EtlaKeyNotes: Decentralized bargaining requires trust

Etla’s KeyNotes kicked off after the corona break on Wednesday 6 October when a theme event of decentralized bargaining was held at Hotel Kämp. The keynote speaker was Dr. Andrea Garnero, an OECD economist and specialist in collective bargaining. Representatives of Fujitsu Finland and construction service company Rakennuspalvelu Lindholm went through the everyday experiences of local agreement in the panel. The main message from both companies was that local agreements require cooperation and trust on both sides.

In the EtlaKeyNotes series, the idea is to bring interesting names in economics from around the world to our Finnish audience, in connection with the current domestic debate. This autumn’s labor market situation and the transition to a more decentralized bargaining provided an opportunity to bring Andrea Garnero, an OECD labor market economist, as the keynote star this time around. His research has addressed not only the minimum wage, but also the various collective bargaining systems in OECD countries.

Dr. Garnero’s message could be summed up in such a way that a good labor market negotiation system will eventually have to balance between two different factors: between company-specific flexibility and adequate coverage/compliance. Garnero’s full presentation can be viewed above in the EtlaKeyNotes video and the slides can be found below the article attached.

OECD economist Andrea Garnero has focused his research on labor market contract systems and minimum wages.

In the panel, the experiences of local agreements were discussed by Fujitsu Finland’s Head of Employee Relations (HR) Saara Aikio and Head of Employee Representatives Liisa-Johanna Pesonen, and Rakennuspalvelu Lindholm’s entrepreneur Mikko Lindholm and shop steward Timo Sjövall. The panel was chaired by Research Director Antti Kauhanen from Etla.

Note: some parts of the event are in Finnish only.

Attachments

Slides / by Dr. Garnero

Download