Finland going on strike

On the 2nd of February 2018, large parts of Finnish society will be shutting down. This is because of a protest towards a bill pushed through by the government late last year, which causes some questionable changes to social security, especially towards unemployment benefits. The protest organized by SAK, one of the three central organizations of the Finnish trade unions involves a massive demonstration in Senate Square in Helsinki and a few individual unions going on strike. As a result, building sites, some schools, factories and public transport in many cities will shut down for the day. But, what could cause this kind of a reaction?

The reason is the so called "active model" which was pushed through by the government. It's meant to force the unemployed to be more active when looking for a job or have their benefits cut as punishment for failing to fulfill the qualifications. What are those, you might ask. In order to not have cuts made to your benefits, you have to fulfill certain criteria within a three month period. Within that period you have to either work for at least 18 hours, spent five days in activities organized by the unemployment agency aimed at increasing your chances of finding a job or to earn enough money as an entrepreneur. If you fail to fulfill the criteria, your benefits will be cut by 4.65%, which roughly translates around 30 euros with the most basic form of unemployment benefits, or about the same amount I spend on food every week. In other words, for somebody living on benefits, it's a fairly large loss in money. But, if you simply have to fulfill the certain criteria your benefits won't be cut so it's fine, right? Well, no. The fact is that even though the criteria seems fairly easy to fulfill, it actually isn't. 

For one, at the end of 2017 there were around 227 000 unemployed people. On the other hand, there were only around 35 000 open jobs. You can already see that even though the required time spent working is only 18 hours in three months, filling this requirement can be difficult. Not only that, but there even are requirements on how much money you have to make in order to not have your benefits cut. In other words, volunteer work where you get some small amount of money as compensation for your time isn't enough to fill the requirement. So for example, working for your local volunteer fire brigade is not enough to avoid the cut. In other words, people who voluntarily risk their lives to help others may end up losing their benefits because of the fact that they can't find a full time job. Similar thing is in the private security sector. For example, in some public events like concerts and sports games, the security might be organized by volunteers who maybe get a small amount of money, or sometimes even just food for being there. Just think about it, if needed these people are required to break up fights or give first aid to people if needed. It can be a dangerous job, but because of the fact that they don't earn enough, they could get their benefits cut. There's also the fact that unemployment rates are different in different parts of the country. For example, while the unemployment rate in whole of Finland is a bit over 8%, the rate here where I live is around 18%. Thankfully I'm in school so at least for now I don't have to worry about this.

Taking part in activities meant to increase your to get a job can be hard as well. The problem here is that the unemployment agency has some problems with funding. The result of this is that there simply are not enough chances to take part in services in order to avoid the cut. Again, here the problem is also partially regional. Whether or not the reason is the high percentage of unemployed people or something else, it's simply not possible to have every single unemployed person to take part in them. Not only that, but the activities available have sometimes been criticized as being a waste of time and to some degree I agree. The activities vary from training courses, some of which give you skills to specific jobs to five day courses where you learn how to make a good job application and CV. While the latter might be beneficial for a younger person who only recently began job hunting, there's really no point in putting somebody though one of these courses for the fifth time, which unfortunately sometimes happens. In other words, not only can it be hard to get access to the necessary services, even if you do manage, you might be forced to sit through a course which has no benefit for your goal of finding employment. On the other hand, if you don't take part in the course, you just might lose a fairly large part of your income.

Now you might be wondering, where did the government get the idea for this system? It's fairly simple. They got it from Denmark. Denmark has a  lower unemployment rate than Finland, so clearly it's working. So what's the problem? Well, the thing is, that while the Danish system is somewhat similar to the system recently put into use in Finland, there also are some major differences. For one, the terms on how to avoid the cut of your benefits are a lot stricter. Unlike in Finland, in Denmark, the only way to avoid the cuts is to work and for a lot longer time than in Finland. Also, while in Finland the jobs you might be required to apply for are generally on fields you have training or interest in, in Denmark there really is no such requirement, meaning, you can't really pick and choose what job you take. You just have to take whatever job you get. So at first first glance, it seems that the Finnish system is actually more lenient than the Danish one and the Finnish government has used this as justification for the system. However, there are also some other aspects they haven't taken into consideration.

First of all, in Denmark, the unemployment benefits are a lot higher. This means that while in Finland the cut to your benefits can have a potentially crippling effect on your income, in Denmark, there really is no such danger. Apart from higher benefits, the cut for those who can't fulfill the necessary qualifications, is only 1.2%, compared to the 4.65% in Finland. Denmark also uses around 2% of it's national budget on unemployment services while Finland uses about 1%. One effect of this is that while in Denmark has about one unemployment official for every 30 unemployed while in Finland the number is 120 unemployed for one official. This means that in Denmark the services offered are more personalized compared to Finland. Essentially, even though the Danish system has stricter requirements for activity, they do everything else better.

The active model has received a lot of backlash since it was passed. Immediately after it was passed, somebody started a citizen's initiative to withdraw the recently passed bill. The initiative received the necessary 50 000 signatures in about a week, meaning the parliament has to address it. The initiative currently has around 140 000 signatures. The backlash has gotten some MP representing the parties currently forming the government to retract their support for the bill. Especially members of the Center Party, the prime minister's own party btw, have said that passing the bill was a mistake. Considering that after all the drama last summer (more on that here), the Sipilä government only has 105 MP over a total of 200, and the fact that the entire opposition voted against the bill in it's initial vote in parliament, there's a good chance it might actually be taken back. The only question is, how many MP's who initially voted in favor of it will actually go against their party's stance on the issue.

Now, I'm not against the idea itself. The problem is that the way the Finnish government has pushed this through doesn't really solve the problems it claims. If they had at the same time increased funding for unemployment services and/or increased unemployment benefits to similar level with Denmark, I'd be in favor of this. The thing is, the system is being abused by some and this would be a good way to try to limit that. Unfortunately, this is one of the biggest fuck ups this government has done.

Again, we have to wait and see what happens. Even though I'm somewhat positive that this will be taken back, I still have doubts. All I can say is that I'm doing what I can, which admittedly is pretty limited. But, we shall see.

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