One of the members of the new government, the right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, said that jobs will be created for Finnish labor. In the present anti-immigration environment in Finland, such statements have a hostile ring to migrants, naturalized Finns and minorities since they don’t promote inclusion and fair hiring practices.
Considering that migrant unemployment is three-times higher than the national average, do you think that such statements, which stress “us” and “then,” improve the chances of such people getting hired?
Why can’t politicians like PS chairman Timo Soini, who likes to make nationalistic statements, drop the adjective “Finnish” and state that the efforts by the new government and policy will create new jobs?
Certainly that phrase sounds more inclusive than “Finnish labor.”
It’s pretty clear what Soini means by Finnish labor, or suomalainen työ, which is code for “don’t hire migrants and minorities. It’s your patriotic duty as an employer to hire white Finns.”
It would be great if at least one journalist could ask Soini if he considers migrants, naturalized Finns and minorities to be “Finnish labor.”
* The Finnish name of the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.
Are you honestly saying you don’t know what Suomalainen työ or finnish labor means? How long have you lived here? Because politicians have talked about finnish labor for ages, always in fact. There is even Suomalaisen työn liitto, Union of finnish labor. All you could have easily checked if you had bothered to do some googling.
So what is the finnish labor? Work done in Finland according to labor agreements with taxes of it paid in Finland. So does it include migrants, naturalized Finns and minorities? Yes it does! Does it make sense for politicians to support and speak for work and companies that pay their taxes to Finland? Yes it does!
I have to ask you, what do you hope to accomplish with making these myths that Soini talks “in code”? To me this looks like it is you that is creating the “us and them” setting here.
Hi,
I don’t think it is smart to spread the message, that the immigrants wouldn’t belong to the group of finnish labor. There’s no indication of that.
Is your way of writing a deliberate strategy? I can see this as an attack towards Soini? In the previous post you said, you don’t believe in dialogue. You want to push things to the point, where people start to take actions?
Hi Steve, do you speak Finnish well enough to follow what is written in the media?
Do you know Mark?
Yes, I can understand finnish well.
“Do you know Mark?”
No. I’ve read his comments in this blog. I have been reading this blog occasionally in order to maintain my english.
That’s funny, Steve, you appear to write English perfectly.
Just a point of clarification: If I were against dialogue why do I write and post opinion pieces in this blog?