The right to take legal action would give trade unions more powers to eradicate exploitation

PAM has an active role in securing the rights of members, but also has a wider mission of interest representation in the service sectors in preventing the emergence of dual labour markets and discrimination. The union’s assistance also extends to those workers who have been the target of exploitation, but have not been union members.

“PAM assists the police in calculating unpaid wages when crimes are investigated whenever the police requests it, and we have also appeared as a witness in court cases. We work closely with various authorities”, says the head of the Helsinki-Uusimaa regional office, Johanna Sparf.  

The Helsinki-Uusimaa regional office is currently dealing with around 200 disputes, a quarter of which are in the facility services sector, most of them brought by members with a foreign background.

“The cases usually originate from small companies. In bigger companies members’ issues are dealt with by head shop stewards”, Sparf says.  

According to the regional head, being organised in a union is a big step for an employee who is in a situation bordering on human trafficking. 

“Even if you are a member of a union, you might not dare to flag up an issue under your own name, which you have to do. In order to investigate a case we need to be able to contact the employer and say who it involves”. 

”Foreign workers are often paid low wages and/or are made to work long days precisely on account of their ethnic background. When it is known that an employee depends on their job to keep their residence rights, their lack of knowledge of Finnish legislation is exploited.”

Changes to legislation are needed to eradicate exploitation 

If trade unions had the right to take legal action it would help to bring cases of exploitation to light. The right to take legal action means the right to initiate legal proceedings on behalf of employees. It would help to protect the vulnerable and improve their legal security in working life.

“Often employees are afraid for their residence permit, and if they lose their job it would mean having to leave Finland. For PAM to take on an employee’s case, we need their permission because without authorisation it doesn’t work. This is often the reason why a case goes no further”, Sparf adds.

“It’s very typical that PAM only gets to deal with cases after an employee has changed jobs, because they didn’t dare to raise the matter earlier. On the other hand, this is understandable”.

”The same factors both expose individuals to employment abuse and raise the threshold for victims to report exploitation. These include poor language skills and isolated working conditions, which is very common in the cleaning sector.”

According to Johanna Sparf, in order to curb labour exploitation changes to legislation are needed first.

“In the current situation we cannot act if an employee doesn’t dare to authorise us to take on the case because they fear for their life or their residence permit. Trade unions need to have the tools, like the right to take legal action, for us to act officially in these situations”.    

More powers and resources for the authorities 

According to PAM’s lawyer Suvi Vilches the union has been trying to flag up prevention of exploitation for some time. 

“PAM has been suggesting actions within legislation and occupational safety and health for the last ten years. Most recently, we produced a 10-point list together with SAK in early June of amendments to current official practices and legislation in order to prevent exploitation of foreign workers”, she points out.

“Often the scapegoat is the victim, meaning the foreign employee themself, who risks losing their residence permit and being deported. For employers guilty of infringements, however, the risk of being held accountable is small”, Vilches stresses.

In early June she was also consulted by a working group on preventing exploitation set up by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. 

On 5 July 2020, PAM’s Collective Bargaining Director Jaana Ylitalo said the following on Twitter about the measures needed: “Many things could be remedied, starting with resources for the police to investigate, the right of Regional State Administrative Agencies to impose significant administrative penalties, criminalisation of underpaying and for trade unions the right to take legal action. An overhaul of procurement legislation is also needed around complying with working conditions and pay, then the law on customer liability, chain liability, and using tax numbers in the cleaning, facility services and restaurant sectors”.

“PAM deals with those cases that come to the union’s attention. We are of course prepared to have a discussion around how to encourage employees to pass cases on to us”, Vilches says.
Vilches knows that sorting out disputes can unfortunately take a long time. 

“The union is dealing with thousands of cases and often it also takes time for the employer to respond. It all depends on how much information is available and how cooperative employers are. And then court cases also take some time”. 

Vilches mentions the example of a case involving SMC Palvelu Oy, which was highlighted in an article on the cleaning sector in the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. The company got an employee to work long days and unpaid hours. The work mostly took place in schools in the Espoo area. The case came to light in 2016, after which the dispute went to the District Court and currently it is still pending at the Court of Appeal.

But because the employee was a union member the case went to court without them having the risk of legal fees, and the District Court found that the employee was entitled to tens of thousands in compensation.