Join the union

The Union of Journalists in Finland membership hinges on your profession and not your education or training.

The union’s members include people who are employees or freelance journalists and who work for the press, broadcasting, publishing and online media.

You can become a member of the UJF if your work involves essential journalistic features and is professional in nature.

‘Professional’ in this context means that a significant portion of your earnings derive from such work that has essential journalistic qualities. This does not include hobbies, such as running a blog or occasionally helping out on a paper or magazine.

It is up to you to assess the journalistic or professional nature of your activity.

Journalistic supervisors may join the UJF as long as they do not primarily represent the interests of the employer, and are not mainly involved in administration, particularly financial administration.

The requirement for entrepreneur journalists, who employ other journalists in addition to themselves, is that their management of the business plays a minor role.

Communications officers are eligible for union membership if their work consists of producing news material, either for use by their organisation or for wider publication.

Student members

The UJF also extends membership to journalism students. If you are a student and your course is geared to a journalistic profession, you can apply for union membership as soon as you start your studies.

If your studies only partially concern journalism, you can apply for membership as long as you can show that you aim to become a journalist – for instance by having had a few months journalistic work experience.

Join the union, fill in the application forms (mostly in Finnish) here

New Member / Employee
New Freelance / enterpreneur member
New Student member