The voice of the weak

Ionut-Ciprian Bulgaru, is one of Vihannes-Laitila’s production line workers and also a shop steward for PAM. Since autumn 2015, he has been working at the warehouse in Kalanti. 

Ionut-Ciprian’s journey to Finland began in 2013 while working in Denmark in agriculture. He applied for a job in Finland through EURES portal, and got a call right away. 

“I started working in a strawberry farm, where I stayed for two years”. 

At the farm, his co-workers were from the Ukraine and Russia while he was the only one from the EU. 

“The salary for workers outside the EU ranged between 6 and 6.50 euros per hour, while my salary was 8.50-9 euros. This felt wrong. This was also the time when I discovered PAM, and started learning about working life rules and equal pay”, he tells. 

He was later hired by Vihannes-Laitila and settled in rural Kalanti. Nowadays Ionut-Ciprian lives with his wife in Turku. Every day he drives to work as three-shift-work is difficult to combine with public transport. 

“As soon as I get here I have a coffee and go through the orders for the day. Then I start preparing them and it can be very busy. I can choose to be on the machines or on the production line. As there are some new workers, I also train and help them”, he explains. 

“Last year I asked for some advice from PAM’s regional office in Turku and they were helpful. They also raised the question, why don’t you become a shop steward. I hesitated at first, as I don’t know Finnish that well”, he says.

The company’s long term shop steward wanted out and Ionut-Ciprian stood as a candidate in the shop steward election in October 2019.

“I have never liked the people with power abusing the weak without any reason. For me, loyalty and genuine people matter and I put respect above everything. If there is mutual respect things work out, but without it, things can get hard”, he adds when reviewing his reasons to become a shop steward.

Jumping into the shop steward’s shoes and the COVID-19 hitting the surface, was quite rough for a rookie. Cooperation-negotiations started and he had to deal with many questions from workers about lay-offs and diminished work. 

“I took to the collective agreement and started learning the rules and the laws by heart. I also browsed PAM’s web pages, followed the English corona site regularly and got in touch with the Turku office. It is not that hard once you get started”, he says.    
 

“I believe in justice and fairness. I am now in the position that I can make a change happen. This keeps me going”. 

In the spring of 2020, he had meetings every week and negotiated with the employer. At the end of the day three workers were laid off, a result he considers a success. 

“It was over-all a very stressful period”, he recalls. 

Now the situation has calmed down and things are back to normal. For now. That is why he plans to participate in PAM’s course for shop stewards in the fall. 

“As a shop steward, I get many inquiries from workers about their wages and whether pay is correct and according to working hours, including over time and holiday bonus. A lot of my shop steward time is spent sorting out these kind of matters because many employees don’t know if they have been paid correctly”, he explains. 

On a regular basis he discuss with the company’s manager and brings forward issues. It is important to bring awareness to things not working, as he is the one looking out for the employees’ interests.

“I always advice everyone at work to write down their working time and I show them how it is done. This is especially important, if you don’t know Finnish nor English, or you don’t know your rights as a worker in this country”, he says.

“If there is a problem, there should also be a way to solve it. Being a shop steward, you have to find the balance and be diplomatic, but also firm in pushing for change”.   

What motivates Ionut-Ciprian as a shop steward is achieving set goals – making changes for the better and help the ones, that are not being treated equally. All workers deserve to have the same rights and receive same pay, despite background.

Our tour in the warehouse comes to an end, and we sit down to have a coffee in the break room. 
“I believe in justice and fairness. I am now in the position that I can make a change happen. This keeps me going”.  

The majority of the one hundred employees at Vihannes-Laitila’s warehouse have their roots abroad.

“We have around ten nationalities working side by side. Romanians, like me, Moldavians, Ukrainians, Russians and Estonians, Slovaks, Polish and Latvian people and of course Finns.

The mix of languages sets its own tone, but the common mutual language is English. 
 

“I understand basic Finnish, but it is difficult to talk”, Ionut-Ciprian says. 

What seldom is discussed in public, is that many employees with a foreign background experience extra stress related to housing matters and uncertainty about their income and employment, as they are far away from home. Another thing that weakens their position as equal worker is lack of Finnish or English skills. 

Sometimes a shop steward can only do so much and there are situations where Ionut-Ciprian feels he has not been able to influence.

“The hardest thing for me, is when you try to solve a situation, and you have to go back to the worker with empty hands as there is no support from management. But I will always try my best, and I am happy to have the support from the workers and the union by my side”.