Project Summary and Methodology

In August 2000, TasCOSS, as a result of a grant from the Tasmanian Community Support Levy, began the establishment of Unemployed Workers Networks in three Tasmanian community locations.

Three locations were chosen: the greater Hobart area (with participants from as far afield as New Norfolk, Snug, Sorell and the Tasman Peninsula), the Huon Valley and George Town. Locational disadvantage including rural isolation and high unemployment were among the factors that influenced the choice of these three locations.

THE THREE AIMS OF THE PROJECT

• the effect of unemployment on their lives, their families and their participation in community life
• their resilience and ways of resisting the negative impacts of being unemployed.
• their experience of the Job Network Providers and Centrelink.

The first major challenge was to contact unemployed workers in the three locations and invite them to come together for this consultation. The Job Network Providers became supportive of the project and, following confidentiality protocols, enabled us to both contact and invite 20 unemployed workers in two of the three locations to meet together for the purposes of the project. In the third location, workers from various organisations within the community assisted us in contacting local unemployed workers.

The first consultations with each of the three groups were held at local community venues in November and December, 2000. The second round of consultations was concluded in early 2001.

Devastating descriptions of the impact of unemployment on their lives, their families, their sense of self and their daily struggle to gain access to the bare essentials of life for themselves and their children were carefully listened to and collected for documentation in this Report.

At times their anger was palpable at the injustices to which they were being subjected. Many indeed were the stories we heard of how these adult, intelligent and skilled men and women were so frequently being told "how to write, yet again, our resumes", "how, if we are hungry enough, we will get a job" and "how those with power, and many others in the community, don’t want to know about us".

The participants also repeatedly expressed relief and gratitude at finally having a forum in which to tell their stories and have their voices heard and validated. This, perhaps, is what they appreciated most – the opportunity to be listened to, to be heard and to be validated as decent, honest, intelligent, hard-working people without jobs.

This Report seeks to do just this: to make their voices heard. It is for this reason that the major part of the report is devoted to "their voices", to what they told us about themselves and their lives as unemployed workers. In this way, we seek to honour them for the people they are – decent, honest, intelligent, hard-working people without jobs.

The process that this project followed in consulting with these three groups of unemployed workers was based on the process adopted by The Just Tasmania Project. That Project is outlined in HEARING THE VOICES – Life on a Low Income in Tasmania, as follows.

The Project Officer for the Unemployed Workers Network, Vince McCormack, was a member of the Just Tasmania Project, as was Lis de Vries, the Director of TasCOSS. We drew upon our experience of the Just Tasmania Project and also relied upon and appreciated the involvement, support and expertise of all our colleagues from the Just Tasmania Project for this project, namely James Boyce, Jo Flanagan, Ann Hughes, Kelly Madden and Ian Sansom. In some ways, this project, the Unemployed Workers Network, was born of the Just Tasmania Project and shares the same goal of promoting "a Just Tasmania".

The participants were contacted by telephone and by letter prior to the consultations. A small consultation fee was offered to each participant in recognition of the time, commitment and expenses involved in attending. This consultation fee, as well as the lunch that was provided, was made possible by some extra financial grants the project received and which are acknowledged at the beginning of this report. The first round of consultations lasted for three and a half hours; the second for two hours.

The consultations were carried out in small groups of 4 or 5 participants in each group. Each small group had a group facilitator who also wrote down verbatim the responses of each participant to the consultation questions and resultant discussion. Each consultation ended with a large group discussion. Each participant also gave written feedback on their experience of the consultation. This feedback is included in the Appendix of this Report.

Participants also completed a demographics data form, details of which are also included in this Report

The consultation focused on four main areas of inquiry

1. the impact of unemployment on participants’ lives, their families and their participation in the life of the community
2. their resilience and the ways they resist and stand against the negative impacts of being unemployed by hanging onto self-esteem, self-confidence and belief in themselves
3. their experience of the Job Network Providers, and
4. their experience of Centrelink.

A total of 52 job seekers participated in the consultations (15 at George Town, 18 in Hobart, and 19 at the Huon Valley meeting). A full statistical breakdown of the participants’ demographic characteristics can be found in Appendix Two. The statistics show that the participants were generally representative of Tasmania’s job-seeking population. Two-thirds of the participants were male, age ranges were spread evenly across the participants, and there was a fairly even spread of previous employment experiences.

A significant number of the participants had been made redundant or retrenched from their last employment, and most had been without work for long periods (52% more than 2 years; 72% more than 1 year). The participants had considerable experience interacting with the Job Networks and Centrelink, with 56% involved in Intensive Assistance programs. It should also be noted that participants often travelled considerable distances to attend the consultations, especially to the Hobart meeting where participants came from as far away as New Norfolk, Snug, Sorell and the Tasman Peninsular.

The participants expressed huge relief at having a forum where their stories could be told and where they could be validated as "decent, honest, intelligent, hard-working people without jobs". Their written feedback gave further testimony to this.

In each of the forums there were those who wanted to continue to meet together to promote further the other aims of the project, namely to form a supportive network amongst themselves

• to gain a collective voice around the unemployment issues affecting their lives and to politicise the issue of unemployment, and

On-going meetings continue in each of the three locations.

At the very early stages of the project, the participants stated very clearly that they did not like being referred to as "unemployed people". They preferred to be called "Job Seekers". It was in this context and out of this discussion that the Tasmanian Organisation of Employment Seekers (T.O.E.S.) was born.

In a brochure produced to promote the organization amongst other Job Seekers and in the community at large, T.O.E.S. says this of itself:

T.O.E.S. seeks to

• provide a forum for job seekers in Tasmania to discuss issues affecting their lives

In its short history of only a few months, T.O.E.S. has in various ways in the different locations

• written to state and federal politicians outlining their concerns and inviting a response

Current funding for the project terminates in June 2001. A funding application has been developed to both continue the project and extend it into three other Tasmanian communities, and so form a Tasmanian network of employment seekers under the auspices of T.O.E.S. This application has been lodged with the Commonwealth Department of Family and Community Services for consideration as part of the Stronger Families and Communities Strategy. While T.O.E.S. is hopeful of a positive outcome, no response is expected for several months. This will leave the current three networks and T.O.E.S. itself in a vulnerable and precarious situation over the ensuing months.

You can be coping quite well and then some little thing happens and it is like the world has ended. One morning my bed collapsed and my girlfriend found me in the laundry in the corner an absolute mess. It's like you just can't take anything else. Participant, Hobart

In the following four chapters we report in detail, and in the words of the participants themselves, the stories and experiences of Job Seekers as told to us during our consultations with them concerning four areas of enquiry. These are the questions we asked.

1. What is the impact of unemployment on your lives, your families and your participation in the life of the community?

2. How do you resist these negative impacts and hang onto self-esteem, self-confidence and belief in yourself?

3. What is your experience of the Job Network Providers?

4. What is your experience of Centrelink?

I was a truck driver for 10 years and then another 23 years with another firm. Then they put 4 of us off. I’ve been on New Start Allowance for 18 months.

I was a surveyor’s off-sider, then got a job at a bakery for 2 years, then worked in a fish factory for 5 years, then southern shipping, sand blasting, fork lift driving, building, different odds and ends. My last work was 5 years ago.

I did an apprenticeship as a butcher for 5 years; worked at an abattoirs for 8 months, then Comalco on the pot lines, then I had my own butchery for 3 years; went to Temco for 3 years on the furnaces, went back to butchery – shop went broke because the supermarket took over. I’ve been on New Start Allowance for 4 years.

They gave us these forms to fill in. If you were good at reading and writing it would be OK. There was a bloke there that could do all that really fast but it would take us hours. You were given a stack of cards this thick – 3 inches. If the woman stayed with me and explained the question I could answer it, but then she would go and I couldn’t understand the next question. You’d have to be a genius for that to get you a job. It’s not going to get me a truck driving job.

1. THE SHEER FINANCIAL HARDSHIP You could almost get to like being unemployed if it wasn't for the poverty, the loneliness and the despair. Participant, Hobart Last year I handed my house back to the Trust Bank - the choice was pay the mortgage or feed the kids. Participant, George Town We're not having Christmas this year. Participant, Huon Valley I cry a lot. Participant, Hobart - middle aged, long-term unemployed male.

The sheer financial hardship of being unemployed and its many effects on people’s lives is one of the major impacts of being without work – the devastating poverty, the gut wrenching losses, the despair, the loneliness, the humiliation and the harshness of it all, including, for example the difficulty in accessing basic health care.

There just isn’t enough money to go around, not even for little things that most people take for granted, like having money to buy a newspaper or pay a fine, but there are

"many sleepless nights because of the sheer bloody frustration".

There is constant stress and constant worry. The future is bleak and often without hope, so much so, as one participant said

"I feel like I’m finished, I don’t drive the car anymore. It’s killing me".

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Volunteer work - it doesn't bring food to the table. Participant, George Town

MEDICAL AND DENTAL EXPENSES

You have to find some one who bulk bills when you go to the doctor; you just don't have the money. Participant, Hobart

I got a Centrelink loan for some dental work but then it cost twice as much as they had estimated so I had to find $300. It's impossible. They will only book you in for public dental if it's an emergency. Participant, Hobart

I broke a tooth. I had to lie to get an appointment at the Public Dentist. You have to keep telling little white lies and I hate it. Participant, Hobart

I was made to wait 5 hours with a broken arm and then they were really rude.
Participant, Huon Valley

You always have to wait if you are using the Public Health system. The doctor might not be as thorough - wants the paying customers. Health! The way I am treated by doctors because I am young and unemployed!. Participant, Huon Valley

Dental! You wait for years to get something done. If you go private it costs so much.
Also, if you go to New Town, it's so far away from down here. Participant, Huon Valley

Going to see a specialist costs so much. We haven't got it. He sent bill after bill - we didn't have the money, but he didn't care Participant, George Town

The impact of unemployment on family life and children is huge – the food shortages and food vouchers, always budgeting, budgeting and budgeting and relying on Op shops for clothing and searching for bargains.

There is constant tension between

"do we pay the bills" or "do we buy food to feed the family"?

There are no luxuries, just

"always climbing out of a hole"

and always just surviving

"the downward spiral of poverty".

Christmas and special times are when the children especially miss out.

Then there are the relationship tensions, the money arguments and the separation from other family members. Family and relationships are being constantly squeezed because of unemployment. Being unemployed is full-time, with the expectation that you will be "on the job" looking for work 365 days a year – the guilt if you are not and the frustration if you are.

Out of the kindness of my heart I had two 17 year olds living with me - only got $10 off one when his money came through, and the Salvation Army gave me $30. They were sleeping in cars. I was only getting Newstart. Participant, George Town

My Mum says, "I’ve got this for you" – a pressy from the Op Shop. Participant, George Town

3. THE SOCIAL ISOLATION AND INABILITY TO PARTICIPATE IN THE LIFE OF THE COMMUNITY

This is almost like a penal colony for unemployed people. The isolation of Tasmania is a real problem. Participant, Hobart

You close yourself off, no-one misses you; the phone just stops ringing. Participant, George Town

If I go out I just drink water all night. I'm lucky to have a mate who comes around and brings a pizza. Participant, Huon Valley

I just wander the streets and watch other people having fun. Participant, Hobart

One of the greatest impacts of unemployment is the isolation that it causes. For many, life stops. It has to stop. There is no money.

"You close yourself off, no-one misses you; the phone just stops ringing".

With the loss of work comes the loss of many social contacts as well as the loss of opportunity and possibility to participate in the life of the community. Little things the employed take for granted, like making a phone call or having a social cup of coffee, become out of reach.

Perhaps, the most stinging loss of all is the loss of friends. Time and again, people who have become unemployed speak of how ‘loneliness’ walks hand in hand with ‘unemployment’

The burden of isolation is doubled if you are both unemployed and living in a rural area. The cost of travelling, the cost of petrol, the cost of car maintenance! Cars are essential if you live in the country; public transport, if it exists, is minimal. Few if any can afford anything but old cars, old cars that require constant maintenance. If there is money for petrol, there is precious little for car maintenance.

When you’re broke it’s hard to get out of the house".

I feel like a second-class citizen. Participant, Huon Valley

A person who is constantly job seeking very soon becomes a battered person. The battering comes from the constant knock backs

"You get knock back after knock back".

In this situation it becomes very hard to hang onto belief in yourself as a person. A society which believes we can all "pull ourselves up by our bootstraps" repeatedly sends the message "it’s your fault that you haven’t got a job, there must be something wrong with you, you must be doing something wrong". This message can easily end up becoming internalized. Such a belief can easily flatten a battered person – it puts you down, flat.

Then there are the labels to contend with – the judgment of others. The word "bludger" keeps cropping up. It is, perhaps, the one word that people who are unemployed hate the most and it is, most likely, the one word that is the cruelest of all, the one word that does the most damage.

Or as other participants said,

You can't do anything about it but become a prisoner. Participant, Huon Valley

Being on the dole is like being in jail but you're not; it's having your freedom taken away. Participant, George Town

Unemployment has screwed my life. Participant, Hobart

If you are experiencing the sheer financial hardship of being unemployed, including the devastating poverty, the gut wrenching losses, the despair, the loneliness, the humiliation and the harshness of it all, and

if you are enduring the stress it causes your family and children, including the food shortages, the food vouchers and the op shops with the constant tension of "do we pay the bills" or "do we eat", and

if the social isolation is like a thickening dark cloud beginning to envelop you, so much so that friends don’t ring anymore, and

if you are being flattened by the constant battering that comes from the knock backs and from the labels of blame,

then it is not difficult to understand why people who are unemployed experience themselves as people without power – "prisoners and powerless". The powerlessness is experienced at many levels. The choices most of us experience are denied to people who are without work, and deeper still

"you lose your personal freedom".

You become stuck in life.

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You just fill in the day waiting for the next day. I just potter around the garden and potter around the house. Participant, George Town