This means that a collective agreement in an economic sector becomes a universally applicable legal minimum for any individual's employment contract, whether or not they are a union member.
Furthermore, a national income policy agreement is often, but not always reached, which includes all trade unions, employers’ associations, and the Finnish government.
[5] For the first time in the history of Italian industrial relations, in December 2010, Marchionne decided to unilaterally let the Fiat group out of Confindustria and Federmeccanica.
[7] In the subsequent contractual renewals of 2018 and 2022, the trade unions and bank's associations agreed on the right of withdrawal from the national collective labor agreement for both parties.
[8] Both employers'associations and trade unions of wage worker|wage workers of the public and private sectors have the right to unilaterally withdraw from the contract.
Then, the Industrial Relations Act 1971, introduced by Robert Carr (Employment Minister in Edward Heath's cabinet), provided that collective agreements were binding unless a written contract clause declared otherwise.
After the demise of the Heath government, the law was reversed to reflect the tradition in British industrial relations policy of legal abstentionism from workplace disputes.
The law is now contained in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 s.179, whereby in the United Kingdom collective agreements are conclusively deemed to be not legally binding.