Finland Forum

spacepol
Joined 2009
Posts: 30

14 years ago

Expat Alternatives to the Finnish Professional Associations?

14 years ago

We are currently gathering information in advance of an expat conference to be held near the summer in Espoo, Finland regarding current conditions in Finland. One of the candidate issues for discussion is that of alternatives to the current regime of the Finnish professional associations.

What we would like to hear from expats here is whether you feel that a separate professional / academic association for western expats in Finland would be something worth discussing at the planned conference. If so, could you also mention your area of profession (legal, research, technical, medical, etc.)?

Method I:

The idea is that long-term expats in Finland would create a multi-professional professional society (basic) for and by expats in Finland in order to improve our working conditions and employment situation. We would also provide truthful information about profiessional expats in Finland and their expertise (which are more often than not erased from the official Finnish landscape).

The "Separate Professional Association of Finland" is one model or solution. The other is that of providing pragmatic help to current and new expats, including explaining to them that if they wish to actively participate in their profession, they might well establish or hold on to their association memberships in their own country and be active via the Internet while simply joining the least expensive Finnish association in order to be covered by the unemployment fund.

We are currently considering expat alternatives to:

Lakimiesliitto
Journalistiliitto
Tieteentekijöiden liitto
Publicistförbundet
TEK

Method II:

An example of the pragmatic method described above which does not involve creating a separate association for expats would be something like this:

David is Canadian (speaks fluently Finnish) and has lived in Finland for fifteen years. He is a multidisciplinary expert well-known in several fields, including Computers and Law. He feels that the Finnish union he has belonged to for years has little to offer him. He would like to be active and contribute to a law society as well as take part in the decision-making process of that society.

Solution: David joins a generic union in Finland in order to be covered by the unemployment fund (which is unfortunately not divorced from association membership as it is in other Nordic countries). He becomes a member of several Canadian and American law societies / bar associations and even get his five friends in Norway and Sweden to help him start a Nordic Chapter of the Canadian Bar Association.

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