On the Welfare Reform agenda, Ed Balls is promising 'tough but fair' measures from Labour, proposing that every adult aged over 25 and out of work for more than two years should be obliged to take up a Government-provided job for six months, or lose benefits. The implication, yet again, is that out there are hordes of people choosing not to seek work and instead opting for a cushy life at the taxpayer's expense.
Now, forgive me if this is stating the completely bleeding obvious, but the last time I looked at the conditions for receiving Jobseekers Allowance, they included very clear requirements to be 'available for and actively seeking work'. In the days when sufficient staff were employed at Jobcentres to spend a few minutes talking to claimants on 'signing on' day, you had to show that you had been doing precisely that. No doubt, within the little time the DWP's ever-shrinking front-line workforce get to spend talking to, advising and supporting claimants, they continue to do their best to check these things. So in theory, if there actually is a job out there that this unemployed-for-two-years person can do, they've been trying to get it, or they've already been sanctioned for not doing so.
So yes, let's create some jobs and give long-term unemployed people a bit of 'positive discrimination' to get them. But if you're creating jobs using public money, let's make sure we're not effectively putting that money straight into the pockets of the shareholders of Asda, Tesco, Poundland etc, while at the same time allowing these companies to shed permanent staff and replace them with subsidised workers, thus giving them an unfair advantage in the marketplace and dumping at least one worker onto the dole for each taken on through the 'job creation' scheme. There is plenty of scope for new jobs to be created in communities and caring for the landscape that Councils, voluntary organisations and enviromental groups would love to do, but can't afford to employ the staff for in the present climate.
Ed Balls and Liam Byrne promise the jobs will pay 'the minimum wage.' This simply won't do if the plan involves placing people with private companies, as again it raises the spectre of substitution. The worker needs to receive the rate for the job where it is higher, to protect the rights of existing staff and to give them a 'proper job' experience - otherwise, it could easily feel like a six-month 'community punishment' to be put up with, rather than the opportunity and useful experience it ought to be.
But what makes me saddest about this announcement is that Labour even feel the need to have to sound 'tough' on 'Welfare' rather than seizing the moment to start sounding progressive on Social Security. There is widespread disgust at the antics of Atos in connection with ESA medical assessments, scorn for organisations such as A4e over their pathetic record on managing the current workfare schemes, and revulsion at the way these companies and others are making profit from recession and poverty. Ed Balls and Liam Byrne really need to stop running after the Daily Mail readers out there and start setting their own agenda. They may not win over the swing voters of Middle England, but they just might start winning over the non-voters in the run-down estates and unfashionable streets to be found in even the most prosperous County Town. They might even get back a few members and activists who left them in the unprincipled Blair Years.
They certainly won't do that while they're defending the 'benefit cap', but that's another story and another blog.
