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This is not precisely about the filter list but the whole shenanigans that led to it. Persons from other countries might be interested in this little quirk of F

This is not precisely about the filter list but the whole shenanigans that led to it. Persons from other countries might be interested in this little quirk of Finland. Especially as it relates to workers rights in general. In Finland, unique among Nordic countries, political strikes are allowed. What does this mean? Let's say you're not happy about a decision made by Trump you can go to a strike. Sure the company doesn't have to pay you but they also must allow you to come back to work without repercussions when you decide. It's basically unlimited unpaid holiday. Or alternatively keeping the employer hostage in order to affect the behavior of an unrelated third party. So obviously we as a country are bit torn on the issue as what can the employer do about it? Go to white house and take Trump as hostage so that he would change his decision? It is also questionable from democratic perspective. Why should a subset of population have more saying than the rest. Shouldn't everyone have a single vote and based on that decisions are made. Instead of a minority having a vote + a veto right. Similar overreactions like this adblock may come as right now bunch of major unions are protesting against government and that has brought political strikes back into limelight.

jarcane 8y ago
> So obviously we as a country are bit torn on the issue as what can the employer do about it? Go to white house and take Trump as hostage so that he would change his decision? Given how cozy the ruling coalition are with business interests, this is hardly some one sided thing over which only one party has control. Sipilä isn't just pulling this shit for fun, that's not how Finnish business or politics works. Everyone knows everyone, and the PM himself has personal business interests even. The rule serves as a check against the collusion of the state and capital. As a card-carrying union member, I quite happily support any and all attempts to block this coalition's relentless attacks on workers' rights.
- sharpneli 8y ago
  It depends. The card carrying union members in our company are protesting the strike. They want the union to focus on their contracts and not go against government some of the members potentially voted for. So it’s a bit more complex issue. I just wanted to tell HN readers that there even is such a thing as a political strike.
  - jarcane 8y ago
    If you do not stand with all workers, you will be divided, and fall. That's what solidarity means. I have a cushy tech job, with a big company, so the recent attempted changes probably won't affect me at all. But if they can go after those it will and get away with it, then next time they will come for me, and there will be no united front left to defend me. The alternative is we end up like America, and as much as some blinkered people in tech and business seem to want that for their own greedy purposes, a good look at the news should tell you why that's not a road we should want to go down.
    - sharpneli 8y ago
      The difference is in methods. Not on the concepts. As an example I aim for system where employment is at will but that is balanced by strong social security and unemployment benefits. It kinda gives best of both worlds. When you are not screwed when you're fired you don't need insanely strong protections. I refuse to accept that as a worker I have to support decisions that I personally think as stupid just due to "solidarity". I vote based on my own conscience just like everyone else ought to vote according to theirs. If Finland was like Sweden where unions don't have legislative power I'd by all means belong into one. And considering that so many more in Sweden belong in unions vs in Finland I am not alone in my thoughts.
      - ahje 8y ago
        Please don't look at Sweden as an example for how it should work. Personally, I'd prefer a system more like the Danish one, with unions that are less politicized but with a social welfare net that will catch you fairly quick if you need to change jobs or get fired or whatever. I worked on that side of the Pond for almost a decade, and was quite involved in the union where I worked. They're quite politicized there as well although I heard the Social Democrats are slowly losing their grip of the larger unions now.
      - jarcane 8y ago
        There's more to at-will employment than just "unemployment kinda sucks." At-will employment is the reason there's no real workers' rights in the US. If the employer can fire you at any time on a whim and for no reason, it becomes impossible to enforce any other labor protection laws, from discrimination on down. Sure it was illegal for my employer to fire me from my job at a thrift shop in the States after I got injured on the job doing work I shouldn't legally have been expected to do alone. So they just found another excuse and fired me anyway (in this case, because I took a day off to mourn my dying father. Remember what I said about America?). This happens over and over, with racial, gender, disability discrimination, labor violations, and on and on. There's no real way to enforce the law when there's a giant loophole around it, and who do you think has more money to win a labor suit? The unemployed person, or the company who fired them? There's also the pressure and the power imbalance it creates. If my employer can fire me whenever they want for no reason, then I have basically no clout at all on the job. I'm under relentless pressure to just do whatever I'm told, because if I don't, then I'm out on my ass in a day. You make a normally small mistake on a day when the boss is in a bad mood? Disagree with the wrong manager? Decide to stand up when the corporation wants you to do something unethical, or even illegal? Tough luck. Better hit the dole queue tomorrow. It creates a constant, oppressive pressure on employees, because you will never have job security. You are always one bad day or one wrong move away from the unemployment line. And let's face it, the same kind of voters and politicians who say things like you do, are the same ones that aren't gonna be in a hurry to raise the unemployment benefit to actually fit the cost of living. The last time I lost my job in Finland I nearly wound up homeless (surprise! I was on the very probationary period the gov't wants to extend indefinitely, and got let go along with all the other new hires, so my startup could cook the books for the VCs). Helsinki benefits haven't been adjusted for cost of living since the 70s, and if you think the same government looking to toss more people out on the street is gonna be in a hurry to fix that, well then I have some very interesting cryptocurrency investments I'd love to show you. Part of having a strong safety net is employees having the security not to need it all the time. If anyone can just shit-can people for something as simple as fudging the budget for next quarter, then unemployment costs rise, and the response to that has consistently been to cut benefits, not raise them. For all the system is imperfect here, Finns need to understand just how good they have it already, and stop supporting people who want to drag us down to the Americans' level just to make a few more euros.
- vnorilo 8y ago
  I'm a Finnish enterpreneur and priviledged tech guy. While I'm politically right of (Finnish) centre, I've been voting left recently because I perceive the ruling coalition is doing crony capitalism and unsound policy. Even here in the social democratic north the deck is being stacked against workers. We must be careful of any attempts to further weaken them.
atq2119 8y ago
> It is also questionable from democratic perspective. Why should a subset of population have more saying than the rest. I wouldn't accept this argument at face value unless you were unusually disciplined about applying it equally everywhere. For example, applying this rule equally everywhere means, among other things, eliminating capitalism. After all, capitalism creates a significant imbalance in power in practice via private ownership of the means of production. (It doesn't necessarily mean abolishing the free market, though - some form of market socialism should be compatible with democracy even in this extreme interpretation.) If we step back from the extremes again, it's clear that this is all about balancing acts. Capitalist power means that a tiny minority has much more say than the rest. Political strikes can be a useful tool to provide a counterbalance. Maybe there are better ways to provide this counterbalance, but you can't just take employee rights away without taking appropriate measures elsewhere as well to balance things out again.
- sharpneli 8y ago
  I should have been more clear with "more say than the rest". I referred to making the laws of the country. In Finland the parliament makes the laws according to the constitution and everyone has a single vote for electing members of said parliament. From what I know companies have no extra votes to give for representatives.
  - cgio 8y ago
    Do they have extra money to give to representatives?
    - jlawson 8y ago
      Yes but at the end of the day all they can do is use that money to try to convince other voters to choose to vote their way. The power to convince is different from the power to flatly override the wishes of others. If you start trying to equalize the power to convince, now you're upending the entire media/journalistic system (where reporters and filmmakers and celebrities have far more influence than normal people) as well as the economy.
ahje 8y ago
The fact that people are abusing tools for ad-blocking to achieve political goals is a major breach of trust. This is the main issue. For the record, political strikes happen in the other Nordic countries as well. According to a quick search on the Internet, the only Nordic citizens who are _not_ allowed to partake in a political strike are public servants in Sweden.
- sharpneli 8y ago
  Yes I agree that the adblock list is a major breach of trust and should not have been done. I just wanted to give especially Americans some view on how different things may be. According to my search as an example in Denmark they're only allowed if "Short and for reasonable cause" and so forth and sweden was not listed at all, but norway was. This is likely a mix of case law and actual written law. https://www.asi.is/media/7581/Strike_rules_in_the_EU27.pdf https://www.asi.is/media/7581/Strike_rules_in_the_EU27.pdf
  - ahje 8y ago
    Yeah, there's a lot of single cases with little actual law on the subject. Finland is probably one of the few places where you can't fire an employee for participating in a poltical strike. The ability to fire someone for going on strike doesn't make the strike illegal though.
    - sharpneli 8y ago
      Amusingly not even illegal strike allows one to fire someone. In Finland even illegal strike gives you protection from retribution and the damages are capped at around 24000€ total (not per employee, but total sum for the strike and this is paid by union). So even if Finland would make political strikes illegal it would not change much.
- gear54rus 8y ago
  what even crossed the mind of the guy, I am still laughing at this. with a straight face, he opened a file called 'ad-blockin-list' and wrote words 'political stance' in them. so silly its unbelievable
snarfybarfy 8y ago
I think this is brilliant!! This gives political clout back to the normal people. Cleaners and trash disposal workers on strike for 2 months?? Country comes to a standstill. Investment bankers on strike for 2 years? Nobody noticed except for retirees that get more pension benefits.
- jusssi 8y ago
  In reality though, cleaners and trash disposal workers can't probably afford 2 weeks without salary. Investment bankers might be able to afford 2 years, but I think they'd rather get paid too.
  - Erwin 8y ago
    Unions here have a "strike budget" where if the union supports the strike, they pay a portion of your salary. Some can also give you loans.
    - jusssi 8y ago
      Yes, they do. But for many low paid jobs, you need all of your salary to make the ends meet. And the unions don't have unlimited budgets either. One of the major reasons why strikes typically last only a couple of days, is that the unions start losing their support when their members' personal financial loss exceeds the perceived importance of the issue.
codedokode 8y ago
> So obviously we as a country are bit torn on the issue as what can the employer do about it? Maybe talk to the workers? They are losing money, so the issue must be important for them.
fjsolwmv 8y ago
The strike thing is complicated, but generally, democracy does not mean "1 person 1 vote, majority rules" or even any of the representative variations. Living under a tyranny of the 51% is not democracy for the 49%. Democracy means "rule by the people". Anything that devoLves power from leaders to individuals is democratic. And anything that shifts power from some individuals to others is a complex case to analyze.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Hmm. In the UK we have representative democracy - the people choose to devolve powers to the leaders on the principle that they work full-time to make the best decisions for the population they represent. This is a huge shift of power. But perpetual referenda doesn't seem workable with present technology so rule by the demos is always going to mean devolving power to a small group, which has inherent difficulties. I like the system of the demos being able to force a referendum with a substantial minority, eg 5%. Then perhaps require a supermajority to pass legislation. This works to limit the power of the chosen representatives.
noance 8y ago
Enough with the hyperbole. The protest was directed at a proposed law that makes it easier to arbitrarily fire people rather than a political party line, and had a clearly defined length of two days. As far as I know there has never been a strike called on the basis of some individual's politically incorrect statements or political views.

jarcane 8y ago

> So obviously we as a country are bit torn on the issue as what can the employer do about it? Go to white house and take Trump as hostage so that he would change his decision? Given how cozy the ruling coalition are with business interests, this is hardly some one sided thing over which only one party has control. Sipilä isn't just pulling this shit for fun, that's not how Finnish business or politics works. Everyone knows everyone, and the PM himself has personal business interests even. The rule serves as a check against the collusion of the state and capital. As a card-carrying union member, I quite happily support any and all attempts to block this coalition's relentless attacks on workers' rights.

sharpneli 8y ago
It depends. The card carrying union members in our company are protesting the strike. They want the union to focus on their contracts and not go against government some of the members potentially voted for. So it’s a bit more complex issue. I just wanted to tell HN readers that there even is such a thing as a political strike.
- jarcane 8y ago
  If you do not stand with all workers, you will be divided, and fall. That's what solidarity means. I have a cushy tech job, with a big company, so the recent attempted changes probably won't affect me at all. But if they can go after those it will and get away with it, then next time they will come for me, and there will be no united front left to defend me. The alternative is we end up like America, and as much as some blinkered people in tech and business seem to want that for their own greedy purposes, a good look at the news should tell you why that's not a road we should want to go down.
  - sharpneli 8y ago
    The difference is in methods. Not on the concepts. As an example I aim for system where employment is at will but that is balanced by strong social security and unemployment benefits. It kinda gives best of both worlds. When you are not screwed when you're fired you don't need insanely strong protections. I refuse to accept that as a worker I have to support decisions that I personally think as stupid just due to "solidarity". I vote based on my own conscience just like everyone else ought to vote according to theirs. If Finland was like Sweden where unions don't have legislative power I'd by all means belong into one. And considering that so many more in Sweden belong in unions vs in Finland I am not alone in my thoughts.
    - ahje 8y ago
      Please don't look at Sweden as an example for how it should work. Personally, I'd prefer a system more like the Danish one, with unions that are less politicized but with a social welfare net that will catch you fairly quick if you need to change jobs or get fired or whatever. I worked on that side of the Pond for almost a decade, and was quite involved in the union where I worked. They're quite politicized there as well although I heard the Social Democrats are slowly losing their grip of the larger unions now.
    - jarcane 8y ago
      There's more to at-will employment than just "unemployment kinda sucks." At-will employment is the reason there's no real workers' rights in the US. If the employer can fire you at any time on a whim and for no reason, it becomes impossible to enforce any other labor protection laws, from discrimination on down. Sure it was illegal for my employer to fire me from my job at a thrift shop in the States after I got injured on the job doing work I shouldn't legally have been expected to do alone. So they just found another excuse and fired me anyway (in this case, because I took a day off to mourn my dying father. Remember what I said about America?). This happens over and over, with racial, gender, disability discrimination, labor violations, and on and on. There's no real way to enforce the law when there's a giant loophole around it, and who do you think has more money to win a labor suit? The unemployed person, or the company who fired them? There's also the pressure and the power imbalance it creates. If my employer can fire me whenever they want for no reason, then I have basically no clout at all on the job. I'm under relentless pressure to just do whatever I'm told, because if I don't, then I'm out on my ass in a day. You make a normally small mistake on a day when the boss is in a bad mood? Disagree with the wrong manager? Decide to stand up when the corporation wants you to do something unethical, or even illegal? Tough luck. Better hit the dole queue tomorrow. It creates a constant, oppressive pressure on employees, because you will never have job security. You are always one bad day or one wrong move away from the unemployment line. And let's face it, the same kind of voters and politicians who say things like you do, are the same ones that aren't gonna be in a hurry to raise the unemployment benefit to actually fit the cost of living. The last time I lost my job in Finland I nearly wound up homeless (surprise! I was on the very probationary period the gov't wants to extend indefinitely, and got let go along with all the other new hires, so my startup could cook the books for the VCs). Helsinki benefits haven't been adjusted for cost of living since the 70s, and if you think the same government looking to toss more people out on the street is gonna be in a hurry to fix that, well then I have some very interesting cryptocurrency investments I'd love to show you. Part of having a strong safety net is employees having the security not to need it all the time. If anyone can just shit-can people for something as simple as fudging the budget for next quarter, then unemployment costs rise, and the response to that has consistently been to cut benefits, not raise them. For all the system is imperfect here, Finns need to understand just how good they have it already, and stop supporting people who want to drag us down to the Americans' level just to make a few more euros.
vnorilo 8y ago
I'm a Finnish enterpreneur and priviledged tech guy. While I'm politically right of (Finnish) centre, I've been voting left recently because I perceive the ruling coalition is doing crony capitalism and unsound policy. Even here in the social democratic north the deck is being stacked against workers. We must be careful of any attempts to further weaken them.

atq2119 8y ago

> It is also questionable from democratic perspective. Why should a subset of population have more saying than the rest. I wouldn't accept this argument at face value unless you were unusually disciplined about applying it equally everywhere. For example, applying this rule equally everywhere means, among other things, eliminating capitalism. After all, capitalism creates a significant imbalance in power in practice via private ownership of the means of production. (It doesn't necessarily mean abolishing the free market, though - some form of market socialism should be compatible with democracy even in this extreme interpretation.) If we step back from the extremes again, it's clear that this is all about balancing acts. Capitalist power means that a tiny minority has much more say than the rest. Political strikes can be a useful tool to provide a counterbalance. Maybe there are better ways to provide this counterbalance, but you can't just take employee rights away without taking appropriate measures elsewhere as well to balance things out again.

sharpneli 8y ago
I should have been more clear with "more say than the rest". I referred to making the laws of the country. In Finland the parliament makes the laws according to the constitution and everyone has a single vote for electing members of said parliament. From what I know companies have no extra votes to give for representatives.
- cgio 8y ago
  Do they have extra money to give to representatives?
  - jlawson 8y ago
    Yes but at the end of the day all they can do is use that money to try to convince other voters to choose to vote their way. The power to convince is different from the power to flatly override the wishes of others. If you start trying to equalize the power to convince, now you're upending the entire media/journalistic system (where reporters and filmmakers and celebrities have far more influence than normal people) as well as the economy.

ahje 8y ago

The fact that people are abusing tools for ad-blocking to achieve political goals is a major breach of trust. This is the main issue. For the record, political strikes happen in the other Nordic countries as well. According to a quick search on the Internet, the only Nordic citizens who are _not_ allowed to partake in a political strike are public servants in Sweden.

sharpneli 8y ago
Yes I agree that the adblock list is a major breach of trust and should not have been done. I just wanted to give especially Americans some view on how different things may be. According to my search as an example in Denmark they're only allowed if "Short and for reasonable cause" and so forth and sweden was not listed at all, but norway was. This is likely a mix of case law and actual written law. https://www.asi.is/media/7581/Strike_rules_in_the_EU27.pdf https://www.asi.is/media/7581/Strike_rules_in_the_EU27.pdf
- ahje 8y ago
  Yeah, there's a lot of single cases with little actual law on the subject. Finland is probably one of the few places where you can't fire an employee for participating in a poltical strike. The ability to fire someone for going on strike doesn't make the strike illegal though.
  - sharpneli 8y ago
    Amusingly not even illegal strike allows one to fire someone. In Finland even illegal strike gives you protection from retribution and the damages are capped at around 24000€ total (not per employee, but total sum for the strike and this is paid by union). So even if Finland would make political strikes illegal it would not change much.
gear54rus 8y ago
what even crossed the mind of the guy, I am still laughing at this. with a straight face, he opened a file called 'ad-blockin-list' and wrote words 'political stance' in them. so silly its unbelievable

snarfybarfy 8y ago

I think this is brilliant!! This gives political clout back to the normal people. Cleaners and trash disposal workers on strike for 2 months?? Country comes to a standstill. Investment bankers on strike for 2 years? Nobody noticed except for retirees that get more pension benefits.

jusssi 8y ago
In reality though, cleaners and trash disposal workers can't probably afford 2 weeks without salary. Investment bankers might be able to afford 2 years, but I think they'd rather get paid too.
- Erwin 8y ago
  Unions here have a "strike budget" where if the union supports the strike, they pay a portion of your salary. Some can also give you loans.
  - jusssi 8y ago
    Yes, they do. But for many low paid jobs, you need all of your salary to make the ends meet. And the unions don't have unlimited budgets either. One of the major reasons why strikes typically last only a couple of days, is that the unions start losing their support when their members' personal financial loss exceeds the perceived importance of the issue.

codedokode 8y ago

> So obviously we as a country are bit torn on the issue as what can the employer do about it? Maybe talk to the workers? They are losing money, so the issue must be important for them.

fjsolwmv 8y ago

The strike thing is complicated, but generally, democracy does not mean "1 person 1 vote, majority rules" or even any of the representative variations. Living under a tyranny of the 51% is not democracy for the 49%. Democracy means "rule by the people". Anything that devoLves power from leaders to individuals is democratic. And anything that shifts power from some individuals to others is a complex case to analyze.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Hmm. In the UK we have representative democracy - the people choose to devolve powers to the leaders on the principle that they work full-time to make the best decisions for the population they represent. This is a huge shift of power. But perpetual referenda doesn't seem workable with present technology so rule by the demos is always going to mean devolving power to a small group, which has inherent difficulties. I like the system of the demos being able to force a referendum with a substantial minority, eg 5%. Then perhaps require a supermajority to pass legislation. This works to limit the power of the chosen representatives.

noance 8y ago

Enough with the hyperbole. The protest was directed at a proposed law that makes it easier to arbitrarily fire people rather than a political party line, and had a clearly defined length of two days. As far as I know there has never been a strike called on the basis of some individual's politically incorrect statements or political views.