How much is a euro’s work worth? Well, it depends on who has earned it.
So called experts have discussed paying international employees working in Finland 15% less than the agreed wage in the sector, and justified it as fair due to the employees’ lack of local language skills.
At the same time, these experts say they want to attract top talent to Finland, and ensure the competitiveness of Finnish companies. How that would be achieved by underpaying part of the workforce, thereby not just exploiting foreigners, but also adding pressure on local employees, is anyone’s guess.
To make matters worse, many of these experts also refuse to admit that there are structural reasons behind marked differences in Finnish salary levels, based on for example the employee’s gender, ability and age.
New proposals to “reform” the labour market, which aim at cutting salaries and weakening employee rights, only serve to worsen an already unequal situation, where people are denied equal pay for equal work. This is not radical change.
It is unfortunate that this needs to be said in year 2021, but real radical change would be to pay everyone the same for the same work, irrespective of their gender, citizenship, age, ability or other reason related to the individual.
