Immigrant members of the IWW attend the Finnish Language “Integration” Programs in Tampere, Finland, as Unemployed Job Seeker (UJS). The programme is provided by the private trade school TAKK. Admin at TAKK have not been keeping to their legal requirement to provide UJS Immigrants with the curriculum for their Language Integration (e.g. what they will be learning, what they will be tested on).
When Fellow Workers (FWs) made requests for the education provider curriculum, they were pulled out of class & ambushed by an unscheduled meeting with admin/bosses. FWs were shown the curriculum document in Finnish but provided no translator support, were not allowed to take pictures or use digital translation. FWs demanded a rescheduled meeting to allow Allied Translators to be present instead of accepting the admin provided answers about the curriculum.
On Tuesday June 17th as lunch was called and FWs ate Thai egg fried rice, funded, prepared and distributed by the workers themselves. At 12:20 FWs (numbering far beyond the originally ambushed group) flooded the meeting forcing it to be moved from a tiny room to a full class room with enough space for everyone interested in their rights as Workers in the program.
Admin attempted to gain control of the situation by turning the meeting into a lecture and tried to re-establish a educator/student dynamic. Their sweettalk and filibustering was shot down as the rear of the class room became the front of opposition: Allied Translators delivering demands and concerns in Finnish side by side with UJS Immigrants/FWs, with some hurling back English retorts.
Finally with admin confidence in their own horseshit broken down, the more important parts(module) of the legally entitled curriculum was shown via projector and promised to be printed for the UJS Immigrants/FWs present. Fellow Workers with Allied Translators not being satisfied, further reviewed and translated the “trade secret” portion of curriculum documents still not made ours to take but those in the programme are legally entitled to.
Wednesday June 18th most classes were helmed by substitutes as majority of admin/educators had fucked off on Finnish Holiday without printing the module curriculum for those in the programme to study over the holiday weekend for the tests on June 25th & 26th. From the bottom up making demands for what FWs are entitled to, one admin handing the task off to the next, FWs finally arrived at the same admin from the meeting trying to dodge the responsibility.
Figuratively dragging admin kicking & screaming to the printing room they tried to get away with printing only one copy to be shared, Workers continued to pull teeth to get a printed module curriculum for every UJS Immigrant/FW in the class. From these, FWs were able to create a study guides by adding page numbers/notes to each referenced subject. With study guides in hand FWs can now properly prepare & study for the tests to progress another step towards employment.
With every question posed, with every battle for knowledge won, the education system’s hierarchical structure crumbles to a flat of equal footing. The UJS Immigrant/FW’s struggle continues for everything we are entitled to and more. Solidarity Forever.