decision that collected a record-breaking number of supporters: more than 170 000 people signed the online petition in eight days.

After the fierce opposition and lively discussion in the media, talks were resumed to find other ways of extending the average working career. The government returned to negotiate the dispute with labour market representatives, starting the discussions from a clean slate.

On March 11, the government and labour market organisations reached an agreement in their dispute over the retirement age. A list of measures was agreed on, including setting up working groups to prepare guidelines on earnings-related pension schemes. Moreover, the agreement states that all issues related to earnings-related pensions will be considered in tripartite cooperation.

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