As a member, you get the organisation’s most important membership benefit: labour market and education policy advocacy. We negotiate your terms of employment and salary and monitor their implementation on your behalf. We influence the preparation of laws and decisions that are key to your work. 

You can primarily get help and advice about your own work and the terms of your employment relationship from shop stewards trained by OAJ. 

We also offer our members a number of financial membership benefits. As a member, you will have professional legal expenses insurance.

Who can join OAJ?

You can become a member if:

• You work as a teacher or in a comparable position in the education and/or research sector
• You work as a principal or in another managerial position in the teaching and/or research sector
• You are in charge of other tasks related to education or training, such as administration, planning or research
• You are qualified as a teacher and have a valid employment contract at the time of application
• You do not qualify as a teacher, but you have an employment contract that is, for the most part, valid for one school term

In early childhood education, the union accepts as members persons who work as teachers or in supervisory duties in early childhood education and have completed degrees in social education and the Bachelors of Social Services.  

Membership does not require citizenship of Finland.

If you are a student, you can join the Teacher Student Union of Finland (SOOL) and become a member of OAJ when you graduate.

Join SOOL as a student member

Membership by school or educational institution

Your membership depends on the field of education and educational institution in which you work or where you have the most teaching hours on average.

If your workplace or the majority of your teaching hours is permanently transferred to another educational institution, you will change your association accordingly.

You can join OAJ through a teacher association, if there is one, or a local association operating in your employer’s area of activity. Almost every school, educational institution and ECEC centre has an OAJ contact teacher or person who will advise you on how to join.

The decision to approve a membership is made by the executive board of OAJ’s local association in accordance with the Association Act.

When does my membership start?

OAJ’s membership services process the membership forms in the order of arrival. The membership starts on the date you specified in the membership form.

Especially at the beginning and end of terms, the processing times for forms may be long. However, the processing time of the membership application does not delay the date of approval as a member. 

You will receive an e-mail from us as soon as your membership application has been processed.

Please note that the membership services may have sent you more detailed questions about becoming a member, in which case we are waiting for your answer. Please check your e-mail, including your spam mailbox.

Transferring to OAJ from another union

When you transfer to OAJ from another trade union, you can give OAJ a mandate to handle the transfer when you join.

You must change your trade union and unemployment fund membership within 30 days of leaving your previous union. This ensures that the months of employment, i.e. the insurance periods, accumulated during your previous trade union or unemployment fund membership are transferred to the Unemployment Fund for Education and Science with your membership.

If you want to handle the transfer yourself, you should not resign from your previous trade union and unemployment fund until you have received confirmation of your membership.

When you graduate, switch from SOOL to OAJ

Once you have graduated, you can join OAJ upon getting an employment relationship in the education sector. Even short employment relationships count.

Register your membership in My profile. Select from the menu the option about entering working life and joining OAJ.