Community Sector & Trade Unions fear Tus Scheme is 'workfare'

By Thomas Erbsloh

Thomas Erbsloh in 2010. Photo: Changing Ireland

Dear Editor,

The two-pager on the proposed Tus-Programme in the last issue of ‘Changing Ireland’ was somewhat one-sided and disappointing.

Fair enough, reference was made that the 5000 places on the Tus Scheme seemed to mirror the jobs lost in the community and voluntary sector, and a minor reference to a critical comment on a ULA councillor's website.

But that`s it – no analysis or rationale for any objection to Tus, but loads of PR, how it will be to the benefit of everyone involved.

Really? There is widespread concern about various elements of this scheme.

UNITE, the Union, have adopted the following regarding Tus :

We generally welcome new, additional opportunities for unemployed people to participate in meaningful training and employment schemes - known as activation measures – which train and upskill people, and aid participants to return to the labour force.

Nevertheless we have a number of serious concerns about the new Tus scheme currently being rolled out through the Department of Social Protection.

 Our key concerns are as follows :

·    Participation in the scheme is not voluntary, but it is obligatory for selected social welfare recipients to participate or face the threat of possible termination of social welfare payments. Potential participants will be selected by the Department and not the Community and Voluntary Organisation, in which they will be placed.

·    There is no training element or training budget for the scheme. It is difficult to see this as a genuine, beneficial activation measure in the absence of any designated training aspect to the scheme.

·    Published Tus guidelines states that the scheme will “not displace existing commercial activity”. This is wholly inadequate in relation to the issue of displacement of established, paid work in the Community and Voluntary Sector. As community organisations are not-for-profit, charitable organisations, the issue of displacing commercial activity is unlikely to arise. However the displacement of paid, qualified, properly recruited and motivated staff in the NGO-Sector with poorly paid, possibly unwilling, short-term staff recruited by social welfare offices appears to be a real possibility. The threat of Tus replacing existing, well established Community Employment (CE) schemes as a cheaper, less useful and valuable `Yellow Pack` Scheme is also a real possible threat.

Along with standard trade union and employment rights for participants we consider the above as minimum pre-requisites for any acceptable employment scheme.

In their absence, we would not encourage groups in the Community and Voluntary Sector to participate in the roll-out of the scheme.

UNITE are not alone in this regard. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has produced a policy document on fair employment schemes, outlining eight “essential requirements” for fair schemes, one of which is the issue of voluntary participation on schemes, as well as further raising the issue of displacement and training.

Likewise The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed stated in their election manifesto that "participation in education training and employment programmes must be by choice”.

Then there is concern within `Defending Ireland`s Communities`, the joint Trade Union Community Sector Campaign - the list goes on.

Ex-minister O`Cuiv is reported to have described Tus as “a huge opportunity for individuals and communities”, going on about the additional cost of €5000 for the State for someone on Tus compared to social welfare.

From the perspective of the involuntary social welfare participant it means `workfare` - the American model of making unemployed people work for their dole. From the perspective of the community organisation it is a continuance of the `Race to the Bottom` - the replacement of paid staff with scheme workers and volunteers.

It is unlikely that Local Development Companies are going to make too much of a song and dance about this, having a (predominant) track record of being meek implementers of State policy, however objectionable.

Sure I can think of one partnership company, whose chairperson – a local councillor – has been publicly advocating for `workfare` in the past. But let’s not forget that there are some Local Development Companies that can see the negative impacts of the proposed scheme, and are very reluctant to get involved in the roll-out of Tus.

Community organisations and Local Development Companies should resist Tus, and support people on social welfare, whose position is too vulnerable to refuse participating on the scheme.

If the issue of displacement can be addressed somewhat satisfactorily, at least let’s try and turn the 5000 Tus places into 5000 new CE scheme places. The State is already committed to extra spending on the new scheme (as reported); the need for training and up-skilling is one area of almost unique consensus across the board and it cannot be that prohibitively costly to add a meaningful training element to the scheme; and – last, but not least - community organisations will get participants, who opt for this opportunity, without being forced to do so.

While Labour were in opposition, CE seemed to be the bee’s knees. Let`s look for some policy consistency from Labour Minister Joan Burton in this regard now.

What we should not allow to happen, is to for our Community Sector to become the guinea pigs, the weakest link, for the introduction of `workfare`.

Yours sincerely

Thomas Erbsloh

(Community Sector Member of UNITE)

Coolnahau, Mullinavat, Co Kilkenny, via Waterford