László Andor’s
speech was not so much inspiring as a result of his flashy presentation or the language
he used. To the contrary: it was held in the typical European Union language
‘Brusselenglish’ and it was uttered by someone, who was never chosen for his
charisma, but rather for his lack of it.
Nevertheless, the contents
and context of this very short speech were remarkable and interesting. That is
the reason that I want to spend this article on it.
Andor spoke about
the need for the governments and employers of the EU member states to not only enable
and create jobs for the unemployed Europeans, but to create jobs for them that
would lift the European men and women out of poverty. That was a very important
statement.
In his speech,
Andor even dared to be iconoclastic against the neoliberal dogma that ‘social benefits
make people lazy and self-satisfied’.
Here is the
integral speech, accompanied by my comments:
A significant increase in the risk of poverty among
the working age population is one of the most tangible social consequences of
the financial and economic crisis in Europe. Even if unemployment is gradually
reduced as currently projected, this may not be enough to reverse rising
poverty, especially if wage polarisation continues, notably due to a rise in
part-time work.
My comments: You can’t overstate the importance of this statement. That poverty and economic hardship is always
looming for the unemployed people all over Europe, living from social benefits
or not, can hardly be called surprising.
However, when
unemployed people get a job, the ‘communis opinio’ is always that their worries
are over and possible poverty will be behind them. That is not true, per sé.
Even for employed European citizens,
there is:
- The race to the bottom for wages and fees, especially
for lower class workers, contract workers and temporary workers. This race has
been initiated at many European companies and government bodies;
- as a consequence of the vast income differences between the West and
East-European citizens;
- as a consequence of the desire for companies and government bodies to
cut expenses to the bone and strongly improve their margins;
- The deterioration in the amount of full-time, fixed
labour contracts, in favor of flex-contracts (f.i. zero hour contracts), temporary
contracts, piecework contracts or part-time contracts with unfavourable working
hours;
- Postmen, who get paid per delivered letter, instead of being on a
monthly salary;
- Freelance truck-drivers, who have to wait by the phone, hoping that
their principal calls with an assignment for them;
- Germans
who have a so-called mini-job: a part-time job, which pays only €400 per month,
forcing the person with the job to look for additional work in order to earn
enough income to live from;
- The situation with workers from the low wage
countries, who are sometimes working and living in West-Europe under
circumstances, which are akin to modern slavery:
- People,
who are working very long hours without any of the normal rights and privileges that
domestic workers have;
- Workers,
who have to pay a considerable share of their poor wages for housing and food,
while their living circumstances are terrible.
These are all circumstances that many people and
companies rather look away from, like an ostrich digging his head in the sand.
And of course, there is the issue of the growing
divergence between the lowest wages and the highest salaries and fees in the
European countries: a result of the mindset of the current generation of
entrepreneurs, executives, managers and financial wizards, who often think that
they have God-given talents, which should be rewarded accordingly.
Every attempt by politicians to level out these huge
income differences, in favour of the classes with the lowest income, have been
doomed. These attempts were met with massive protests, widescale political
lobbying from special interest organizations and threats by people and
companies to ‘move to other places’ if politics didn’t back down. Subsequently,
the politicians scared away from this subject again.
In
2013 we have seen some tentative signs of economic recovery from the double-dip
recession: GDP grew in the second and third quarters of the year, unemployment
stopped rising and employment stopped falling. However, this recovery is still
very modest and rather fragile. We have not yet begun to make up for the job
losses of the past five years. Long-term unemployment is still on the rise in
most Member States, as well as precarious jobs
My
comments: Again this is an
important statement. I definitely think that the massive unwinding of the
excess capacity in many industries has not finished yet and won’t even finish
before 2017 or 2018.
The building and construction industry, the automobile
industry, the financial industry and the commercial services industry are among
the industries, where capacity must be strongly diminished and/or where the
ubiquitous automation and robotization takes away many hands-on production jobs;
consequently, these jobs are on the line.
Besides that, as I mentioned earlier in this article,
there is a large and growing group of European citizens – especially youngsters
– whose flexible, piecework or part-time jobs offer so little security, that
they can’t acquire things and services that many older Europeans take for
granted: an owner-occupied house, a car, a healthcare insurance and a family,
to mention a few. These people must live in the knowledge that their job can be
finished by the day, when somebody calls in who asks less salary.
That is not a comforting thought…
Our analysis shows that getting a job is a way out of
poverty in only half of the cases. Much depends on the type of job found, the
level of pay and the number of hours worked. It also depends on the composition
of the household and the working situation of the partner. Unfortunately we
cannot say that having a job necessarily equates with a decent standard of
living.
My comments: Amen!
In the past, the
European Council, European Commission and national governments have too often left
the topic of ‘fair remuneration’ to the market, where it does not belong in the
first place.
National and
supranational governments have to decide upon the level playing field, of which
all workers must be part, and have to set the boundaries for fair payment and
necessary working conditions, to which all employers must comply.
Jobs which violate
the (supra)national minimal payment standards or that offer unfair working
hours and conditions should be forbidden and – when necessary – even penalized
by the (supra)national governments.
Poverty is especially likely to remain a growing
problem if polarisation between high and low wages continues, and if more and
more people are obliged to work only part-time. Therefore, policy-makers need
to aim not only to create jobs, but also to ensure inclusive labour markets and
decent working conditions. Moreover, governments must continue to provide
income support and other social expenditure, including for households whose
members do have a job, if people are to exit poverty.
The Review also shows that, contrary to many commonly
held views, job seekers receiving unemployment benefits are more likely to get
a job than those who don't receive benefits. Why is that? Because well-designed
unemployment benefit systems, such as those that reduce the generosity of the
benefits over time, require unemployed people receiving benefits to actively
look for a job. Moreover, these unemployed receive advice from job centres and
have better access to training.
My comments: Finally, there is an official that does not want to
reduce unemployment benefits and social benefits to the bare minimum, on which
people can hardly live.
Finally Andor
officially debunks the neoliberal dogma that decent benefits make people lazy
and self-satisfied and that only order, discipline and ‘financial starvation’
can get people back to work.
I have nothing
against the demand, that unemployment or social benefits should have goals and
targets set in them. People, who live from a benefit should indeed invest their
time and energy in acquiring a new job and not wait until they are unnegotiable
for such a job.
However, lately it
seemed sometimes – at least in The Netherlands – that every unemployed man or
woman, living from unemployment benefits or welfare was an antisocial sponger.
Someone, who should be treated with the utmost distrust and stringent
supervision: a very small carrot and a
very big stick:
- Entrepreneurship
was the standard in The Netherland;
- Workers on the
payroll were failed entrepreneurs: people without guts, who should not whine
about their salary and secondary benefits;
- People receiving
welfare were lazy, socialist spongers, who should get their b*tts kicked,
instead of being treated with respect and compassion.
It is good to read
that at least commissioner László Andor thinks, that this attitude and
behaviour against the unemployed was wrong. And that unemployed people should
receive more understanding, training and guidance on their way to (hopefully) a
new job.
And at least their time
of being unemployed should be fruitful and satisfying, even when a new job is impossible
at that moment. If you look for instance at the unemployment situation in
Greece, Spain
or the other
PIIGS countries, then you
understand that those 50-odd percent unemployed youngsters in Spain and 30-odd
percent unemployed older workers in Greece don’t do this out of luxury, but
because they really can’t get a job.
These people don’t
deserve our scornful laughter, envy and anger, but our help, support and
compassion.
