Pestle Analysis Of Industrial Relations

I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
II. COUNTRY BACKGROUND (PESTLE ANALYSIS)
Finland which is officially “The Republic of Finland’ is one of the Nordic countries in Northern Europe. Finland has a population of about 5.5 million people with the majority in the southern regions and it is the 8th largest country in Europe. It has a parliamentary republic with a central government based in the capital Helsinki. The PESTLE analysis would be focused on the major factors that have effects on Industrial Relations.
• POLITICAL & LEGAL
Power in Finland is vested in the people, who are represented in the parliament. The political system in Finland is one of the key determinants of the kinds of laws that are enacted in its industrial relations.
Some of the relevant

Finnish unions have been ranked by the ILO as one of the most effective in the world.
There are three main trade union organizations in Finland and they include;
1) SAK (Central Organization of Finnish Trade Unions): This is the oldest employee confederation in Finland which was founded in 1907. It is affiliated with 22 member unions and has over 1 million members both in the private, transport and public sectors.
2) STTK (The Finnish Confederation of Professionals): This trade union confederation which was established in 1946 was formed by 18 affiliated trade unions which represents about 608, 000 professional employees in a wide range of economic sectors like manufacturing, private services and the public sector at the local, regional and national level. It has a wide range of members like nurses, technical engineers, police officers, secretaries, sales persons etc.
3) AKAVA (Confederation of Unions for Professional and Managerial Staff in Finland): AKAVA which was set up in 1950 has about 30 member unions which represents workers with university, professional and other high level education. AKAVA has about 540,000 members including about 100,000 of these members as

Public Sector: Both the public and private sector is quite similar, social partners in the public sector have same rights and obligations to negotiate collective agreements just like the private sector. Some of the employer organizations in this sector includes:
• Commission for Local Authority Employers which is involved in negotiating in collective agreements for municipalities and federations of municipalities employing about 428,000 people and membership of employer organization is compulsory in this sector.
• State Employer’s Office is also another in this sector which negotiates collective agreements for the 122,000 employees working for the state.
• Church Employers is another type of employer organization in the public sector represents the Lutheran Church of Finland as an employer and usually negotiates a collective agreement for about 22,000 employees working for the parishes.
An example of the Employers organization which is relevant to this report is the “Association of Finnish Pharmacies” which was founded in 1897. It is a professional organization of proprietary pharmacists that supports and promotes high standards of ethical and professional competencies in