By Joe Mancini
Published in June 1996
Perhaps no public initiative exposes more clearly the utter lack of vision in our political and bureaucratic classes than the implementation of workfare. It is exactly the kind of program that will breed further cynicism. (Congratulations to Mayor Christy, Jeff Lorentz, John Smola and Mark Yantri who voted against the workfare motion at Regional Council.) While politicians, bureaucrats and some social agencies debate among themselves how they will control, trap and force people into workfare projects, people are asking questions about shrinking job opportunities and social engineering: and about work that is useful and about true alternatives.
Where are the jobs for the 30,000 people who are looking for work in the Region?
In the 1970s the number of people on GWA (General Welfare Assistance) was well under 1,000. Everyone knows that it was then possible to walk around industrial areas (even in the downtown!) and quickly find work. Is it a coincidence that the caseload grew after the 1982 recession and then ballooned after the last recession to over 11,000 cases? No, it is because during that period we saw dramatic plant closings (just this week 250 decent industrial jobs are slated to disappear at Murphy’s Chips and another shop) and job losses due to globalization and the introduction of job displacing technology.
Today, the real problem is that there are at least 30,000 job searchers and relatively few job openings; there is competition for every job and many people are rejected and dejected by the outcome.
Think about what people are going through:
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250 people lining up for restaurant jobs
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40 people lining up for one part- time job at Tim Hortons
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people earning most of their income from temporary jobs
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people trying to put two part-time jobs together to make one job
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people doing telephone sales and commission-only sales
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people doing courier and pizza deliveries if they use their own car
These examples come from everyday people who use The Working Centre. During the week of May 15th, the Canada Employment Centre job board listed 204 jobs for WATERLOO, WELLINGTON and PERTH! A rough breakdown of these jobs into wage and skill categories reveals what most people already know: 41% of these jobs were low skilled minimum wage or commission sales work, 46% were jobs that demanded specific high skills and only 13% (27 jobs) are in the $9-13 an hour wage range. It was these middle type jobs that at one time offered some kind of future for workers. Meanwhile the training programs that exist are oversubscribed and very few prepare people for the high skill jobs that are available.
People are doing what they can to find work. It is obvious to anyone who looks that there are not enough jobs. The labour market is rapidly changing and is leaving people without work opportunities. It is irrational to pretend that workfare is some magical solution to a deep rooted economic problem.
Social Engineering
Workfare is another example of big government social engineering that is doomed to both failure and bureaucratic mismanagement. Workfare is yet another face of bureaucracy determined to bring the jobless under control. High levels of joblessness result in people finding themselves without work or savings and then on GWA. With little help from the labour market for new jobs, the bureaucracy is only too happy to label these people “deviant” for not finding work and now prescribes a form of “work” to cure these “cases” of their “problems”. The bureaucracy assumes moral responsible to lead these people in the proper direction.
This is how the welfare system consistently turns citizens into clients.
The State takes moral responsibility and power away from the individual because the State claims it will solve the problem (when in fact it does not even have a clue where to begin). The Tories were elected to scale down big government, but with workfare they seem only too happy to inflict illogical social engineering and bureaucratic control on people.
A Spirituality of Work
The third fundamental problem with workfare is that it treats work and workers as if nothing has changed since the 1930s. Workfare is a form of social engineering designed with the illusion that everyone must work in a paid job. In our overdeveloped society, we think we need more jobs, more roads, more consumer goods, more entertainment, when in fact we have more than enough.
Our way of work has also resulted in humans becoming so powerful that we have driven fellow creatures to extinction, we have poisoned the earth, rain, wind, we are on the verge of fatefully changing weather patterns and we have ripped holes in the ozone layer.
Rather than workfare we need a renewed social vision where we rethink work and search for a philosophy of labour and a spirituality of work.
The fourth fundamental misjudgement of workfare is that creating a punitive system for people on welfare will only make the system worse than it already is. People are not fools. They will show up to do whatever they have to in order to get a cheque that will pay rent and put food on the table. Is this what we are working towards? A system where people are humiliated and cajoled into participating? A system that will further rob people of their self-respect?
At The Working Centre over 30 people volunteer their time. Many are on social assistance. They make possible an open inviting public space where up to 175 people a day use the phones, computers, phone message service, the library, the work areas, typewriters, not to mention the friendly banter and helpfulness that gives hope to many people. People freely use the tools of the centre to build on their own job search. Volunteers make the place friendly and indispensable and they gladly give of their time.
Here people are choosing to build community, to help each other, to gain confidence and fight the isolation of unemployment. It is not possible to build this spirit with coercion!
The combination of increased joblessness and growing resistance to jobs that are meaningless and destructive of people and the environment is leading us into new territory. Workfare is an awkward attempt by incompetent government to change this social reality. Yet there is genuine concern that all members of society should contribute to the community good.
If the government has any role it is to encourage those who have new found free time to contribute in new and interesting ways. This cannot be done by force. Name one good invention created or social problem solved under coercive circumstances!
Real Local Work
Wendell Berry in this issue gives seventeen examples of how people can work locally to help their communities to flourish. What is missing is not the political will (that is not there because there is no political vision), but the social vision at the community level. There is work to be done and people want to contribute to that work. Up to this point no one has thought much about making it possible.
Think of food and how China produces 90% of its vegetables in cities. A local food system developed by personal action rather than decrees would see parklands and backyards used for food production, people would learn how to nurture soil and the complexities of organic gardening. Everyone would learn the important work of making compost, while others would learn the arts of saving seeds (especially heritage seeds). Many would want to learn how to produce fresh food year round and how to preserve it. The possibilities are endless.
Think of all the other areas that are yearning for honest, inventive work: in the fields of childcare, energy creation, natural food cooking, carpentry, sewing and pottery. The article on K-W LETS describes how groups are creating their own local currencies in order to contribute and produce.
Workfare is social engineering, as opposed to encouraging new and creative local work. There are many examples of how those without paid work already assist each other in informal ways. What is important is the positive reinforcement of building relationships and the ethic of valuing what we create rather than what we buy.
Let the politicians pretend they are solving the problems of joblessness, while a new work culture grows in ways the government will never understand.
