Welcome to Finland, the country where the exploitation and abuse of the proles looks pretty civil to outsiders, but it is such a devious fucking system with nowehere to turn, that the only way I can describe it is as a carceral system.
My partner has worked hard his whole life. He was a welder who happily worked in the ship building industry until neoliberals made landfall here in the 90s and he as a union man (steward) was eventually let go. He did odd jobs after that, but never found anything permanent so he decided to go to nursing school and became a practical nurse.
He was great at it. Did it for 10 years until he got so severely burnt out by it that it nearly killed him. He has never recovered and applied for retirement then, but wasn’t allowed to retire. He’s been in these joke jobs assigned by the empoyment agency several times since. They were short contracts of all kinds, but those at least were paid work. And his disability was taken to account with things like 4 hour days which he could still do.
He has been on this slightly better unemployment now for little over a year after the last stint of work. It’s the sort of benefit that ends after a period and you drop to this shittier general benefit that we can’t survive on despite my wage. He has been looking for any part-time work for 6 months now and had zero callbacks. He could probably do part-time work, he has tons of work experience in everything from construction to elderly care.
He has been in line for adhd assessement for over 2 years at this point and is still not allowed to retire, nor does he get called in to get tested. Covid also did a number on him and he is even more forgetful, tired and easily stressed than before.
And now the unemployment agency decided to put him into a 3 months “work rehearsal” which means no wage slave labor, full time. As a janitor for some small business owner. This way he gets to stay on that higher benefit tier for three more months, but after that it will end anyway. This is no prospect for actual waged work, nor does he get even meals or any support for commuting, but has to pay all that out of pocket. Yet it is mandatory and if he was to refuse, his entire benefit would be cut.
He also can’t call in sick at all, because sick days for the poors have a 7 day wait period for any sort of sick leave payment and unemployment also isn’t paid for sick days. So if he can’t do this, he gets financially fucked.
So here I sit. Listening to this amazing human sleep as he has to get up at 6am to go to work for free and pay for the bus to get there. All to be just as unemployed three months from now as he is now. Time he could spend trying to find actual paid part-time work that would not burn him out.
This won’t end well. I hate it.
He works for free? What!?
Many young people are put in this “work try-out” as well, but wait, there’s more…
The Finnish unemployment system has for decades had a thing called “rehabilitative work” where long term unemployed are put and essentially made to work for free. Or they do get 9€/day of “expense reimbursement”, lol.
This too isn’t a choice or something people can say no to. If you do, your unemployment is ended or you are sanctioned. My partner has done this too, twice. The work is typically third sector stuff and isn’t so bad, but this is how the third sector&state system has been running for years and these “rehabilitative workers” have also been the backbones of municipality funding because municipalities have been getting state funding to “employ them”. This money is never seen by the people doing the actual work.
And as an icing on this shitcake, starting next year the cutting of social security will include the basic social security too that everyone should have a right to get regardless of their situation. It’s never been true though, they always deny it if they can find a loophole.
But as of Jan they can cut it by 50% without notice if the person “refuses to participate in activating actions with the unemployment agency”. This includes disabled, ill and other comrades who aren’t allowed to retire or who are otherwise clearly unable to work. But everyone has to “activate” or they will starve.
Come to think of it, I had to do something similar when I was on food stamps a few years ago (in Burgerland). It comes from a resentment of people on benefits, who are perceived as unfairly gaming the system for an easy, free ride. I’m just surprised that it exists in the “SocDem holy land” of
Scandinaviathe Nordic countries.Oh it exists. It’s just framed as “a benefit” to “provide participation” as per neoliberalism.
The people in the unemployment agencies generally think they are doing good things. I know, I have to work with them.
Oh it exists. It’s just framed as “a benefit” to “provide participation” as per neoliberalism.
The people in the unemployment agencies generally think they are doing good things. I know, I have to work with them.
I don’t know who copied who but it looks similar to what I’ve seen in Denmark. Another one of the “good” social-democracies the libs love to point at. Similarly, shitty law changes happened back in the summer.
Sorry you’re being put through this.
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Yeah afaik Finnish ghouls have very keenly adopted a lot of the very horrible Danish practices.
And this shit also takes you right back to pre-WW2 Germany statebuilding. It’s pretty clear what the ideological roots are.
At this stage I wouldn’t be surprised if we all end up getting herded into gas chambers as useless eaters. Quite frankly at this point it would be a relief for me.