When a person signs an employment contract, they want to know their workload and salary. With a flexible working arrangement, however, all you can be sure of is that you will be able to work at least ten hours a week. The remaining hours depend on a lucky draw, or more precisely on the goodwill and opportunities of the employer, writes Kaia Vask.

There is a lot of talk lately about flexible working. On the face of it, this sounds like a good thing: workers can choose when and how much they work. But if you take a closer look at the draft amendments to the Employment Contracts Act being debated in parliament, this 'flexibility' means something quite different for the worker: workload and pay are unpredictable and at the employer's discretion.

Employers' allegations of misleading the public or even misrepresentation merely reflect their indignation at the different view of workers' representatives.

According to the Confederation of Trade Unions (CFTU), the draft law will allow employers to increase and reduce the workload of employees very easily. The boss says simply: "We have no work to offer you next month, you'll only work ten hours a week." and then consoles you: "the month after next, you might be able to get forty hours a week".

Wages go in step with this attitude, sometimes lower, sometimes higher, and remain a mystery to the employee in the long run. This is not just about a single occupation: uncertainty awaits shopkeepers and carers, bus drivers and doctors, low-paid and highly paid.

When the employer is having a hard time, the responsibility is shifted to the employee. The employee becomes a kind of safety cushion for the company, helping to cut costs when necessary. Yet the employee needs the reassurance that the bills will be paid the month after next, food on the table and school clothes for the children.

Wages as a weather forecast

When a person signs an employment contract, they want to know their workload and salary. That way it is fair and the worker can plan his or her life. However, with a flexible working arrangement, all you can be sure of is that you will work at least ten hours a week. The remaining hours depend on the luck of the draw, or more precisely on the good will and opportunities of the employer.

Now let's imagine for a moment. This month I earn €254, next month €1063. The pay gap is quadruple and can keep repeating itself - up and down like the American mountains. Or I'm signed on for ten hours a week, but I'm actually working full-time for a month, two, five, as many hours as my own signed timetable says. The boss may draw up a timetable for four months, or even 12 months in exceptional cases. And once the timetable has been drawn up and signed, there's not much more to discuss, the onus is on you to work all the hours. Where is the flexibility for the employee?

You can't feed and manage a family on a floating salary. There is no way of knowing whether the rent will be paid by the end of the month, or whether something will be set aside for unexpected expenses. Uncertainty makes people anxious and exhausted. And when every month starts with the knowledge that you don't know what the month after next will bring, the joy of working starts to fade.

Volunteering is often only a sham for the employee

Employers say that everything is voluntarily agreed. That the employee signed and agreed to the terms. But how does it actually work? The employee is not on an equal footing with the employer, if you want to work, you agree to the hours offered. You need the job, you need the salary.

The ancients said long ago that you don't bite the hand that feeds you. The worker will not challenge the conditions. Perhaps there will be even fewer hours on the schedule next month, or none of them will fit in with the nursery's opening hours? That's why the workers have formed a union, to stand together for their rights and to help individual workers where they need help.

The trade union can negotiate on a more equal footing with the employer than workers individually and defend their rights and seek better deals for workers through collective agreements. It is where workers feel like little nuts in a big machine that the trade union comes in to support them when they have concerns and stand up for justice. Thus, the planned changes in the draft Employment Contracts Act in the state parliament are designed with employers' interests in mind and do not adequately protect workers' rights.

Lower pay for minors and nothing at all for others

The draft makes a distinction not only on the amount of work, but also on the age of the workers. While adult workers are entitled to at least 1.2 times the minimum wage under the flexitime agreement, minors are not. But the work is the same. A young person lifts the same amount of heavy goods, washes the same amount of dishes and sits at the till for the same amount of time. Is such age-based special treatment fair? Certainly not. Rather, it sends a clear message to minors that young people are cheap and second-rate labour. It does not end inequality.

If a worker earns more than the minimum, say €10 or €14 an hour, he or she will not receive any extra euros to compensate for an unstable workload. Fewer hours equals less pay, and that's it. There is simply no compensation for unstable employment....

It turns out that the only protection the bill offers to an unstable agreement (1.2 times the minimum wage) is only for one narrow group of workers, adult workers who have started at the minimum wage and are not currently on probation with a new employer. Everyone else misses out. The flexible working time agreement, originally intended for a narrow group of workers - students and people with reduced working capacity - is extended to the whole of the Estonian workforce.

Overtime, rest time and collective agreements

The flexible working arrangement would allow for extra hours, but these would not count as overtime as they would be included in the full working hours. If I am currently working under a regular contract and occasionally work overtime as agreed with my employer, I would be paid 1.5 times for each hour of overtime, which at €12 an hour would make the overtime pay €18. But if I had a flexible working arrangement, these overtime hours would disappear like a stone. The draft law has been amended in such a way as to leave the employee out of pocket and help the company to make significant cost savings.

The savings for the employer are therefore built into the draft. Costs can be cut easily and quickly at the expense of employees' wages. For example, if there are fewer orders or if shop sales fall. In this case, the entire responsibility for the company's poor performance is shifted to the employees.

Rest period for shift workers reduced to 36 hours

A less talked about part of the draft law is workers' rest time. For the last year and a half, people working on a timetable have been able to rest 47 or 59 hours every week, like office workers. Now it wants to revert to the previous system and reduce the rest period for timetabled workers to 36 hours a week. This means that people who stand on their feet all day or work night shifts would get less time off. How can this be fair or justified?

Employers justify the need to revert to the earlier interpretation of rest time by the need to recruit more workers. Yet creating more jobs has a stimulating effect on the economy.

The original draft amendment to the Employment Contracts Act provided for the possibility of agreeing on flexible working time in collective agreements between employers and trade unions. This would allow the social partners to strike a balance between the rights of workers and the flexibility desired by employers, but this point has been removed from the draft. As a trade union leader, I would like to see this provision put back in.

Hundreds of thousands of people are affected by the Employment Contracts Act. It cannot be changed in a hurry and only according to the wishes of employers. We need to carry out impact assessments and involve both employers and the trade union confederation representing workers in the discussions.

The Confederation of Trade Unions, together with its members and non-affiliated trade unions, has therefore proposed to suspend the debate on the draft Employment Contracts Act (602 SE) in the National Assembly and send it back to the Ministry so that employers and the Confederation of Trade Unions can start a substantive debate on the draft.

Since 6 December 2024, a number of representative organisations have repeatedly made joint proposals to the government on behalf of workers: The Estonian Confederation of Trade Unions, the Estonian Doctors' Association, the Estonian Union of Educators, the Estonian Independent Trade Union of Seafarers, the Estonian Theatre Union, the Estonian Nurses' Association and the Central Organisation of Employees' Unions.

It is extremely cynical that employers have taken the initiative to become workers' representatives, ignoring both the common position of the organisations representing workers and the negotiating practice that has developed over the years.