One hundred thousand euros in unpaid wages

A foreign worker contacted the Finnish Construction Trade Union (Rakennusliitto) about problems relating to the termination of their employment and the terms and conditions of employment. The member was employed by a Finnish construction company last summer and worked on two industrial sites. The company acted as a subcontractor in projects for well-known Finnish companies.

In late autumn 2025, one of the company’s two responsible persons set up a new Finnish company. Workers were informed that work would continue under the new company. The work would involve the same tasks at the same sites and with the same induction – only the company’s name and business ID would change. The worker’s employment relationship was terminated as a probation-period cancellation exactly three months into the “new” employment relationship.

Due to ambiguities, the Finnish Construction Trade Union used a power of attorney to request access control records from the sites, plus time-tracking records and payslips from the employer. Investigative work revealed discrepancies between access control and time tracking, along with significant shortcomings in the payment of wages.

Access control records matched timesheets approved by the client, but revealed that some working hours had not been paid at all. The worker was also only paid group I-level wages, despite performing a wide range of construction tasks.

At that time, the company worked on two major sites. On one of them, more than 20 of the company’s employees had undergone induction. There was justified reason to suspect that the flagrant shortcomings in wage payments affected multiple workers.

The Finnish Construction Trade Union presented the client companies and principal contractors on the construction sites with a ‘UTS’ claim, which concerns responsibility for the wages of a subcontractor’s employees. The company immediately remedied some of its shortcomings relating to the incorrect wage grouping, and agreed on a timeframe within which it would investigate and pay any missing working hours and remuneration for overtime.

Ultimately, the company’s workers were paid well over 100,000 euros in missing wages, taking the company’s indirect costs into account.

Agency work disguised as subcontracting

Jussi Sakari, a specialist at the Finnish Construction Trade Union’s international labour unit, says that similar arrangements can be found on all major construction sites in Finland.

“It’s how the system has become established. Principal contractors have nowhere near as much of their own workforce as they used to, and the same is beginning to apply to their primary contractual partners. Contracts are being chained ever further, pushing employer risk down the line. At the end of the contracting chain, the work is essentially agency work disguised as subcontracting.”

Companies at the end of the chain are often either foreign companies or Finnish companies with foreign background owners or managers. Both have a large number of foreign workers on their payrolls.

“It’s in these companies’ interests to get as many workers performing billable work onto construction sites as possible and then pay them the lowest possible wages,” says Sakari.

The Finnish Construction Trade Union receives tip-offs about similar cases from shop stewards and other active union members. Sometimes, victims of exploitation have the courage to contact the union, especially if their employment relationship has either ended or is definitely coming to an end.

“But workers with no language skills, those whose vulnerable circumstances force them to accept poor working conditions, rarely get in touch. It is unfortunately very common for foreign workers to work on worse terms than those set out in the collective agreements for the construction industry, even if they are aware of the correct Finnish terms.”

Cases of underpayment are sometimes unearthed when Finnish Construction Trade Union officials receive a power of attorney from exploitation victims to begin investigations.

“In such cases, we can obtain access control data from a construction site, because everyone is entitled to their own data. A power of attorney also means we can speak for the member. Principal contractors usually provide information quickly, but the process can prove more difficult with some international principal contractors,” explains Sakari.