Richard Exell looks at the tricky issues dividing workfare (bad) from mandating paid work (good). Is there a line that can be drawn?
Cait Reilly is one of my heroes. Her challenge to “work experience” that gave her no alternative to working for a fortnight for just her Jobseeker’s Allowance has got the left in an uproar about workfare.
Workfare is wrong on four counts:
• It is unfair to unemployed people
• It is unfair to employees
• It doesn’t work
• It is based on a mistaken understanding of unemployment
Workfare is unfair to unemployed people because it makes them work in return for derisory wages. Working full-time in return for JSA of £67.50 a week (£53.45 if you’re under 25) can lead to pay rates under £2 an hour.
Even when an unemployed person is getting higher benefits (for children, partner, rent) it is very unlikely that the hourly rate will come near the minimum wage.
The benefit of that work accrues almost entirely to the employer – you don’t need to believe in the theory of surplus value to see this as exploitation.
Workfare doesn’t just exploit the participants. Where participants do economic work – work the employer would have needed to pay for otherwise – some people would have been recruited to do these tasks, or would have gained extra hours or overtime.
They lose out because now that work is being done free of charge. And all workers lose out because this competition undermines their pay and conditions. (This labour subsidy is also a threat to businesses competing with workfare employers – one day the business lobby is going to work out that workfare threatens the free market.)
Crucially, workfare is bad labour market policy. I often find that people whose instinct is to like the idea often have second thoughts when you point out that people doing a full week’s workfare don’t have time to look for jobs.
Four years ago the Department for Work and Pensions commissioned research into workfare in the USA, Canada and Australia, and found:
“There is little evidence that workfare increases the likelihood of finding work. It can even reduce employment chances by limiting the time available for job search and by failing to provide the skills and experience valued by employers.”
The government seems unable to give up the idea that there’s “plenty of work out there” and we need workfare to motivate unemployed people.
I’ve lost count of the number of times politicians (from all parties) have quoted from Beveridge’s report the line about his proposal being:
“…to make unemployment benefit after a certain period conditional upon attendance at a work or training centre.”
In my experience they never go on to quote his next sentence:
“But this proposal is impractical if it has to be applied to men by the million or the hundred thousand.”
When there are nearly six unemployed people chasing every job vacancy, it doesn’t matter how successful workfare is at motivating them, that is not the answer to unemployment.
So it’s great news that charities and businesses are getting cold feet about involvement in the government’s programmes. (See this article by my colleague Nicola Smith for a great exposition of the compulsory work elements of different schemes.) Is that it? Is it always wrong to make work compulsory? Is work experience always a bad idea?
I don’t think so.
For one thing, the benefit rules that require unemployed people to be available for work go right back to the Lloyd George benefit system and have always had widespread support from trades unionists and the Left more generally. The case law that availability is “not a passive condition”, that there’s an obligation to try to get work, has also been widely accepted.
For another, positive work experience can help people get jobs if it is well-designed. Paul Gregg, who advised the last government on conditionality, draws a distinction between two types of work experience programme.
On the one hand, there is the punitive approach exemplified by workfare, which he rejects.
But the other type is the “intermediate labour market” approach, which is aimed at long-term unemployed people and others with serious disadvantages, provide childcare and other necessary adjustments, include training and jobsearch support and ideally (crucially in my view) offer a wage rather than benefits.
He points out that the last government ran a number of smallish work experience programmes (like Work Trials and the Job Introduction Scheme) which had a good record of getting people into jobs.
The key point is that these programmes try to overcome the most crushing disadvantage unemployed people face in competing for jobs: their lack of recent relevant experience and the stereotypical or other inaccurate perceptions of many employers.
The future jobs fund – in my view, the best employment programme for a generation – embodied this approach. It was voluntary, it paid a wage rather than benefits and there were serious safeguards to stop it undermining the pay and conditions of other workers.
But would it have been unacceptable if it hadn’t been voluntary? Labour went into the last election with a promise to extend the FJF approach, but I doubt if it would have remained a voluntary programme and I think that would have been reasonable.
There’s a proviso here. At a time like this, with mass unemployment, the number of volunteers for a high quality programme like the future jobs fund is likely to exceed the number of places, but at a future point we might find ourselves in a position where there are spare places and long-term unemployed people who aren’t volunteering.
My personal view is that it would not be wrong in such circumstances to make this sort of work experience compulsory.
“Work or full maintenance.”
Harry Pollitt’s old demand – one of the key slogans of the 1930s National Unemployed Workers’ Movement – suggests this position. This demand – either jobs or benefit rates that will lift us out of poverty – represents a clear working class understanding of reciprocity; if the market fails to provide jobs then we have a right to adequate benefits.
But that works both ways. If we can achieve a programme that guarantees a job with a decent wage the same reciprocity says we should take it or lose the benefit. A job guarantee would be a huge advance; this is a responsibility we should demand.
See also:
• The information you need to end workfare – Alex Hern, February 22nd 2012
• Chris Grayling should respond to criticism of workfare, not smear the critics – Izzy Koksal, February 21st 2012
• Tesco’s unpaid labour shows the flaw at the heart of workfare – Alex Hern, February 16th 2012
• Five reasons Clegg can’t stand on his social mobility record – Alex Hern, January 12th 2012
• 2012: The year ahead for young people – Alex Hern, January 7th 2012
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52 Responses to “Workfare versus compulsory work: When is it right and wrong to mandate labour?”
Dave
Workfare jobs aren’t real jobs.
The’
Ben Singleton
Brilliant article from Left Foot Forward on programmes for the unemployed. Let's develop a scheme that actually works! http://t.co/uygOUZMY
Redshift
If every major company had a rolling programme on workfare that is reducing the number of jobs available because they are getting free labour to do tasks they would normally pay for.
There are few jobs out there and ‘any experience’ isn’t necessarily going to help a lot of people. In my local area, a lot of the jobs going are care work which you need specific qualifications for, despite it paying badly. There are not necessarily even crap jobs to take up.
I was unemployed for over a year despite having two degrees. Of course, I was a bit picky at first, but after a month or two I was very much willing to take anything. The problem is I actually did worse at getting the lower paid jobs. Perhaps employers thought I would leave because I was over-qualified. I had experience of bar work, of working in fast food places, etc – the typical low wage labour roles from taking part-time jobs whilst studying. I couldn’t even get them.
The more qualified, better paid jobs I actually got interviews for almost every time, but they were infrequent. I continued applying for low paid jobs but I didn’t even get responses. The job centre increased my mandatory number of applications, which didn’t make much difference to the amount I was doing anyway – all it meant was I’d very occasionally when there were no new jobs up I’d have to put in an extra application to something that I was totally unsuitable for – like a wedding day organiser for example.
The job centre after some time put me on a programme after 6 months because I was under 25 at the time. This was pointless. They tested my literacy and numeracy which will come as no surprise given my qualifications I got the top level on. After that, it was just enforced time wasting on a weekly basis for 13 weeks. This part was basically pointless unless
a) you couldn’t read or write or had little-know mathematical ability (and as much as there were many people there who weren’t particularly well educated only a small minority was in this category – why did I need to do this?)
b) you hadn’t done a proper CV before (a significant minbority of people but surely this can be easily assessed before you start the bloody thing!)
That programme was pointless and a big waste of time but I guess inoffensive. It was run by a charity. No enforced labour – although you could choose to work for another charity (e.g. a charity shop) for a couple of weeks if you wanted for JSA + £15 a week.
Now under Labour at that point if you were under 25 you might be lucky enough to go on the Future Jobs Fund. Get some proper experience and an actual wage! Even if only for 25 hours a week for 6 months. Excellent scheme!
Oh no, not under the Tories. Instead I was put on the Work Programme. Inspire 2 Independence – Private Company, Flashy Name. The month I was enrolled, I heard nothing. At which point I got a letter saying I had an induction. The induction involved guess what? Another fucking literacy and numeracy test! Want to patronise me more you fuckers? Pointless again – but this time someone was making profit out of it – out of taxpayers money! They had also cocked up and double booked two sessions so we had double the amount of people in the room we should have. Pretty uncomfortable – and probably breaching health and safety….
I rang several times after that because I was meant to be having a one-to-one. Two months later I finally had one, where the ‘advisor’ clearly only knew very basic things about getting a job (like how to do a CV, turn up properly dressed in interviews, etc).
Another month passed and I finally got a job. Pretty good money and something that is suitable for my qualifications – it just took time because there is less jobs about.
The question is – do you really want to pay parasites like this to NOT HELP ME get a job, when the money can be spent on job creation itself?! The really sad thing is that technically speaking I’ll be one of their figures of success because I was on the programme! But they did fuck all!!!
Richard Exell
My post – when is it right and wrong to mandate labour? http://t.co/gyFL7cYG
Anonymous
What’s not real about them?
1. You work
2. You get paid in return. Not a huge wage, but look at the perks. Thousands of pounds of perks. Free accommodation – not taxed. Free schooling for your children – not taxed. Free heath care – not taxed …
ie. You work, you get paid.
If they are highly skilled then there are people out there who will employ them. Employment has risen. We have lots of migrants finding work. There are lots of jobs there. Evidence abounds.
Because there are people who can’t do the high-earning, highly-skilled jobs – but can do the semi-skilled and unskilled work.
Only employable if they generate more savings or profits than they cost to employ.
The real purpose of workfare in my view isn’t mentioned by you.
Primarily it gets the longer termed unemployed into the habit of working. Getting up, turning up, on time, and putting some effort in. Given that we have large numbers of families where no one has worked, I think that is a major beneficial effect. Far better than turning up at some education into work program. There the main beneficiaries are those employed by the state on large wages, large pensions, to effect change or what ever the jargon is of the day.
It would be better if those were all let go, and the money used to employ them redirected in one of two ways.
1. Reducing the cost of employing people. NI
2. Reducing the taxation on investment, which skews the risk reward ratio enabling more risky projects to be undertaken. If 50% of the profits disappear to the government who took no risk, and no effort, and then took the biggest “something for nothing” steal going.