Working life - part 1

Information about working in Finland is available in abundance. You can read basically everywhere that:
- it is difficult to find a job here if you don't know the language and that
- the taxation is high.
I would like to mention one more issue which is less popular. But this comes after the basic stuff.

If you manage to find a job without knowing Finnish language and you are fine with paying high taxes you need to visit some offices. Of course one of the first ones is the taxation office (http://www.vero.fi/). You need to know how much you are going to earn till the end of year, provide this information to get a tax card. Of course tax card has to have your social security number, which you can get in Maistraatti - local register office (http://www.maistraatti.fi/). If you have just arrived in Finland you need to visit also police station to receive residence permission if you intend to stay longer than 4 months. This is the procedure I went through ca 3 years ago. Maybe some rules have changed but probably sooner or later you will have to go to those offices for various reasons (Maistraatti for example deals with voting permission).

This is more or less about initial phase when entering Finnish working life. The issue I wanted to bring up - not so often mentioned is labour unions. Some years ago it used to be quite natural for Finns to enter labour union already during studies period. Nowadays it is slightly less popular for various reasons. But because for many Finns it seems natural that everyone knows about unions they may forget to mention that such a possibility exists. Here I wanted to provide some basic information about labour unions - so that the reader has a possibility to decide for himself/herself - is it worthwhile to join or not.

The main reason to join labour union is usually unemployment benefit (apart from the basic one provided by KELA www.kela.fi) awarded in case one loses a job. In order to receive that benefit the monthly payment needs to be paid usually for 10 months before unemployment takes place. Different labout unions may have different rules so I recommend to check it separately. The monthly payment varies from 1 to 2% of the salary and can be deducted by the employer or paid as other bills by the union member. Other benefits include discount for renting summer/winter cottages, fuel discount or some ferry discounts. Union member can also get lawyer's consulting. Those were just examples, benefits vary from union to union. The decision which one to join is limited by educational background and currently performed occupation of the applicant. Even with those limits there is still some choice. An example here can be Akava (http://www.akava.fi/) - being a network of unions related to academic life.
It has to be noted however, that not all of the Finns join labour unions. The main controversy causes the amount of money paid and real benefits received. For many of those that I talk with it looks so that they pay several hundreds of euros and getting just a calendar. It means that during normal year they are not benefiting from union's membership.

The point is that you need to consider for yourself - are you going to benefit much enough to join? Or maybe it is worth to pay in order to get a higher unemployment benefit? It is sensible to answer those questions for each person individually.