JHL (29.01.2016 - Heikki Jokinen) JHL managed to attract 12,837 new members in 2015 bringing its membership to 225,000.
However, the total number of members is now somewhat lower than a year before. Even though there were a lot of new members joining, due to the number of retired members the total membership of JHL sank by a couple of per cent.
JHL is the second largest trade union in Finland, just after the Service Union United PAM.
A clear majority of members are women, 70 per cent. This majority has just become even stronger, as 74 per cent of the new members in 2015 were women.
The Union also got around 4,000 new student members last year - a bit less than the year before.
Some 8,300 of JHL members belong to the four organisational member affiliates, which are separate unions within JHL. These are the Finnish Customs Officers’ Union, the Finnish Prison Officers’ Union, the Finnish Non-Commissioned Officers' Union and the Border security Union. 216,617 members belong directly to JHL.
Pertti Paajanen, Head of Membership Services Unit at JHL says that the state and municipal policy in respect of not filling vacancies can be seen in the Union membership development.
“There are, however, potential members, we just have to reach them.” This became evident last autumn when people strenuously opposed the Government plans to cut working peoples' holidays and other benefits by law.
“During that time exceptionally many wage and salary earners joined JHL. The net growth exceeded by 25 per cent the figure at the same time the year before”, Paajanen says.
The biggest group to join JHL last year were those working in institutional cleaning, 545 new members. The other major groups were working as practical nurses, 513 and in child care, 374 people.
Finland is a bilingual country, Finnish and Swedish being the national languages. Some 7,100 JHL members have Swedish as their mother tongue. The average age of a JHL member is now 52.