Collective bargaining goals for personal assistants are being discussed

Negotiations on the new collective agreement for personal assistants are making progress. JHL and the Union of the Employers of Personal Assistants in Finland told each other about their objectives for the negotiations on Tuesday 25 February.

Negotiations on the new collective agreement for personal assistants (Heta-tes) continued on Tuesday 25 February 2025. 

JHL and the Union of the Employers of Personal Assistants in Finland (Heta union) (link in Finnish) discussed their negotiation goals.  

Bargaining specialists Laura Tuominen and Pinja Lumitsalo are in charge of these negotiations at JHL. They tell that JHL seeks this spring solutions for pay rises and other key questions regarding the terms and conditions of employment in this sector. 

– JHL wants to promote a collective agreement solution that takes into account the versatile duties of personal assistants, part-time work and the challenges that it causes for making a living, as well as those challenges that the flexibility of working hours in the current collective agreement causes for employees, Tuominen sums up. 

One significant goal is to increase the appreciation for personal assistants’ work. 

Earlier this year, JHL conducted a member survey for all personal assistants. JHL uses the survey responses for evaluating and setting its negotiation goals. 

Fair terms for a diverse group of skilled employees 

Personal assistants are a diverse group of professionals. This sector is characterised by a high employee turnover.  

The statistics that the negotiating parties are using tell that in 2024 nearly one third of employment relationships lasted one year or longer, and about one quarter lasted less than a year.

The majority of personal assistants have an employment contract where working times vary, and zero-hour contracts are very common in this sector. Over 90% of employment relationships are part-time, and this is an important consideration.  

– Especially these people suffer from the cutbacks that Orpo’s government has made in unemployment security and housing allowance, as well as from the elimination of protected amounts in earnings-related unemployment security. Therefore, the challenges in making a living must be considered in the negotiations, too, Tuominen says. 

Help for part-time employees from the Court of Justice of the European Union? 

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled at the end of last summer that part-time employees are treated differently than full-time employees if they do not receive overtime compensation when their working hours exceed the hours specified in their employment contract.

In Finland, those hours that part-time employees work in addition to the hours in their employment contract are regarded as additional work in the Working Time Act. No overtime remuneration is paid for such additional work. Weekly working hours are usually considered additional work until they exceed 40 hours. This Finnish legislation conflicts with the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

– This is a significant ruling because 402,000 people worked part-time in Finland in 2023.

The Finnish working time legislation may have to be changed because of this ruling.

The next negotiation meeting between JHL and Heta union will be on Thursday 27 February. The plan for this meeting is to review some of the goals set by the parties. The parties will also plan themes for later negotiations of this spring.  

JHL represents all personal assistants

• Negotiations on a new collective agreement for personal assistants (Heta-tes) started on Thursday 6 February 2025. The current agreement period ends at the end of April. 
• Heta-tes is a normally applicable collective agreement that concerns the employer model for personal assistance. This means that it applies to the employment relationships of those personal assistants whose employer is a member of the Union of the Employers of Personal Assistants in Finland. The employer model is the most common model for producing personal assistance. More than 20,000 personal assistants work under the employer model.
• More and more personal assistance is also produced using service vouchers and purchased services. In that case, the applicable collective agreement is the agreement for the private social services sector. 
• JHL negotiates on and has people in all collective agreements that concern the various models for producing personal assistance. The number of personal assistants is estimated to be over 40,000. 

Your trade union JHL negotiates on a number of collective agreements in 2025. Follow the negotiations on our website.