Working Time ‘Banks’ Proposed To Increase Flexibility in Finland

By European IR Observatory

Finnish employers' organisations and white-collar trade union confederations have proposed the establishment of working time 'banks', with the aim of increasing flexibility.

The Finnish social partners have for some time agreed that there is a need for more flexible working time arrangements. To this end, a working party made up of representatives of the partners was set up in December 2002 as part of the central incomes policy agreement for 2003-4. The party finished its work in February 2004. It recommends the establishment of working time 'banks' in which extra hours worked and holiday entitlement could be stored. These deposits could be taken out in the form of free time or compensated financially. Furthermore, the working party recommends that specific arrangements for the hours banks should be established at workplace level and based on voluntary agreement between the worker and the employer.

The granting of rights over working time issues to the workplace level has been an ongoing trend in Finland since the early 1990s. The social partners' new proposals concerning working time 'banks' represent a continuation of this development, as their adoption would decrease the influence of industry-level bargaining on working time.