Contents:
The poor pay for structural unemployment
Breaching: Surviving Unemployment in Salisbury
Take a look at this month's additions to the Sleuth
Click here to access our previous newsletters:
UpWords 1 No. 1:
What is BreachingUpWords 1 No. 2:
Young Poor under AttackUpWords 1 No. 3:
Frog Boiling;UpWords1 No. 4::
Welfare Reform;UpWords1 No. 5:
S11;UpWords1 No. 6:
History of Unemployed Movements,
HomelessnessUp-Words No. 7:
Launch of UPM/Latest Breaching StatisticsUpWords1 No 8:
Open Letter to Minister Amanda VanstoneUpWords2 No 1:
Millionaires' Coup for Govenrment
Centrelink Officiouisness hurts us allUpWords2 No 2:
Big Brother is watching you!
Work for the Dole is not workingUpWords2 No 3:
Globalisation - the Excessive Wealth Disease?UpWords2 No 4:
Is Howard a Communist?
Mal Brough, Minister for Compassionate Employment Figure FudgingUpWords2 No 5
Benefits 37% below poverty line
May Day protests worldwideUpWords2 No 6:
The Permanently Alienated Underclass Speaks UP!
The Budget for the Unemployed
Views from the Coal FaceUpWords 2 No 7
Criminalisation of Poverty
Job Network is not working - from rorts to incompetenceUpWords 2 No 8
Work for the Dole can kill!
National Coalition against Poverty Petition
Post card campaign
Poet's Corner:
Views on UnemploymentUpWords 2 No 9
UPM joins Ranks for Peace
International Day for the
Eradication of Poverty
Unemployed Treated Worse Than Criminals!UpWords 2 No 10
Election 2001: UPM's How to Vote Card
Annual General Meeting
How much longer?Up-Words Vol. 2 No 11
Not Drowning - Just Looking for Work
Election Aftermath: ALP Awake!
Human Rights Day Picnic
AGM
Up-Words Vol. 3 No 1
35 hour week or share Argentina's destiny?
Human Rights Day - do we count too?
State Election Issue
No 1: Jobs
My experiences with Job Network ProvidersInsert in this issue:
War against Terrorism - the Police State Agenda
can be found at:
http://www.newdawnmagazine. com/articles/War_on_Terror_ The_Police_State_Agenda.htmlUp-Words Vol. 3 No 2
Is it Australian to bully the unemployed?
Greens support the 35 hour weekUp-Words Vol.3 No 3
New compassionate breaching rules?
Put 35 hour week on the agendaUpWords Vol.3 No 4
New Parking Zones for the Unemployed!
Unemployed must unite against fascism
UpWords Vol.3 No 5
Cruising through Poverty!
43% of politicians are cruisers
New UPU in WA: Budget CommentUpWords Vol.3 No 6/7
The Blocked Brain Syndrome
Model for full employment in Australia
Budget promises a lot of thinking!
AMWU listens!
Should Telstra be privatised?UpWords Vol.3 No 8
Is breaching sustainable?
Model for full Employment
Don't Quit
Depression
Link to the Crusing Report and Behaviour Modification advise for the unemployed!
At the meeting of the launch of the YWATE Report: Saturday 14/9/02
Have a look at our new campaign site:
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Box 485
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Phone (08) 8352 4950
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Salisbury:
Judy
from YWATE launching
the report.
See the Sleuth for more information on arrests of women and children
The poor pay for structural unemployment
By Mark Leahy, Volunteer Co-ordinator and Advocate at the Welfare Rights Centre SA
This article appears in Australian Options No 30. Thanks to Australian Options for sharing!
I was watching a program on the ABC recently which had two writers being interviewed about topics such as civic culture and democracy. At one point one of them remarked that some middle class people seemed to think they were being ignored by society and weren’t being treated as well as the poor. The very middle class interviewer responded with: “Well, there are programs for the poor.” This comment reflects a belief held by some members of our community that there is a raft of well-funded and flexible ‘programs’ which look after the poorer sections of our community, while lower middle class people are burdened by higher taxes but without the benefit of similar community support.
Leaving aside the issue of middle class welfare for a moment, it is interesting to explore this notion that the poor are being well-catered for in our society; a widespread belief fostered by the media and encouraged by conservative policy-makers who like to portray the welfare system as overly generous (and its beneficiaries as lazy and grasping) in order to justify further cuts. Just how resilient and generous is our welfare system?
Prior to 1991, we had a Social Security system which provided income support to people without work as a recognition that society had an obligation to support people who did not have the means to support themselves. There was some sense of recognition that unemployment was a social issue, and that people became unemployed for a variety of reasons beyond their control. The essential qualifications for unemployment benefit as it was then known were that you were unemployed, looking for work and fitted within certain income and assets limits.
Government instituted a series of labour market programs to assist the long-term unemployed to get work. Long-term unemployed people were offered wage subsidies, on-the-job training, work experience programs, numerous training programs, etc. In return for this investment, policy-makers believed the unemployed should be required to do more than simply look for work; they should also be prepared to undertake activities designed to enhance their chances of obtaining such work. So, for the first time, people who had been unemployed for a year or more were required to sign an agreement (with the CES) in which they agreed to undertake some activity that was deemed beneficial to their chances of obtaining work. While many of these activities were, indeed, helpful and did assist many people into the workforce, this system of Newstart Agreements was a philosophical shift away from the assumption that unemployment was society’s problems towards one which believed unemployment was the individual’s problem and that it was best tackled by changing the individual in some way.
Simon Kneebone 2002
Thus, policy-makers’ sights shifted away from structural unemployment in favour of focussing on individuals and many resources were used to counsel, re-train and educate those individuals in the hope that, once changed in some way, they would become employable. Of course this ignored the fact that structural unemployment meant that no matter how well educated or trained a person was, if there were not enough jobs to go around, then there will always be some people without work. More importantly, it began the notion that the unemployed should be required to jump through hoops as a condition of receiving below-the-poverty line income support payments. Long-term unemployed people were caught on a treadmill of ever-increasing obligations, which sapped them of their energy, fostered disillusionment and – with a newly introduced breaching regime, caused many to suffer even greater levels of poverty than before.
When the Coalition came to power a few years later, this system was made far worse. Firstly, they privatised the CES, offering contracts to a variety of profit-making and non-profit making agencies to provide the employment services previously provided by the CES. Thus, the unemployed became a means by which profits were made by business and so the hoops that they were required to jump through were as much aimed at siphoning public money into the private sector as they were at assisting the unemployed to find work. Secondly, the labour market programs that the ALP introduced were abolished, to be replaced by minimalist programs such as Work-for-the-Dole. At the same time, the Government introduced the notion of Mutual Obligation – that is, the principle that people receiving benefits have an obligation to do something in return for those benefits. And no longer were the unemployed given a year before more onerous requirements were placed upon them. Mutual Obligation requirements were applied from the moment you started receiving benefits. And so, while at the same time decreasing Government support available to the unemployed, it also dramatically increased the requirements placed upon recipients of income support.
A new culture emerged. It was assumed by many that the unemployed could not be trusted to look for work. The unemployed, it was argued, would only help themselves if they were forced to undertake activities. Social Security (which had also been commercialised, becoming a new entity known as Centrelink) was no longer simply an administrator of a beneficial income support system. More and more the payments it made became an incidental component of its role and regulation of the unemployed, the policing of the poor, became its primary function. Breaching was increased. Within five years of the Coalition coming to power, breaching rose from around 84,000 per year to 380,000 per year. These breaching policies caused considerable hardship, resulting in increased homelessness, decreased health, increased anger and disillusionment among the unemployed. Centrelink was given new powers of investigation. Contracts were signed between Centrelink and private detective agencies allowing for covert surveillance of unemployed people. Dole diaries were also introduced, requiring people to provide Centrelink with much more information regarding their jobsearch activities – in many cases, requiring the individual to obtain signatures from employers they had approached to prove they were looking for work. The number of jobs a person had to look for each fortnight rose from two to eight.
So, what is it like for the unemployed person on the ground? Imagine you lose your job. You go into Centrelink and apply for Newstart payments. At the first interview, you will have to negotiate a Preparing to Work Agreement. This is a legal contract which contains activities you will be prepared to undertake in order to help you obtain work. Failure to negotiate this, or comply with its terms will lead to a breach (a loss of 18%, 24%or 100% of your income for a set number of weeks.) You must also register with at least one Job Network provider. Failure to do so will lead to a breach. At your first interview with a Job Network provider you must negotiate and sign an Activity Agreement. This will contain further activities you are prepared to do. Work-for-the-Dole, short training programs, etc., will be presented as options. If you aren’t happy with the Agreement you can negotiate but will run the risk of being breached for failure to nego-tiate an agreement. You will also receive a Dole Diary, in which you must write the names and contact details of eight people you have approached for work each fortnight.
What is alarming about all of this is that, while the system has ample regulations, penalties and procedures to guarantee rigid adherence to the obligations placed on individuals, there are no incentives, no rewards and few obligations placed upon the system, other than the provision of simple income support payments. There is nothing in the system which responds to structural unemployment; everything is geared towards forcing individuals to undertake set programs and Centrelink is, by and large, there to police the unemployed. One unemployed person remarked to us that it was like being treated guilty until proven innocent 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
So, to the middle class people who believe the poor are well catered for by ‘programs’, I would be interested to see how many of them would be prepared to give up their privacy, dignity, sense of self-worth and respect in the community, while being required to follow inflexible, draconian regulations, simply in return for below poverty-line income support payments. I suspect not many would be prepared to give up their current life-styles for such a regime.
Breaching:Surviving Unemployment
The O’Sullivan Centre for Action, Analysis and Training (OCAAT) together with the Young Christian Workers Movement and in partnership with Community Benefit SA released a report about young people in the Salisbury area and their experiences of being unemployed.
They facilitated the YWATE project, which was developed in order to provide young people living with unemployment with informal social support networks relevant to job search training, ongoing group contact with other young unemployed people and access to information and referral. As part of the project they aimed to invite young people to reflect on their lives, to recognise the structural issues that were impacting on their situation and to take action for change in their lives, communities and the broader socio-political context.
The survey was conducted in the Salisbury Shopping Centre precinct, in front of the Salisbury Centrelink Office and in young people’s homes.Length of time of unemployment
On average, respondents had been unemployed for 19.47 months. This demonstrates that the continued high level of youth unemployment in the Northern suburbs of Adelaide is creating a group of young people who have been dealing with the issue of unemployment for a substantial part of their post-school lives. Some respondents stated they had never had a job. The total lost working time of all 60 young people surveyed was 141 years.Identified Issues
Poverty is the single biggest issue identified through this survey.
ð 91% said a lack of money was an issue
ð 62% found affording the basics of living was
problematic
ð 60% identified boredom as an issue
ð 51% said that a lack of social life resulted from their situation.
The high percentage of people identifying meeting rent payments as difficult (40%) indicates that for many young people the rate of Youth and Newstart Allowance does not allow them to consistently meet their basic need for shelter.Respondents who were breached
Of all respondents to the survey 80% were breached. These 80% had spent an average of 31.24 months unemployed compared to 19.47 across all respondents.
This correlation seems logical in light of the expressed frustration build up identified by respondents on other issues. Breaches imposed after a short period of unemployment seem to have been the result of lack of know-ledge of administrative requirements. For example, one young woman was not aware she had to inform Centrelink of her TAFE enrolment status every six months. One man failed to complete one question on a form.
Only 55% (20 out of 40) of those breached appealed the decision. Of those who appealed 55% (12 of 20) had their breach overturned.
No one accessed advocacy services such as the Welfare Rights Centre SA. Only two respondents identified that other people had helped them with their appeal, one was a job network provider, the other a family member.
How did they support themselves?
The chart shows who pays for the breaches, apart from the young unemployed affected: partners, parents and friends, and through loss of income landlords and the community. Only 5% got a job, and only one had their breach overturned by Working for the Dole. Breaching must be stopped.
In the last Upwords we started a project to develop a website which collects ideas to achieve full employment in Australia. The web site has been put onto the 35hour web site which is hosted by the Un(der)employed People’s Movement.
The purpose of this site is to continue the discussion about a viable and liveable future, in paricular in regards to employment. Everyone is invited to introduce their solutions to solving the problem of unemployment. All ideas and links will be posted on the web site for all to see. From the front page of the 35hour week site anyone can enrol in a mailing list which will be used in the future to discuss contributions or the model.
UPM against Poverty’s management committee has concluded that campaigns for a 35 hour week and restricted overtime are only one part of the picture. No single policy will bring about the change needed to achieve full employment, it has to be a combination of initiatives.
The model is constructed with four pillars which rest on the foundation of a democratic and cooperative society based on human rights and protecting the interests of all its citizens.
The four pillars are: (double click on the underlined text and you will be transferred to the web site)
1 Health and wellbeing at work
2 Social justice, increase employability
3 Strong support for innovative and committed entrepreneurs, training and research
4 Equal opportunity, a fair tax system and a supportive Social Security systemPlease make your contribution, go to http://au.oocities.com/thirtyfivehours/modelfe.html
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
when the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
when the funds are low and the debts are high,
and you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
when care is pressing you down a bit-
rest if you must, but don’t quit.Life is strange with its twists and turns,
as every one of us sometimes learns,
and many a person turns about
when they might have won had they stuck it out.
Don’t give up, though the pace seems slow-
you may succeed with another go.Often the goal is nearer than it seems
to a faint and faltering person:
often the struggler has given up
when they might have had the victor’s cup:
and they learned too late when the night came down
how close they were to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out-
the silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
and you never can tell how close you are,
it may be near when its seems afar.
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit-
it’s when things seem worst that you mustn’t quit.
Author unknown,
lifted thankfully from the National Coalition of Single Mothers and Her Children's mailing list
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