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Concept
Collective agreement
Summary
A collective agreement, collective labour agreement (CLA) or collective bargaining agreement (CBA) is a written contract negotiated through collective bargaining for employees by one or more trade unions with the management of a company (or with an employers' association) that regulates the terms and conditions of employees at work. This includes regulating the wages, benefits, and duties of the employees and the duties and responsibilities of the employer or employers and often includes rules for a dispute resolution process.
In Finland, collective labour agreements are universally valid. This means that a collective agreement in an economic sector becomes a universally applicable legal minimum for any individual's employment contract, whether or not they are a union member. For this condition to apply, half of the workforce in that sector needs to be union members, thus supporting the agreement.
Workers are not forced to join a union in a specific workplace. Nevertheless, with 70% average unionization, most economic sectors are under a collective labour agreement. An agreement does not prohibit higher wages and better benefits, but establishes a legal minimum, similarly to a minimum wage. Furthermore, a national income policy agreement is often, but not always reached, which includes all trade unions, employers’ associations, and the Finnish government.
German labour law
Collective agreements in Germany are legally binding. Germans pride themselves in a supposedly more cooperative spirit in industrial relations when compared to other countries, for example when contrasted to the historically more adversarial nature of industrial relations in the United Kingdom as described below. German workers by law have a right to representation on company boards. Together, management and workers are considered "social partners".
Like in Finland, collective labour agreement determinate a universal applicabile legal minimum wage, which is universally valid (in Latin: erga omnes), whether the worker is a member of a trade union or not.
Official source
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