Less co-opera­tion, and less pay

In 2022, the law was amended. This law strengt­hened the right of emplo­yees to make propo­sals and present alter­na­tive solutions in the change negotia­tions, “muutos­neuvottelut”, regar­ding layoffs and redundancies.

Now, the right-wing Orpo-Purra Govern­ment has rewritten the law, only three years after it was enacted. New rules will be valid from the begin­ning of July 2025. Unsurpri­singly, the new law has been recons­ti­tuted only for the benefit of the emplo­yers. For workers, the change can bring a loss of thousands of euros.

To date, the law applied to compa­nies with at least 20 emplo­yees. Now, the new law raises this limit upwards to 50 emplo­yees. For compa­nies with 20–49 emplo­yees, there will be separate, less deman­ding rules.

For the average worker, probably the most impor­tant change is cutting the time for change negotia­tions in half. These are held concer­ning the reduc­tion of the workforce.

With the new law in place, redun­dancies or layoffs can begin earlier.

In a company with at least 50 emplo­yees, these negotia­tions can, in future, last from seven days to three weeks, depen­ding on the situa­tion. Up until now, these times were from 14 days to six weeks.

In practical terms, this means a direct removal of money from emplo­yees’ pockets to emplo­yers. With the new law in place, redun­dancies or layoffs can begin earlier. Thus, the employer can stop paying salary even three weeks earlier than before.

The experts in the Industrial Union calcu­late that an employee with a salary of 3,000 euros a month might lose 2,250 euros a year with the new, shorter negotia­tion time.

Another problem with the shorter negotia­tion time is whether there will be enough time to really handle emplo­yees’ alter­na­tive solutions. Emplo­yees’ possi­bi­lity to influence and to be heard will be reduced.

End of the dialogue?

In the compa­nies with 20–49 emplo­yees, change negotia­tions are now only needed when the employer is consi­de­ring reducing at least 20 emplo­yees over a 90-day period.

The new law will effec­ti­vely end the change negotia­tions in these compa­nies. In 2022, there was 1,078 change negotia­tions in such compa­nies. This was 27 per cent of all change negotiations.

With the new law, the employer will in practice decide how to proceed with the conti­nuous dialogue between the employer and emplo­yees. As there is no given model for it, it might prove to be a matter of little impor­tance in many companies.

This will also make the company-level agree­ments more difficult if emplo­yees are not regularly included in the discus­sions and flow of information.