[ess3]

The word safe here is doing a lot of heavy lifting imo. Not necessarily safe as in physical safety but also contractual safety.

An example is pension where companies not under collective agreement tend to not specify pension in contract rather just a blurb about "pension is to be compensated based on the currently applicable company policy". Basically allowing them to do whatever bait and switch they want later. Even if the benefits are good now there's no guarantee that they will stay that way. That's what a collective agreement is supposed to protect, that you can't go below that standard.