Helsinki (Risto Rumpunen - 17.08.2009) A group of Chinese cleaners and a Finnish job recruitment company are set to battle it out in the Finnish courts. And the backdrop to this story is that Chinese jobseekers have apparently paid huge fees to work in Finland in low wage jobs. Some jobseekers haven't even got the jobs they were promised when they left China for Finland.
In China, job-hiring agencies explained to the hopeful Chinese seeking employment in Finland that the lion’s share of the excessive recruitment fees they are obliged to pay would go to Finnish companies. Meanwhile Finnish job recruitment companies deny this and claim that they cannot take any responsibility for the actions of Chinese companies. So who gets the money?
Local courts in Helsinki and municipalities around the capital will face an unusually complicated series of civil trials this autumn. They are expected to last over seven weeks. The civil cases may be just a prelude to a long saga of criminal trials. If the Finnish public prosecutor decides to press charges against the Finnish recruitment company for work related extortion there will be weeks of more criminal trials to come.
Finnish companies began to recruit Chinese workers to work in Finlandduring the economic boom as cleaners, welders and stoneworkers among other occupations. For some time now-throughout the past few years- Chinese job seekers have been paying exorbitant recruitment fees to employment agencies guaranteeing work in Finland. The sums of money involved often exceed the equivalent of three- year earnings in China. Typical sums vary from EUR5,000 to EUR13,000.
A sidetrack becomes the main track
This coming autumn, the Espoo and Vantaa (two large municipalities adjoining Helsinki) Magistrates' courts plan to stage a long series of civil trials where lawyers representing Chinese cleaners will face a Finnish job recruitment company that has hired them to work in Finland as cleaners.
The civil court case sounds fairly simple. Timo R. Nyberg, the chairman of the board of the recruiting company Sevirita, has together with his Chinese wife, Jin Ou, recruited around one hundred cleaners from China to work inFinland for the publicly listed multinational SOL. Sevirita is demanding that several cleaners pay their outstanding rents, language courses and other fees. The cleaners are refusing to pay and instead accuse the company of unreasonably high costs and extortion.
Meanwhile SOL, the cleaning company with 8,000 employees, denies any wrongdoing. Since the dispute became public, SOL froze the agreement with Sevirita and has tried to wash its hands of the problem. Over the years SOL has carefully tried to brand itself as a sunny and open- minded company with no strict hierarchy.
Timo R. Nyberg has arranged apartments, language training and taken care of other practical arrangements for the Chinese. Finnish language courses and basic training for work as a cleaner have been held at SOL's offices. Cleaners claim that Timo R. Nyberg has presented himself as an SOL employee. Occasionally, he has paid visits to Chinese cleaners with representatives of the Chinese Embassy.
At first glance, rent and other fees taken by the Finnish company's boss, Timo R. Nyberg, from the Chinese cleaners don't appear to be extraordinarily high. The Chinese cleaners are paying rents of between EUR250 and EUR280 a month for apartments that are probably worth a little less. Cleaners claim that in addition to paying too high rents, too many people have been living in the apartments arranged for them by Nyberg.
The language courses have been a joke, the Chinese say. They have paid EUR280 for a once a week course, run by an unqualified teacher. Nyberg is said to have forced the Chinese cleaners to sign contracts, which in effect oblige…or compel… them to pay for the monthly language lessons and service fees.
However, what really haunts this whole trial business is the big question concerning the massive recruitment fees paid by these Chinese workers inChina before setting foot in Finland. But whatever happened in China and whoever took the money are questions outside the jurisdiction of the Finnish judicial system…or are they?
Indeed, the magnitude of this whole question (and the implications for the future) which now hangs like a dark shadow over this forthcoming legal dispute-the ‘recruitment fee’ scandal- is likely to be far greater than anyone has anticipated. Apart from establishing who has received what money and under what circumstances in this instance, the case of recruited Chinese labour in Finland raises a host of other questions, which involves foreign labour in general, and especially workers which come from outside the EU.
Where should we draw the line between extortion, human trafficking and slavery? How should these kinds of disagreements be dealt with? And where should trials be held…in Europe or in China? Who should take responsibility if a European company recruits labour from another company in China that makes its clients sign agreements that are totally unacceptable by European standards? Who takes the responsibility if things go wrong when a large company that is using a tiny company as a go-between in recruiting workers from a third company overseas?
The civil court cases are just a prelude. Matti Penttinen's law firm, representing Chinese cleaners, and Sevirita will have to face each other again also at Espoo and Helsinki Magistrate's Courts later this year. Over fifty Chinese cleaners have filed lawsuits against Sevirita.
After the civil trial there may be other criminal charges and trials ahead, since Helsinki Criminal Police is also investigating the case as one of possible extortion. In the event of a public prosecutor deciding to press charges, long drawn out proceedings can be expected. Inevitably, whatever happens will undoubtedly have significance for European employment legislation.
How far should a large employment or recruitment company's responsibility extend when hiring employees from overseas? How much should they be required to find out about the company they are dealing with? Who takes responsibility when a recruitment agency hires workers outside Europe from another agency that acts in a way that is contrary to all the principles of legislation applied within the European Union?
When an employee suspects wrongdoing and wants redress or wishes to sue his or her recruitment company, where should he or she seek justice - in the country where the work is being undertaken or in the country where the actual hiring took place? And finally, where do we draw the line between abuse, extortion and human trafficking?
Who has pocketed the recruitment fees?
Notwithstanding all the legal machinery at hand it will be very difficult to address all aspects of the case through the Finnish courts. From a strictly legal angle or legal point of view…this seems like a straightforward case…to determine how much rent these Chinese cleaners should pay along with other legitimate or illegitimate fees and whether or not they have been overcharged. But in point of fact, the most important question is the one which looms large in the background: Who actually gets the money handed over in China i.e. the money that the cleaners have paid to the recruitment companies?
Many of the Chinese cleaners, recruited for SOL by Sevirita, have taken loans to get their jobs. Now, they are finding it incredibly hard to pay back their loans, given their low net earnings. Many feel anxiety and are afraid of what will happen if they lose their jobs. Some have been forced to often skip meals. And at least some of them believed, on arriving in Finland, that part of the massive recruitment fees they forked out would go to cover the language course and other fees.
A Chinese cleaner, originating from Northern China, was recruited through a local recruiting company. Qing Jie (not his real name) explains:
"I paid in my home town to a local recruitment company and later inBeijing to an international recruitment company altogether EUR8,500. I know some who have paid the fees but have not even received any visa or overseas job. The recruitment company has explained that they didn't speak good enough English. They lost all of their money but the recruitment company claims to be searching for work for them and keep asking them to pay more money for English courses and promising one day to find work for them."
"Before we left Beijing for Finland they took us to a big office building and into a small office there. On hindsight we felt that perhaps the company didn't even have an office there or just two people working there. Perhaps they wanted to give us the impression that they are part of a big corporation. They told us that most of the money that we paid is going abroad to Finland and to the recruiting agency over there. Here we learnt that an employer is not allowed to take money from a job seeker."
"I had already paid all the fees in China, but upon my arrival here, was told that I can't stay because of my English not being good enough. They also said that there is no work for me in Finland. I got very anxious, as I didn't have any more money to pay for a language course. I called to the office inBeijing and finally after negotiating with them they agreed to give me a loan so I could pay for the language course and I was allowed to stay. Later I got the job but I had had to pay EUR2,500 for the language course, and now I owe the money to them."
In China recruitment fees are common practise
The European Union has made it illegal to charge recruiting fees from jobseekers. In China and many other countries it is common practise. The price varies according to who is asking and to who is paying. Some recruiting companies charge modest fees while others demand such high fees that their working practise is very similar to human trafficking or even slavery.
A Finnish citizen, researcher and businessman with a PhD in chemistry, Jinghui Yang, who has lived most of his life in China but now lives in Finland says that corruption is very widespread in China.
"Contracts offered by many Chinese recruiting agencies are so strict and strange, that often it is impossible for a person who has signed such a contract to comply with it. For example a contract that I once read stated that an employee has to be prepared to return to China from Finland within 24 hours notice, if required by the recruiting company. Just looking at the flight schedules it would have been impossible to fulfil. Most of these strict and peculiar contracts are illegal even in China but local government officials and judges occasionally accept them."
"It is easy to corrupt judges and officials in China but it is a high risk game. If someone makes a complaint or an appeal against decisions made at lower levels of government or at local level and the case goes to a higher court, the ruling may be changed and the judges and officials that have made earlier decisions may be punished. These punishments are often very tough, so in effect corrupt judges and officials often try to stop people making complaints to higher level of courts."
Recruiting companies regularly charge fees from jobseekers. Usually these fees are no more than one or two months' pay, just a fraction of the fees the cleaners had to pay for their jobs in Finland. In China a monthly pay of EUR200 is good income.
"Chinese, before their arrival in Europe, find it often difficult to calculate how much their net income will be. In China, there is income tax but regularly Chinese employees don't know how high or low are their personal taxes as they only see what they get paid in cash."
"Local government officials often run recruitment companies. An official government document that I read, recommended that recruitment companies shouldn't ask fees that are higher than 12.5 per cent of the job seekers income", Yang explains.
SOL washes its hand
SOL, the Finnish-based multinational cleaning company, employs over 8,000 workers in Finland, the Baltic countries and Russia. It has carefully built and tried to maintain image as a sunny and positive workplace that doesn't have a strict hierarchy. The company CEO Anu Eronen and the head of personnel and legal affairs Juhana Olkkola say that they have been very pleased with their Chinese workers. They have proven to be hard working and obedient. Chinese cleaners have not made any more complaints against the employer than other workers. Of the hundred recruited Chinese only a few have left the company.
However, the public attention on the massive fees the Chinese cleaners have been forced to pay, has been bad for SOL's image. The company has tried to keep very quite about the whole issue. The company has offered the Chinese cleaners assistance in joining the service sector national trade union PAM. The union has helped the Chinese to contact legal counsellors and to sue the recruitment company.
In spite of SOL's positive attitude towards Chinese cleaners, the company's role raises unpleasant questions. Why didn't the company do anything when they obviously already knew about the massive fees being taken in China? SOL froze its contract with Sevirita last autumn only after the problems had been made public by the Finnish media.
A big company such as SOL could have easily afforded to send its own recruiting experts to China to find the labour it was looking for. Instead SOL chose the cheapest option and decided to use a small recruiting company. SOL paid around 500 euros for each recruited Chinese cleaner. The amount of money the Finnish recruiting company gets from SOL is so small that even if it manages to recruit hundreds of Chinese, the profit margins from this business can't be described as lucrative for a Finnish company.
Helsinki Criminal Police Investigates
Chinese recruiting companies that have been dealing with the cleaners inFinland, have often deliberately frightened cleaners into being extremely obedient, law abiding and warned them that the police and government officials cannot be trusted. From a Finnish perspective this is offensive and odd, since Finns themselves tend to trust the police.
Primed with such scare stories it is hardly surprising that many of the Chinese cleaners have been afraid to speak out and talk to the police. The affair would probably have not become known to the police had not two young cleaners been caught shoplifting. When they were caught, arrested and interrogated, they told their story for the first time and revealed how much they had paid in China to recruiting companies.
Since then the police has questioned over sixty cleaners who have arrived in Finland to work at the cleaning company. In the next couple of months the public prosecutor will decide weather or not to press charges against the representatives of the recruitment company Sevirita.
The Chief Inspector of Helsinki Criminal Police, Arto Karalahti, sounds almost apologetic when I ask him if the police will investigate Finnish companies' connections in China. He says the Helsinki police have no experience or authority to conduct investigation in China. While I talk to him I get the feeling that the Central Criminal Police passed the ongoing investigation to the Helsinki Police thinking that these cases are not interesting enough for them.
Since the two young cleaners were caught, wild rumours have been circulating inside the cleaning company. Some believed that the two cleaners systematically stole clothes, towels, shampoos and fashion accessories for re-sale on a grand scale. In reality, the total value of stolen merchandise was just little over two thousand euros. When they were caught, they confessed immediately and begged for forgiveness. They spent four days in jail and received a short suspended jail sentence. Since then both have travelled back to China.
Most of the nearly hundred cleaners that arrived to work in Finland are still working for SOL.
Paltry earnings may result in an immigrant worker
losing the right to live in Finland
Chinese cleaners earn in Finland a minimum of EUR1,200 per month. If they live on a shoestring they will survive and perhaps they can pay back the hefty recruitment fees over a period of several years. But most of them have promised to pay the money back to their parents and relatives far sooner than they actually can.
Their monthly incomes are not only very small but they also vary from day to day and from season to season. After taxation, rent, food and other expenses very little is left on which to live on. In relation to their monthly net income the extra fee of EUR280 for language education and other fees demanded by the recruitment company Sevirita is a real burden for them.
But returning empty handed to China would be a big embarrassment for them. It would mean losing face… public shame. In China they would never be able to earn enough to pay back the recruitment fees they have paid to get the jobs in Finland.
In Finland, the current economic recession may make living very difficult for all low-income workers and especially for immigrant labour. The Finnish Immigration Service has a right to refuse work permits to foreigners who cannot prove that they earn enough to survive in Finland which in effect means earning at least a little more than EUR1,000 per month.
If an employee’s income drops below that, anyone living in Finland is entitled to social support from the state or local councils. A foreign national’s visa may be rejected or terminated on this bases. There are some exceptions to the rule as in the case of entrepreneurs and small business owners.