Social welfare and health care professionals who have worked under AVAINTES move under new collective agreements
The AVAINTES collective agreement expires at the end of April. Private-sector social welfare and health care employees who were covered by AVAINTES will mostly move under either the collective agreement for the private social services sector or the collective agreement for the health services sector.
Do you work in the private social welfare and healthcare sector under the AVAINTES agreement? Your current collective agreement expires at the end of April. From the beginning of May, your new collective agreement is probably either the collective agreement for the private social services sector or the collective agreement for the health services sector, if you work in a social welfare or health care sector company that is not even partially publicly owned.
Your workplace may also move under some other collective agreement. If you are not sure, you can ask from your employer what collective agreement your workplace will follow from 1 May 2025.
A collective agreement (abbreviated as tes in Finnish) is an agreement on the terms and conditions of employment for your sector. For instance your pay and holidays are determined by the collective agreement. JHL negotiates your collective agreement with the employer party.
What you should know about the collective agreement change
We have organised two webinars about the collective agreement change for social welfare and healthcare sector shop stewards who work in companies that move to a new collective agreement. We have also organised two member events where we explained the situation to our members who work in companies and corporations that are affected by this change.
If you missed these events, no worries: we have compiled a list of key things that employees should note in the collective agreement change.
Expiration of AVAINTES – key points for social welfare and healthcare employees
- Your collective agreement changes, but you do not need a new employment contract because of that. Things that are agreed in your employment contract do not change when you move under a different collective agreement. This is a good time to look up your employment contract and check what has been agreed in it. Those terms and conditions of employment that come from the collective agreement may change for you.
- Anyone’s pay is not automatically reduced when they move under a different collective agreement. Pays are transferred, through negotiations, to the pay system of the new collective agreement so that the amount is the same as at the time of the transfer.
- Employees should negotiate with the employer about keeping those terms and conditions that have been better in AVAINTES as is, even though they move under a new collective agreement that has different terms and conditions. If your workplace has JHL’s shop steward, the shop steward represents JHL’s members and takes care of negotiating with the employer. We offer an agreement template that can be used for help in these negotiations. Download the transfer agreement template (in Finnish).
- In the beginning of May 2025, workplaces that used to belong under AVAINTES start observing the terms and conditions of the new collective agreement in matters that have not been agreed otherwise. Annual holidays are an exception to this. They do not move directly under the terms and conditions of the new agreement on 1 May 2025. The holidays of this year’s holiday season are still determined by AVAINTES, according to which they were accrued.
Early childhood education and care employees move from AVAINTES under the collective agreement for the private social services sector
Those early childhood education and care workplaces that have followed the AVAINTES collective agreement will mostly move under the collective agreement for the private social services sector in May. The agreement is followed until the agreement period ends at the end of the year 2025.
The employee and employer organisations have negotiated since last autumn on the first collective agreement specifically for the private early childhood education and care sector. These negotiations will continue in May.
The collective agreement for the private social services sector is negotiated in the autumn
We negotiate new collective agreements for almost all of our members this year. The current collective agreement for the private social services sector expires at the end of the year. Negotiations on a new collective agreement will start in the autumn.
The current collective agreement for the health services sector expires on 30 April 2026, and the negotiations on a new agreement will start next year. Read more about collective agreement negotiations.
The more union members we have, the more power we have to stand up for your interests in collective agreement negotiations. If you or your colleagues are not in yet, this is a very good time to join the trade union. Join JHL!
More information:
Siru Heromaa-Karjalainen, Bargaining Specialist, private social services sector, 050 472 4270
Tanja Tuunainen-Vainio, Bargaining Specialist, private social services sector, 050 463 2243
Pinja Lumitsalo, Bargaining Specialist, private health services sector, 046 921 4566
Join JHL!
JHL is the trade union for social and health care professionals. Our members work for example as care assistants, practical nurses, social service professionals and psychiatric nurses. They take care of people’s wellbeing in disability services, in child protection, in mental health and substance abuse work, in nursing, in elderly care, and as sterile processing technicians.
