Finland
In Finland, collective agreements are negotiated by industry or sector. The industrial trade unions have a high organizing rates and coverage of collective agreements.
Almost all employees are covered by generally binding collective agreements.
The recession that started in 2008 hit the Finnish economy hard and industry only returned to operating at full capacity a couple of years ago.
Between 2015-2019, there was a right-wing government in Finland that sought to defeat the position of the trade union movement and severely weaken the interests of employees in terms of, among other things, unemployment protection.
Some of the right-wing government's goals were prevented by trade unions through demonstrations and strikes.
However, the government pressured the social partners to approve the competitiveness pact that it had put forward, which, among other things, extended the working hours of each employee by 24 hours per year without salary compensation and cut public sector holiday pay by 30%.
The Competitiveness Agreement is about to expire in late 2019, and negotiations are underway to renew collective agreements in the autumn of 2019 and in the spring of 2020.
The key issues in the negotiating round are getting rid off of the 24-hour extension of unpaid working hours and wage increases to improve purchasing power, but there are other labour disputes in various sectors.
At the time of writing in the middle of October, industry is negotiating. Industrial workers, white collar workers and academics are in negotiations together. Predicting the outcome of a negotiating round can be quite difficult.
After the spring 2019 elections, Finland got a Social Democratic Prime Minister and is hopeful that the right-wing government's weakening of social security and working life could be reversed and that the lost benefits will be restored.
Tripartite labour market negotiations can also be continued with this new government.