Government wants slave labour!

The Fianna Fail Green Government has recently announced it’s ‘Work for Dole’ scheme- which they say will take up to 10,000 people off the Live Register and get them working in the community for 19 hours a week. The participants will receive 210 euro a week. The Government says that it wants to put up to 40,000 onto this scheme once the initial phase is proven a success. ICTU have already made clear the trade union’s opposition to the proposed compulsory nature of the scheme. What happens if you’re forced to work for 6 months for a boss who treats you terribly, doing a menial job that in no way completes any skill set you may have? The Bosses must be rubbing their hands. This government is talking out both sides of it’s mouth when it claims an interest in tackling unemployment. With 68,000 graduates unemployed and 92,000 under 25s- the total unemployment level is, according to the Central Statistic Office, at 16.5%. A recent Report by ICTU placed the possible unemployment level as high as 18.5%.

It seems very strange that a government that claims to be concerned about and tackling unemployment would announce a scheme destined to take 10,000 people off the dole and get them working in the community (they say they want to focus on sports, childcare and care of the elderly) when that very same government intends to sack 6,633 workers already  employed in the community sector!  70% of sports funding has been cut in disadvantaged areas and 6 million euro has already been taken from schemes to assist those with an educational disadvantage. So skilled and organized workers who give their community, not only services, but a voice, are to be given their P45s and then replaced by us unemployed- working for our dole who can’t dare complain for fear of loosing benefits?

The FAS ‘Work Placement Programme’  is an attempt to give the employers a handout at the expense of the unemployed. You get no wage- just your benefits- which means that if you begin the 6 months of work placement and you’re on Full Job Seekers Benefit but then your stamp runs out and you get means tested- well you could end up working a 40 hour week for almost nothing at all! Some of the jobs on offer in the work placement scheme include – 39 hours a week as a legal secretary or how about working a 40 hours week in a city centre shoe shop for nothing except your dole? They even have vacancies for those who would like to work in a bar for 40 hours a week for almost nothing. And if you quit the scheme? You can loose your dole. So what kind of treatment can a workforce like this expect to get from employers? And won’t the extension of such schemes undermine the ability of the workforce in general to maintain the minimum wage? Employers, especially in retail, have been clamouring over the last year to have the minimum wage lowered.

The 25 Billion that went into Anglo Irish Bank, if added to savings from the Welfare bill, could employ everyone on the live register for 3 years on 33,000 a year. The reason the government can treat the unemployed like this is because we’re not organized we need to get organized and begin fighting back.

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