Today’s announcement of the Government’s intention to introduce Work for Dole/Mutual Obligation is more than a kite that is being flown.
This evening’s RTE news showed examples of where people who participate in such a scheme may work including cleaning mountain walkways, community childcare, care of the elderly. A pilot scheme of 10,000 places is to be announced next month. No mention of training for participants or support for groups who ‘employ’ participants, who more than likely have had other funding cut over the past few years. Previous employment and training initiatives required Unions and Employers to pass schemes as not displacing or replacing jobs in local economies. This is going to be more difficult to arrange in the current climate due to the professionalisation of community services and the huge job losses there have been in this sector.
It won’t be long now till we see local TD’s clamoring to get places for a community sector which has already been decimated by government cutbacks. Suddenly the Government will say that they want to help communities as well as ensure that people in receipt of benefits ‘truly want to work’.
This scheme as proposed is not much different from the entitlements for Community Employment except that it will be people on jobseekers benefit who will be entitled/forced to apply and not those who are disabled or lone parents. Community Employment has seen cuts in numbers and cuts in the supports/costs towards projects who employ people on CE. Progression on CE is not an immediate occurance either and the lack of supports for full employment in community sector hinders progression further. This new deal sounds like CE on the cheap – there is no mention of accredited training for those involved either?
A lot of emphasis will be placed by Minister O’Cuiv and supporters on the notion that this will stop people claiming unemployment benefits and be cost neutral. It will be followed by a lot of IBEC/ISME/SFA spin about the workshy etc. However there are over 450,000 people unemployed, that’s a lot of ‘shy’ people and very few of these will be forced into these schemes or voluntarily take up places. The scheme does not look at the causes of unemployment or propose solutions. It’s a form of labelling a sector of society.
I’m thinking out some of the very glaring problems with this new programme – we’ve been here before with Social Employment Schemes in the 1980′s and Community Employment from 1990′s until the present. I’m sure readers can add to this list.
– The employment of people on some sort of work for benefit programme displaces other jobs despite the ‘approval’ of unions.
– Reduces the numbers on the ‘live register’ thus looking good for the government.
– Tells people in local communities in receipt of services from those on such a scheme that they are not important enough to receive support from properly paid, qualified, motivated and trained staff – eg. services for older people, people with disabilities and children.
- supporting unemployed people back into work requires resources, experienced supervisors, care, counselling, garda clearance, follow up etc. This may be possible if this new plan is part of existing services, but I would expect community organisations who are well experienced (worn out) in employment schemes to point out the current inadequacies and require more support.
This is not an employment creation scheme and should not been seen as such, it’s being introduced by the Minister for Social Protection – actually can anyone point me to the government’s employment strategy? The IDA appears to be in a mess.
So there’s this weeks kite launched sky wards, I expect much debate and little joined up thinking from those proposing it.
A nasty, cowardly device to make unemployed people scapegoats for a manufactured recession. It also has the added odiousness of cutting essential service jobs and forcing unemployed folk who have paid for their benefits to fill the gaps left by these cuts. It establishes cheap non-unionised labour as a means of providing services. It is disgusting.
The real job to be done is extracting the money to pay for important services from the tax-dodgers, the developers and others who have salted their wealth overseas and the financial gamblers who have run rings round the few regulations in existence.
‘Work for dole’ – The Story // Aug 29, 2010 at 21:13
[...] Byrne is a little more current… I’m thinking out some of the very glaring problems with this new programme – we’ve [...]
So O’Cuiv is another Minister who wants to lose his seat at the next election? The lack of joined-up thinking knows no bounds in this administration. Is this your best idea Minister? Your grandfather would be so proud. The unemployed are not the problem, we could actually be part of the solution.
Not only is the real economy losing jobs, but govt policy excerbated the dole numbers, an Unemployment Creation Scheme of sorts! The Government disposed of thousands of temporary workers/ seasonal employees when the “crisis” hit in 2008. Many low-paid public sector worker has their contracts discontinued. These workers didn’t cost that much to employ and did contribute a little in psri and tax, but they were thrown on the scrapheap. I find it outrageous that a minister now suggest the unemployed should be made work for nothing. That is slavery!
If they had any “smarts”… they should reverse those snippy little cuts and restore the level of services in various institutions by re-hiring those who were laid off (in brutal fashion with no notice of the P45 being issued at the end of a contract). Immediately they would cut the dole numbers and offer a low-cost way of creating jobs that might help people get a foot on the career ladder. Ditto, where work needs to be done… pay people something and encourage work not slavery-workfare.
Oh, right, that might show innovation.
Great article. It’s quite shocking that they think that this is a good idea. It strikes me as yet another expression of the attitude that politics is “economics by another means”. Treating people as cold economic units, and claiming that they’re lazy or work-shy if they can’t find work in a recession indicates a loss of the original ideals of the welfare state – that our fellow citizens are entitled to a basic level of living standards, regardless of the circumstances of the employment market or their economic value to society.
Indeed the idea that people on the dole need to work to make it “cost neutral” is a further, worse, form of this line of thought. We might refer to ourselves as “Ireland Inc” when we are talking about our economic performance, but we can’t run society like a business.
And the idea is now floating in the national media… there is a total disconnect with reality on the part of the government and it’s shocking that the unemployed are being described as the abject in Irish society when those most responsible for this crisis are still being chauffered around in their mercs. Considering the billions Lenny and the cabal have wasted on Anglo, i’m just still gobsmacked by this idea.
Hmmm…Sounds a bit like thepolicies in communist russia back in the days ofstalin or the ideas some socialist nutcase at worst but is failing to acknowledge any humility with regards who is responsible for this mess.
Let me get this right..Investors risk a tiny fraction oftheir wealth in our banks which play dice with billions usingobviously no due diligence while paying themselves shameful salaries and expenses.Then their game or pyramid schemeponzy or whatever goes wrong and the people who have been tricked into paying horrendous prices for a roof over their head bail them out then lose their jobs and instead of their prsi protecting themis going to have to report for duty to the furher and become a humiliated serf so we can pay forthe rich to be not inconvenienced.
Then wehave a fire sale of OUR state assest at a sweet price to these same type creatures so they can rip us off with higher bills for OUR utilities that we already owned.
This is nothing short of the largest looting and decimation of ordinary people inhuman history.