By Enrique Tessieri
One of the matters that continues to surprise me about the ongoing immigration debate in Finland are the so-called “bad” foreign laborers who purposefully come to this country to dodge taxes and work for slave-labor wages. Some claim that it is the foreign laborers’ fault while in fact opportunity to break the law is given by the employers.
Hiring foreign workers and paying them low wages happens everywhere. Without these types of workers how could the industry of countries like the United States or regions like the European Union maintain a competitive edge in global markets? The same practice has been going on in Finland and it appears that this type of illegal activity will get worse.
Action against the exploitation of illegal or semi-legal foreign laborers shouldn’t rest squarely on the worker entering our market but sparely on employers, unions and government watchdogs that should be doing their jobs.
I am certain that if foreign workers that enter the Finnish market were given the opportunity to make the same amount of money as natives and thereby make a decent living for them and their family, many would gladly pay taxes and contribute to the community.
Blaming foreign workers is only a pretext to look the other way at the real culprit: employers and those bodies that are supposed to regulate them.
Another factor freeing up these “mierda” jobs is simply that the welfare state is so generous in Finland. The Finns can do better on unemployment money for years, even with diplomas, than going to work. Where’s the incentive to go work in a restaurant or bar or market to get some cash, if everyone can automatically cash in at “unemployment” and have lots of free time for fun?
Shorten the unemployment period to two months, insist that the unemployed take these jobs or get not a penny more. You’d be surprised how quickly those jobs would be grabbed and the need for the foreigners would dry up. That’s how Finland could take care of the unwanted foreigner-slave-labor problem.
No, it would simply leave lots of people out of both job and means of living, making the number of poor and homeless explode. Finding a job, much less a job one is able and qualified to do, isn’t fast or easy.
Mary Mekko
Why don’t you just come out and say it – ‘bring back slavery’. 🙂 I mean, I would bet my house on the fact that you probably also oppose a minimum wage too. So, let’s force people into low paid jobs, then also give employers free licence to pay an absolute minimum and the problem of ‘freeloaders’ is solved. How on earth would aboloshing social security beyond ‘two months’ help to abolish ‘slave-labor’?
In fact, a problem we already have now, and which is also massive in the US, is the ‘working poor’, with the high burden on public, health and social services that that entails. What are you going to do about that?
You know, many ‘activation’ policies have been tried in Finland to get people on the dole into work. Do you know what independent reports have said is the single biggest factor for the ‘failure’ of these policies to make a large impression on unemployment figures? Basically, there are not enough suitable jobs in the market. I the US, there were five unemployed for every job available in the market – then you have to factor in the ‘underemployed’, those trying to go from part-time to full-time work, or into a higher salaried job and you can see very clearly that it’s more like 10 people chasing 1 job. So, your answer is to push 4-6 of those people into below minimum sustenance, i.e. starvation, because, well, that will solve the problem?
You, Ms Mekko, haven’t a fucking clue!