"Immigrants' knowledge of Finnish language should be promoted"

Union of Health and Social Care Professionals publishes new survey

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The most important means to make an improvement in the status of immigrants in Finland is to promote their knowledge of the Finnish language.
      Furthermore, it could be necessary to teach them Swedish as well - particularly health-care vocabulary.
      These are the conclusions drawn by the Union of Health and Social Care Professionals (TEHY) from the findings of a survey among members that was conducted recently and published on Wednesday.
     
The purpose of the study was to glean information on the number of foreign-born employees, their background, education, work, and their treatment in the social and health sector.
      Currently, only a few percent of the Finnish health-care professionals have an immigrant background.
      Since last spring, the Head of TEHY's International office, Soile Tammisto, together with the union's Labour Policy Officer Kirsi Markkanen, has been studying the status of immigrants in health-care work community, their position in the labour market, as well as their expectations from the labour union.
     
The biggest obstacles facing those who wish to find a job in the health sector include inadequate language skills, differences in the systems of degrees, as well as insufficient multicultural skills within work communities. Typically, it takes immigrants a long time to find their place in a work community.
      A total of 71 percent of all immigrant respondents felt that they were treated in the same way as other employees in their workplaces.
      However, one in two immigrant members have faced discrimination and prejudices - racism from patients and their relatives, as well as from colleagues or the employer.
      The experiences include name-calling related to ethnic background, underestimation of their professional skills, inequal treatment, criticism of their language skills, and distrust.
      The targets of racism are most obviously the immigrants of Russian and Estonian origin as well as those with a different complexion compared with the native population.
      Apparently, the most negative work environments include large and busy workplaces in the public sector, for example health centres.
     
According to TEHY, Finland does not focus seriously enough on the employment of immigrants nor on the multiculturisation of the health-care sector.
      In the union's view, the social and health sector should be able to recruit more staff among those immigrants who are already resident in Finland.
      The Union of Health and Social Care Professionals is the largest union representing health care professionals in Finland. It is a member in the Finnish Confederation of Salaried Employees, STTK.
      TEHY has a total of 124,000 members. They work in the health and social sector, and about 80 percent of them are employed by municipalities and federations of municipalities.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Immigrants in Paris and Helsinki have a common problem: unemployment (15.11.2005)
  Finnish employers fail to take advantage of immigrants skills (11.11.2005)

Links:
  The Union of Health and Social Care Professionals (Tehy)

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