New collective agreement for private social services sector approved

The private social services sector’s new collective agreement includes general and scale raises, one-time instalments and a local instalment. The strikes that were announced for Midsummer week have been cancelled.

The parties have approved the private social services sector’s new collective agreement. The agreement period is 32 months, from 1 May 2023 to 31 December 2025. 

At the same time, JHL is cancelling the strikes that were set to begin on 19 and 20 June in child protection, for personal assistants working under the private social services sector’s collective agreement, and in the care sector.

– This round of negotiations had mostly to do with pay, but we were also able to add good text specifications for, say, shift roster use and entries related to annual holiday, describes Senior Bargaining Specialist Tanja Tuunainen-Vainio.

– In addition to the existing working groups, a project was added in the agreement, the purpose of which is to find ways of decreasing the sectors’ pay gap during the upcoming agreement periods. A more exact description of the agreement can be read on JHL’s website. In addition, a report video will be published there soon, Tuunainen-Vainio explains (both in Finnish).

– This round of negotiations was long and challenging. This is illustrated by the fact that we had to take to an exceptional amount of industrial actions to promote the negotiations. We thank all our members for their participation in the industrial actions! That finally helped us reach an agreement, Bargaining Specialist Hanna Katajamäki states.

– An especially positive aspect of the solution is that there are very few elements the allocation of which would be agreed locally, and that all employees would then not be entitled to. During the agreement period, only one relatively small instalment will be allocated locally. Otherwise, raises will be allocated to a noticeably large group, for instance to approximately 89% of employees starting from pay group C. This means that for instance practical nurses will certainly get a scale raise of at least 12.7% + a one-time instalment of EUR 470 during the agreement period. And when a possible local instalment is added to that, the raise can be up to 14.7%, Katajamäki sums up.

Pay raises for three years

There will be a general and scale raise on 1 September 2023. In addition, the minimum salary scales will be increased in all six competence requirement groups. The minimum salary scales will be increased by 1.9% in all service increment steps within pay groups A-B, and 2.2% in pay groups C-F.  

Early childhood education and care employees will gbe paid a one-time instalment of EUR 470 in May 2024. In industries covered by the collective agreement (other than early childhood education and care), a one-time instalment of EUR 470 will be paid to employees in June 2024.

On 1 August 2024, there will be a general and scale raise of 2.4% At the same time, the minimum salary scales will be increased in all six competence requirement groups. The minimum salary scales will be increased by 1.6% in all service increment steps within pay groups A-B, and 1.8% in pay groups C-F.  

Early childhood education and care employees will be paid a one-time EUR 150 “retention instalment” in May 2025.

On 1 August 2025, there will be a genera and scale raise of 1.0%  The minimum salary scales will be increased in all six competence requirement groups. The minimum salary scales will be increased by 1% in all service increment steps within pay groups A-B, and 1.2% in pay groups C-F. In industries covered by the collective agreement (other than early childhood education and care), a local “attraction instalment for wellbeing services counties” of 0.7% will be allocated. 

Altogether, the cumulative impact of this pay raise solution under the agreement period of 2 years 8 months will be 13.52% in the social services sector and 13.17% in early childhood education and care.

Approximately 72,000 employees are covered by the scope of application. They work in, say, private day care centres, assisted living and nursing homes, housing services for persons with disabilities, mother-and-child homes, shelters, substance abuse centres, child protection, and as personal assistants.

Employees are represented in the agreement by the Trade Union for the Public and Welfare Sectors JHL, social welfare and health care sector’s negotiation organisation Sote ry and social services sector alliance Salli ry. Employers are represented by the Finnish Association of Private Care Providers.

More information: 

Senior Bargaining Specialist Tanja Tuunainen-Vainio, 050 463 2243 
Bargaining Specialist Hanna Katajamäki, 050 513 7701