Modell for full Employment in Australia
Pillar 4: Equal Opportunities
The four pillars are:
- Health and wellbeing at work
- Social justice, increase employability
- Strong support for innovative and committed employers, training and research
- A fair tax system and a supportive Social Security system, equal opportunity
Pillar 4: Equal Opportunity
We want to create a society in which no one is excluded, in which all are able to develop to their full potential and in which children are welcome, old people are part of everyone's life instead of vegetating in institutions and in which people with a disability can participate. We want a society where poverty is a thing of the past and where the future is not planned by some, but actively created by all.
We want to develop a political culture of solidarity in which engagement with the problems of the most disadvantaged people are taken into consideration. We want a fair minded and civil society which makes a contribution to world without exploitation and oppression of humans and nature.
We believe that social security is the most basic foundation of human existence in a society. Without food and shelter or no access to communication carriers there is no way that someone can exert energy to find employment. If social security is not ensured, change to the better is very difficult. Secure income support enables people to turn their attention to training or looking for jobs. Food and shelter is an essential human right, why is social security seen as a choice? There is no choice involved in getting a social security benefit, the only choice is between starving and applying for a benefit.
Yet we make the unemployed and in the future other social security beneficiaries believe that the receipt of this benefit means they are obliged to give something back?
Where will this kind of rhetoric lead us? Will school kids have to clean the school because they receive an education, or patients have to stay on working in the hospital after recovering from their illness?
We believe that we need to establish better ways to include every citizen in the debates about policies affecting them. We want to enable every citizen to access employment, political participation, education and health services for free.
Content
Please take a look at the European strategy for full employment and related sites linked from this site. The EU has written extensively about social policy, social inclusion and some of the European countries are clearly leaders in regards to social inclusion policies.. Go to http://europa.eu.int/comm/employment_social/empl&esf/ees_en.htm
Another very interesting site to look at is the upcoming conference on social policy, the ESPRN Conference "SOCIAL VALUES, SOCIAL POLICIES" held from 29/8 - 31/8, 2002, at the Tilburg University in the Netherlands. This site has all the papers available, a rich resource!
http://cwis.kub.nl/~fsw_2/HOME/WORSCHOT/ESPRN02/program.htm
Equal opportunities for women and for young and older citizens is as important in developing a just society as is self determination. Regardless of the degree of ability, racial background, age, or gender, people always should be given the opportunity to chose where they live, with whom, who is looking after them if they need help, and how they want to move forward in life. The challenge is here to create environments and procedures which allow all people to participate to the degree they wish. Young people and the older people need to sit around the planning tables, patients and consumers need to guide the practice instead of rigid funding criteria and profitability.
The core premise of an emancipative social security system should be to encourage actions of self help and solidarity, to create an environment which enables beneficiaries to develop their skills towards more or full self reliance and abandon dependency creating policies such as breaching, which sends people on a downward spirale of increasing poverty and dependence on charity.
The International Convention on Human Rights outlines not only individual/personal and political rights, but also basic social and economic rights. The founding members of the Convention intended to put emphasis on the combination of these rights, whereas the western world has taken to the individual and political rights and neglected the focus on social and economic rights. Very few people are aware that one of the grounds on which a person should not be discriminated against is property status.
Australian services, departments and governments discriminate often on the grounds of property. Unemployed people have to donate their work time for free, or they do not receive social security, a basic human social right. People on low incomes have to pay double their lawyer's fee if they win, they don't need to pay anything if they lose. Some lawyers obviously think this is fair.
Herb Evatt, Australian delegate to the Committee drafting the Convention, argued "that the plan for collective security could not succeed unless it had a foundation in economic and social justice, especially full employment. He told the delegates: 'The great threat to human freedom we have been combating for five years arose out of and was made possible by an environment dominated by unemployment and poverty.
He predicted that the issues in the post-war era would be mainly economic. There was broad support for that view and it led to the adoption of a proposal that the UN Charter should list among its purposes the promotion of – again I quote - "higher standards of living, full employment, and conditions of economic and social progress and development." (Transcript Radio National, Encounter, Sunday, 11/8/2002) at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/relig/enc/stories/s642595.htm
Anti-Discrimination
No one should be disadvantaged by discrimination. More money needs to be spend on positive discrimination in employment and training/study provision for people with disabilities, of Indigenous and non-English speaking background.
Discrimination against mature aged and young employees need to be eradicated through legislation.
The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's web site has more information in regards to the legal issues and information on what to do if you feel discriminated against on the grounds of disability, race, religion.
Equal opportunities must be a principle in every society and work place.. Equal opportunities for women, equal rights for casual employees in long term relationships with their employers, no discrimination on the grounds of disability, racial background, age or sex are fundamental principles of a humane society. Many of these principles are contained in the International Human Rights or should be added to it.
The Equal Opportunity Commission looks after the rights of women.
Affirmative action is needed (and has been introduced in Denmark with good results in mature age employment) for mature age employees, people with disabilities, indigenous people, the longtime unemployed and the refugees/immigrants.
Affirmative action
at the workplace is needed to achieve equality in pay and career opportunities
for women. Political Parties and government departments need to take the
leadership on all affirmative actions required.
Ethical standards in employment include a democratic and participatory workplace relation system with the right and free choice to join the union movement. The role of the union must be preserved as the representative body for all employees. The importance of unions and the respect of the former and potential new members can only be gained if ethical principles are implemented in the unions and practiced. Equal pay for equal work for women and people with disabilities! Fair wages for outworkers and contractors. See more about the issue under pillar 1
A strong community participation structure needs to be underpinned by resources to establish opportunities and space for community participation. Every community needs a community learning centre, connected to the library and with links to all adult and lifelong educational opportunities in the district. Every adult should receive incentives through the tax system and social security system to undertake some training every year to improve and advance their career opportunities. Fees for initial vocational education should be eradicated and a strong VocEd sector, which is connected to the business and community services sectors, should plan for the future.
More importantly though is the funding and administration/management of community consultation structures. It is not good enough to exclude people with disabilities or the unemployed from the Area Consultative Committees which determine how funds are distributed. Why should only Chief Executives be making the decisions? They already have a considerable influence over ordinary people's lives.
Some councils have tried to introduce community forums, some were working quite successfully, others were occupied by small interest groups, who believe they are representing the interests of the community, when they really only represent their own.
Here is a
Contribution from the European Marches about Participation in decision making processes
SOCIAL
FORUMS MUST ALSO INCLUDE THE PEOPLE'S MOVEMENTS, OR »HAVE-NOTS«
The Global Social Forum and the continental forums raise
the hopes of the 2.8 billion people who live in poverty and face increasing
misery, inequality, war, commercialisation of all living activity, and
environmental degradation. The social forums strive to create a more united
and peaceful world, where minorities and other subjugated peoples are
no longer oppressed, and the environment is treated with respect.
The current actors in the GSF must strive towards a balance of power that can transform the world. The next step in the construction of an alternative to neoliberal capitalism must unite the movements fighting for the poor or 'have-nots' of the planet and support their development. Indeed, about half of humanity lives on less than $2 per day. Not only must they take part in the transformation, but they are also under threat: the logic of a neoliberal system is to eliminate an unproductive population which has no means of consumption and yet consumes non-renewable resources, and threatens to place limits on the concentration of wealth.
We demand that the Third Global Forum and the continental forums integrate the various anti-poverty movements emerging around the world, giving them a higher profile at the heart of this encounter in order to breathe new life into this initiative and to unite all the actors in the battle against the dictates of neoliberal economics.
This requires that right away the organisers :
raise funds to
finance the travel for the members of the people's movements, and not
exclusively for national elites.
It also requires accepting on the platform in particular representatives
from local groups in each seminar, plenary, and forum.
They need to have at their disposal their own space for debates so that
these movements can assess the global challenges, share experiences, and
build strategies to work together.
Another world is not only possible: it is NECESSARY !
May 2002
1er signatures
:
International : HIC, Marches Européennes contre le chômage
et les exclusions,
France : AC ! (agir ensemble contre le chômage), AITEC, CADAC, CEDETIM,
CEDIDELP, Collectif National pour les Droits des femmes, Comité
des Sans Logis, CRID, DAL (Droit Au Logement), Droits Devant !, HanDEIS
(handicap : Droit à l’Ecole et à l’Intégration
Sociale), Union Syndicale G10-Solidaires
Brasil : MNLM
can be found at the web site of the European Marches at http://www.euromarches.org/english/02/esf01.htm
The question of how to manage the common good, or share the burden of administrating the common property and wealth, is very old and always present. What do you think:
Should we be governed by majority opinion - or should minorities rights inform leadership at times against the will of the majority? (example: would feminism ever taken hold, if the majority had ruled?)
How can we improve the participation of people who face barriers to being included?
Should all have the right to govern or only those with the economic resources behind them to win a seat?
What could be done to liberate politics from the cash incentives of a big interest minority?
The tax system has to be made more fairer, costs to common good such as natural environment, water, and other resources have to be retrieved. Those who make the most profit should provide the most tax revenue. In return lifelong education, health provision and a social security network should be provided to all universally without charge.
Tax reform has to tackle the issue of the growing gap between rich and poor. Instead of wasting resources to take more from the poor by creating the perfect welfare fraud machinery, how about using these resources in getting the tax the Australian community is rightfully owed from those evading their duties?
Could it be that these issues are not tackled because the party donations may go down? Poor people do not make donations, maybe that's why they have to be treated so harshly. No executive loses 18% of his/her pay, when she misses an appointment. At least this kind of treatment of the defenseless creates 'brownie' points for the parties and 'savings' for the tax payers! People forget that unemployed people pay taxes too, through the GST.
The introduction of an eco-tax could be considered to reimburse the community for the damage done to members of the community who have lived for many years next to a foundry, or on contaminated soil or in asbestos ridden houses. The eco-tax could be used for more than cost reimbursement, it could be used to strengthen ecological sustainable industries, technologies or to protect the environment.
There are many examples especially in Germany, where the introduction of the eco tax is leading to Germany being able to meet the Kyoto targets for CO2 emissions in 2010. The eco tax is one example where those creating profit for themselves by exploiting our common resources and polluting or spoiling our common environment, can reimburse society for the damage they create. The health factor should not be overlooked, asthma, allergies, skin cancer and other diseases may be the direct result of environmental pollution. Those polluting more need to contribute more to carry the health costs. Neither should occupational health hazards be overlooked, the workers and their families who came into contact with asbestos are carrying the costs, as does the tax system, yet those who polluted the environment in the first place may have even received government grants and tax reductions
If the US Military would be forced to pay reparation to all people of the former Yugoslavia and Irak for all the bombs in nuclear casings they exploded all over the country side, they may think seriously whether to fight more wars. On the other hand it may trigger them to take over the world completely, so no one can sue them anymore.
In general Australians have not really officially decided whether they want to go
the full neo-liberal way of holding the individual fully responsible for all mishappenings and therefore considering those unable to contribute their labor to society as non-deserving of protection
or
the social protection model where people recognise that it is important to protect and look after the interests of disadvantaged (unproductive) members of their society to minimise the social and health costs of poverty on their societies.
Although many people in Germany and Scandinavia moan under their burden of tax (and may have voted for a right wing government to reign in expenses on welfare and migrants) the majority is still very committed to the principle of rather paying more tax and have a more peaceful society which looks with fairness after its disadvantaged members, than paying less taxes and live in fear of anarchy and crime on the streets.
Once again the US has found a solution: lock'em all up and make 'em work for nothing. The prison population of the US has sky rocketed and is the highest in any western country. The poor are committing crimes to have a roof over their heads and something to do over winter. It is cold in the US and life on the streets in winter is deadly.
And if you don't believe us, take a look at the Kensington Welfare Rights Unit web site, And another really good one is Michael Moore's web site at http://www.michaelmoore.com
Social justice in employment creation must be build on a fair system of income support which guarantees a regular income to pay the bills and survive. There are proposal from some groups and people suggesting a universal income payment for all people, enough to guarantee survival, which is always paid. In this way everyone has to take on responsibility for their financial affairs and plan for times without work.
A SUPPORT INCOME is a universal income payable to all citizens free of tax and free of means test. Other universal income proposals include:- BASIC INCOME, CITIZENS INCOME, GUARANTEED MINIMUM INCOME, and now in 2001, NATIONAL DIVIDEND
This site is maintained by:- ALLAN McDONALD :- 28 Prince St. Urangan Queensland 4655 Australia, E-Mail :- allanmcd@satcom.net.au --- Phone/Fax :- 07 4128 9971
Have a look at his collections of proposals at http://www.satcom.net.au/supportincome/
Another similar proposal for a basic income can be found on http://www.bascincome.com
Prof. John Tomlinson has written about and suggested a basic income support program, take a look at the Preface to his book and an Introduction
Suggested further reading for those who want to discover an alternative to Australia's petty-fogging targeted income support system: "Income Insecurity: The Basic Income Alternative" is an E-Book and can be found on the New Zealand Universal Basic Income web site. The direct link is http://www.oocities.org/ubinz/JT/IncomeInsecurity/
About the Purpose of the book the author states:
"The effect, if not the intent, of targeted income support programs is the maintenance of the Poor Law distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor. Such a distinction is then used to 'justify' the State’s failure to ensure all permanent residents without other means are provided with at least modest levels of income support. The continuance of the work/welfare divide, dependency rhetoric and the use of a generally unspecified concept of 'need' are added to these left over vestiges of the Poor Law. This results in a mystification which has so far in Australia prevented the citizenry from demanding at a minimum a fully comprehensive income support safety net for all permanent residents.
This book intends to lay bare such features of Australian society as will allow readers to see the disadvantages of the present categorical system of income support, to gain an understanding of alternative ways of conceiving of the needs of fellow Australians and to set out an argument in support of a Basic Income as a way of increasing the income security of all permanent residents. On the way obstacles, both pragmatic and ideological, to the introduction of Basic Income will be examined."
Other suggestions exist about how to reform the social security system and streamline the complicated array of payments.
The social security system needs to be based on the assumption that everyone during their lifetime may become depending on some help. Therefore all citizens should be and are asked to contribute towards such expenses at times when they can. One model of social security provision is the saving of every citizen in accordance with their income through the tax system, other models, such as in Germany, ask the employee to save for the time of unemployment and for the time of retirement, unemployed people reap the benefits of their unemployment insurance in the first year of unemployment and finance their training, work experience and vocational guidance services through the national Office of Employment from these and some government funds. After a year unemployed people are funded through the social security scheme.
In the US and some other countries social security has been limited to between three and five years of the lifespan of person. Although some people in the US receive a kind of invalid pension, parents with a disability, for example, have to show that they are capable of raising children by demonstrating that they can work. If they cannot find work, their children are removed. The citizens of the US seem to believe in the principle of survival for the strongest and forcing the weak to work for the strong for nothing. Exploit if and where you can. We know that not everyone in the US thinks in this way. They have ten times more weapons that their ten strongest allies taken together, there are not enemies to speak about for the US. Yet their economy is collapsing despite the threat of war and militarisation.
On the other hand the German Greens and Bundnis90 parties developed their vision of an emancipatory social policy:
Which school of thought does Australia want to follow? Each model has flaws and well working strategies, even among the best model countries for social security in the European Union.
Where are we heading now? Increased punitive measures, working for the dole yet no obligation on the government or industry to create work, massive increase of part time work and at the same time massive losses of full time jobs, funding drought of higher and vocational education, higher barriers to obtain employment, all this leads to lower wages and an undermining of worker's rights and entitlements.
In the US people work for US$2.- per hour. Just double as much as many workers in Third World countries earn per week or even months. Welcome to the "Globalisation" of the labor market!
Reclaiming ethical standards and language
The current discourse of bludgers and frauds in relation to social security beneficiaries needs to be changed (see essays The whole community needs to be involved in rethinking a supportive social security net which enables people to increase their employability and supports their initiatives in moving from supported income payments to self sufficiency. The media needs to recognise that people still know what is fair even if they are scared and that too much fear and insecurity only gets us to looting, higher crime, and anarchy (see Argentine and Uruguay).
We need a changed discourse about what we are doing when we invest into those who have hit on hard times and/or have been denied a fair go due to their racial background or a disability. With the introduction of new ethical standards underpinned by a new discourse of, perhaps, mutual support, must come a new ethic of running the economy. Are globalised capitalism and post modern individualism the only ways of living and dealing with one another? Is profitability the only principle which counts at the bottom line?
Following is a letter received by the UPM mailing list:
Dear Friends
I would like to propose a slightly different approach and a change to the
way we label the underemployed. Perhaps the name should be "the working
unemployed" and lobbying should be on the way the government, and
Centrelink, should categorise and treat this group.It is my experience that people in full time, salaried employment do not
believe that there are simply not enough jobs in the appropriate disciplines
for those who want to be employed. They fervently believe that anyone not
in work is not willing to work. They also believe that anyone who wants
work could get any kind of job, even if lowly. They do not consider that,
even if this were true, such a job would be a long term career move. It is
only when they lose their jobs that they discover the real situation.All my intermittently employed friends fully appreciate the reality of the
workplace. Centrelink does not. They have the audacity to admonish people
for trying to find work in areas for which they are qualified. To hell with
the fact that employers are not interested in applicants who are not part of
their industry, even if it is only sandwich making. Many people in my area
are out of work actors and they are given a hard time. Centrelink then
applies their attitude to the actors to all types of professionals. I
sympathise with actors as I have a friend in the film industry, a focus
puller (makes sure the film is always in focus), who works on large and
small productions but is always in periods of no work.This problem is universal and does not just apply to academically qualified
professionals. I bet that if you were to ask Centrelink to give you figures
on the numbers of registered unemployed people who are professionals, and
the number of those in work, they would be hard pressed to comply.
Centrelink should be forced to keep statistics on those who do a minimum
number of hours per week on a regular or seasonal basis, as well as those
regularly receiving less than the full benefit per fortnight. The
government should recognise this group and reward such people with a more
lenient job seeking attitude. They should also be forced to recognise that
this group represents a larger group that subsists on multiple casual work
but does not register with Centrelink. These statistics would be hard to
gather unless you had a National call in (phone, web, etc).I will give examples to demonstrate the government's current attitude to
this group. At present anyone registered with Centrelink can be placed on
Mutual Obligation with a draconian Job Seeker Diary to fill in for 10 weeks.
If you have not seen one, you should. Note that it is hard to approach a
large number of any kind of employers per week while you are currently under
one or more contracts with other employers. By the way, there is no space
on the diary for web-based job enquiries. Even worse, networking, one of
the most effective ways of getting work, is not seriously recognised by
Centrelink as valid job seeking. The same seems to apply to cold
canvassing. They have a more pervasive form to fill in where you have to
see employers in person and they must sign that you were there, but you can
only approach employers who have advertised a job in print. (Neither myself
or my colleagues, representing several professions, ever get jobs from
advertised positions but we have all obtained work from networking.)The government lumps the working unemployed with those not performing or
seeking regular work and deliberately treats them the same. In this way
such a large group is conveniently made politically invisible. This also
makes it easy for political parties to dismiss your suggestions (the letter)
for the underemployed, whom they can now "recognise" as a group that does
not exist.I have spoken to newspaper reporters on these issues and they have been
unable to get any statistics out of Centrelink or any other government body.
This has the effect of tying their hands. They need people to speak out
with personal stories, but any who do are too easily dismissed as one off
case studies.By calling us "the working unemployed" we would be forcing the issue that
work and unemployment are not discreet entities and independent of each
other. The only sure way to make political headway is to force the issue of
statistics. Getting the numbers is a problem but any government would find
it hard to defend their attitudes if the true numbers were made public
An interesting site with a wealth of new articles about this topic is the
ESPRN Conference "SOCIAL VALUES, SOCIAL POLICIES" held from 29/8 - 31/8, 2002, at the Tilburg University in the Netherlands. This site has all the papers available, a rih resource!
http://cwis.kub.nl/~fsw_2/HOME/WORSCHOT/ESPRN02/program.htm
If you have any ideas or contributions to this page or want to respond to any of the questions posed, please send your comments now!
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