An Iraqi, 33, who came to Finland in 2015, alleges that his employer of a Vantaa cleaning company asked him for 10,000 euros to give him a letter to the Finnish Immigration Service so he’d get a residence permit. He made a deal with the Finnish employer in 2019, and he would pay the sum
Read on »Posts Tagged: exploitation
What you are never told and should know about working life in Finland
There are many good tips migrants can get in Finland on how to land a job, write a convincing CV, and give near-perfect answers to a prospective employer at a job interview. Despite the latter, one crucial matter needs to be included: Learning and protecting your rights after you are hired. Because it is difficult
Read on »Getting a job does not scare me, it is what happens after that raises concern
If we look at the many stories of job discrimination that we have published in Migrant Tales, one factor links them: despair and the police, which too often look the other way. Considering the underwhelming effort the police have made in challenging human trafficking, labor discrimination, hate speech, and other social ills, why would a victim trust the
Read on »Hesburger employee debacle: Wake up Finland!
One of the big questions that the Hesburger employee debacle proves is that Finnish unions, the police, and state regulators don’t take the law seriously enough. Migrant Tales has cited numerous cases where employers exploited foreigners. It’s clear that if their employers exploit some migrants, it happens as well to white Finns. A group of former and present Hesburger
Read on »USAmerica’s colonial legacy in Latin America is like Africa for Europe
I was shocked but not surprised when US Vice President Kamala Harris warned would-be Guatemalans fleeing corruption, violence, and poverty. What Harris said in Guatemala was shameful and dishonest. “I want to be clear to folks in the region who make that dangerous trek to the Unites States-Mexican border – do not come, do not
Read on »Cleaning companies exploit migrants and asylum seekers. What else is new?
THE STORY WAS UPDATED Helsingin Sanomat published today an extensive investigative journalism story about the exploitation of foreigners by cleaning companies. Apart from Finnish (paywall), the full story is in English, Farsi, and Arabic as well. The Helsingin Sanomat article writes about cleaning company employers’ false promises, exploitation and long working hours, underpayment of wages,
Read on »QUOTE OF THE DAY: Migrants face abuse on both sides of the labor market
“An Iranian engineer with a master’s degree who had lived in Finland for about 20 years, claimed that he had applied to 4,000 jobs. Of that amount, only one prospective employer asked him for an interview, which was done online. He wasn’t hired. If migrants have a difficult time getting work from companies run by white Finns, many, especially people of color, face exploitation from foreign-owned companies, which pay them low wages.
Read on »Construction company in Turku area: work 15 hours/day, seven days a week for peanuts
A friend from South America called me and said how a construction company he worked for exploited its workers. The company is located in the Turku area and Migrant Tales is studying the possibility of denouncing this company to the authorities.
Read on »Brexit-inflicted UK is so racist that even white Europeans are targets of racism and rage
It would be wrong to conclude that Brexit is the cause of the racism we are witnessing today in the United Kingdom. Surprised? Not really. What would you expect from a country that has a dark history in global domination, exploitation, and genocide? The common thinking of some people about the United Kingdom is that
Read on »A food distributor that hires asylum seekers, pays them under the table, to change the sell-by dates of their old products
An Espoo-Helsinki-based ethnic-food distributor, which allegedly hires asylum seekers and pays them near-starvation salaries under the table, uses such victims to repackage and change the sell-by dates of food products that should not be sold. Some of these products are allegedly five years old and their sell-by dates have changed twice, according to an asylum seeker, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Read on »Exploitation of asylum seekers in Finland for profit and illegal activities
Migrant Tales will publish and expose this week a foods distributor that pays asylum seekers under the table to change the sell-by dates of their products. We have a written statement and many pictures sent to us by one former employee that show how easy it is to change sell-by dates of products.
Read on »QUOTE OF THE DAY: Tightening of immigration laws in Finland and the exploitation of migrants
The near-constant negative labelling of visible migrants like Muslims and minorities by too many Finnish politicians and society has not only weakened their civil rights as Amnesty International pointed out, but led to their exploitation by dishonest and greedy employers that promise them a job and a ticket to a residence permit.
Read on »Exploiting asylum seekers in the Finnish labor market reveals our failed asylum and integration policy
Migrant Tales has written a number of stories showing how Finland’s asylum policy and treatment of about 38,000 asylum seekers that came to the country during 2015-16 has been costly and ineffective. The government claims differently for obvious reasons.
Read on »An Iraqi asylum seeker in Finland tells us how he was “exploited” for a month by a Porvoo-based company called A-T Puhdistus
One matter is clear when you live in a society and the country’s institutions see asylum seekers as inferior human beings we leave the door open to all kinds of abuse. A good example of how little power asylum seekers have in Finland is the family of nine that has been locked up at the Joutseno immigration removal center. If an asylum seeker is lucky enough to get work, that too can become an exercise in exploitation.
Read on »(Migrants’ Rights Network) Workplace immigration checks and raids: What needs to be done
The cooperation of the management of Byron Hamburger’s with Home Office immigration enforcement officers in a sting operation earlier in the summer symbolises everything that can go wrong for migrant workers when employment law and immigration policy merge.
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: Byron Hamburgers: When employers fail to do right by migrant employees
What else could Byron’s have done? The social media world was awash with attempted defences of the hamburger chain after it collaborated in the arrest of 35 of its migrant workers earlier in July. Our answer is they didn’t have to go along with the shabby act of entrapment of its staff, and they could have done so much more to push back against punitive, anti-worker rules.
Read on »How many former asylum seekers from Luona got jobs thanks to a fast-track employment scheme?
How is it possible that a fast-track hiring scheme for former asylum seekers at Barona, an employment agency that owns Luona, a private subsidiary that manages eight asylum reception centers in Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, and Hyvinkää, gets a lot of attention in Helsingin Sanomat?
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: Why do migrants suffer exploitation? – Some thoughts on vulnerability and globalised labour markets
Don Flynn* Migrants are bad news because they worsen wages and working conditions for the rest of us we are so often told. A new book says we have to pay far more attention to the conditions we impose on those who arrive looking for jobs if we really want to tackle
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: Living in an Age of Migration
Don Flynn* Immigration studies has emerged as an important discipline in colleges and universities across the world, with scores of research centres being established in the UK alone over the last decade or so. Contributions have come from sociologists, anthropologists, geographers, political scientist, economists and philosophers over this time, giving anyone who
Read on »Immigrants and their associations should speak out more against exploitation
In the struggle that immigrants and members of the visible minority community in Finland, it’s important that we have a voice and speak out against exploitation and attitudes that promote intolerance. Read full story (in Finnish) here. Migrant Tales wrote recently about Abdi Osman, a naturalized Finn who came to this country fifteen years ago
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: Migrants are undermining working conditions? No – blame 30 years of government deregulation for that
By Don Flynn* There’s a lot more discussion nowadays about the exploitation and rock bottom standards in the way the British labour market operates. But it looks like we’ve needed the presence of migrants to show us all just how bad things have become. Read full blog entry here. The Institute
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: How society manufactured ‘them’ and ‘us’, and spread the myth that it couldn’t be anything different
By Don Flynn Here’s a book which challenges the idea that the division between citizens and migrants is fundamental and couldn’t be any other way. Bridget Anderson argues that ‘them’ and ‘us’ are constituted out of different groups in different ways at all points in history. Progress has always meant overcoming these divisions, and building
Read on »Dissecting Finnish racism and bigotry
“Racism is like a Cadillac, they bring out a new model every year.” Malcolm X (1925-65) The quote by one of the most powerful voices to emerge from the U.S. Civil Rights Movements, reveals how racism survived in the 1960s to see another day. Even though the quote by Malcolm X was made about a
Read on »Finland also locks up asylum seeker children
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- A child in the Joutseno Immigration Removal Center.
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