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A put-up job

19/10/2018

4 Comments

 
Picture
Cartoon by Natasha Williams-Novak
By Geoff Ellis

BUSY business seeks over 50s workers. Boss happy to allow time off for medical appointments. Prefer public transport users. Hours to suit grandchild minding. Please apply in person. 
 
If only! The reality for most job seekers in their 50s and 60s is a humiliating round of interviews with their job service agency, an obligation to apply for jobs for which they know they are not suited, and a complete lack of respect or interest in their skills from employers.
“Job seekers” is not a real term if there are no jobs. In Bass Coast the current unemployment rate is 6.8 per cent – that means at least 1057 people are looking for work, right now.
 
I recently attended a meeting of the Wonthaggi Branch of the Unemployed Workers Union people. The group arose from a meeting of job seekers 18 months ago. Its purpose is to provide communal support as well as advocacy so people aren't punished for not having a job.
 
Everyone in that meeting room had a tale of humiliation, frequently from dealing with their own job agency, the Government-funded agencies paid to “look after” them and help them find employment. This mostly consists of drawing up a “job plan” for jobs that don’t exist. For this the agencies receive more funding than the job seekers are given to live on while they look for employment.
 
Several people shared their experience of life below the poverty line. Around here Newstart can be a vague promise to people who are shuffled through a system of often irrelevant training, statistical obfuscation and the threat of hunger if they don’t tick the right boxes.
 
People spoke of dumpster diving and couch surfing. Sounds adventurous but the reality of couch surfing is that you don’t know where you’ll be sleeping tomorrow night. Or you’ll sleep in the car with your kids on the back seat. Overnight somewhere. No fixed abode, in other words.
 
In real terms, dumpster diving means prising open the padlocked lid of an industrial waste bin at the back of your local supermarket. Then shoving your arm into a lucky dip of “best before”’ and “use by yesterday” food. Juggling not quite fresh eggs is the greatest challenge.
 
In Wonthaggi at 2pm on a Sunday dumpster diving is a last resort for the moneyless and the hungry. Across Bass Coast, churches and agencies offer anonymous access to food banks, shopping vouchers, community meals and food parcels.
 
The Unemployed Workers Union has 7000 members in Victoria. Our local branch is doing great things to help members navigate a too often adversarial, system, as they struggle to even cover the cost of their meeting room. I went to their last meeting to listen and learn.
 
Their latest news was that breaching and consequent reduction in payments had been privatised. Turn up late for an appointment or displease your case manager and your daily $39 could be reduced or suspended. Incidentally, that amount hasn’t increased, in real terms, since last century.
 
Some members of the group live in the Miners Rest “Caravan” Park. That’s a visceral definition of insecure accommodation if ever there was one. There are currently 44,000 Victorians on the waiting list for social housing.
 
As I drove off to another meeting, I pondered what I could do to help.
 
In the short term – right now – donate money or food to one of our local foodbanks. Long term, the AUWU is asking us to ask our federal representatives to increase Newstart to a live-able amount.
 
The Australian Unemployed Workers Union provides information about fair treatment of people looking for work. Membership is free. 
​
4 Comments
Felicia Di Stefano
19/10/2018 05:27:40 pm

Thank you for letting us know about the hidden truths in our community, Geoff. I wonder whether the Wonthaggi Foundation could help, in the short term? I wonder, also, whether some of the unemployed in Wonthaggi could complete a training course in looking after children. In that way they could mind the children of people who now have to pay huge amounts at child-care centres. That would save the government their newstart payment allowing the minders to receive a fair living wage. And if that is not possible for some, those people need to receive a living wage as well. I would be happy to pay more taxes if the money went to give those unable to find employment, a fair living wage.

Reply
sunny
20/10/2018 05:04:18 pm

Thanks Geoff for raising this important topic, this group is often ignored. Now many in their 60's will have to wait longer for the pension, there will be more suffering. Jobs are scarce for young people too, but for older people it is nearly impossible. We need to get rid of the job providers who like you say are getting paid more than the job seekers who often cannot do anymore than what the job seekers have already done. In the days of CES it was much more efficient and a lot less cruel. Training is one thing but many have already done that, no point in training if no jobs are available.

Felicia, in reality many of these older people do not have the patience to look after kids and are often already baby sitting their grandchildren.

The answer is raise Newstart and sack the job providers, the very least ease up on the requirements for this age group.

Reply
Geoff Ellis
22/10/2018 02:52:15 am

Thanks for the positive comments Felicia and Sunny.

One of the most insulting thought bubbles that came of out of Canberra recently was the idea that work for the dole could be expanded to ship jobless people into rural area and force them to work on farms. Bad enough that the unemployed are just seen as a statistical resource but doesn't anyone behind that idea realise that dairy and general farm work is a skill, perhaps a vocation, that can't be learned in five minutes - it takes years, if not generations, to understand cattle and farming practices.

And, like child care, not everyone, no matter what age, is cut out for agricultural labour.

Reply
Felicia Di Stefano
30/10/2018 10:12:14 am

I did say that those who did not want to be involved with childcare need to get a living wage and I am very willing to pay more taxes for that to happen. I cited the childcare example as one of my friends who was unemployed did just that and was very happy with the result.

Reply



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