DE: If you don't take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits

Trojan

Germany seems to becoming a disaster area, and this would be verging on the ridiculous if it were not so frightening. I can foresee serious trouble in Germany related to their employment policies. I hope that Irish government are watching the situation there and stop us following in their footsteps.

As mentioned below, this is a ficticious article based on a hypothetically possible situation.

Link: http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=5362

article wrote:

A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing "sexual services’’ at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.

Prostitution was legalised in Germany just over two years ago and brothel owners * who must pay tax and employee health insurance * were granted access to official databases of jobseekers.

The waitress, an unemployed information technology professional, had said that she was willing to work in a bar at night and had worked in a cafe.

She received a letter from the job centre telling her that an employer was interested in her "profile’’ and that she should ring them. Only on doing so did the woman, who has not been identified for legal reasons, realise that she was calling a brothel.

Under Germany’s welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job * including in the sex industry * or lose her unemployment benefit. Last month German unemployment rose for the 11th consecutive month to 4.5 million, taking the number out of work to its highest since reunification in 1990.

Sleepy

The bástard in me agrees with this, as I don't agree with unemployment benefits in the first place (I'd rather see them replaced with temporary government jobs, paying slightly more than the current benefit system whereby you work in some form of community service). However, if you're going to allow people to sponge off the state I believe it's unfair to order someone to do a job that could damage their mental (and physical health).

simu

Can't she say she's not qualified for the job?

Having sex with someone for pleasure is quite different from doing it professionally, I'd imagine.

Is this story actually true btw? I'm sure I read somewhere that it was just a hypothetical case some one mistakenly seized upon as being true.

Sleepy

simu - if the German job centres are anything like the English, it would be the employer or the agency that determine if she's qualified, not herself.

Meh

http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/brothel.asp

Claim: Women in Germany face the loss of unemployment benefits if they decline to accept work in brothels.

Status: False

Evil Phil

Nah its not true. Various Human Rights treaties ratified by Germany prevent this: and if not the European Court of Human Rights will.

Trojan

Should have checked snopes - I was wondering after not being able to find the original - sorry all

Ok, how about "Sleepy thinks that this is acceptable - discuss!" ?

Zombrex

Trojan wrote:

Ok, how about "Sleepy thinks that this is acceptable - discuss!" ?

LOL

Sleepy

Trojan wrote:

Should have checked snopes - I was wondering after not being able to find the original - sorry all

Ok, how about "Sleepy thinks that this is acceptable - discuss!" ?

Hey, even I'm not that cold-hearted!

I'd just cut her welfare regardless

Victor

I wonder why they didn't apply equal oppurtunities legislation to this ....

omnicorp

this never actually happened. It was accidentally reported as true when it was just a spoof of the german social system

DapperGent

Sleepy wrote:

The bástard in me agrees with this, as I don't agree with unemployment benefits in the first place (I'd rather see them replaced with temporary government jobs, paying slightly more than the current benefit system whereby you work in some form of community service).

This would be more that a little unfair if you have been paying social insurance before losing your job.

If I ever became unemployed I would take as much time I wanted or needed before finding another job. I would take it as a right given the enourmous amount of PRSI I have paid.

Redleslie2

Sleepy wrote:

The bástard in me agrees with this, as I don't agree with unemployment benefits in the first place (I'd rather see them replaced with temporary government jobs, paying slightly more than the current benefit system whereby you work in some form of community service).

Where's the money to pay for the administration of this scheme going to come from?

Sleepy

An underworked civil service wouldn't need extra money to administer this. Besides, I can't imagine it taking any more effort to organise than the current hand-out system we employ.

I think it would also drastically reduce unemployment numbers as most people would rather work in a newsagents / whatever than pick up rubbish/clean graffitti etc. Many of the people on the dole (and this includes some of my friends) are only on it because they consider the work available to be beneath them. To my mind, this is no excuse: if you can support yourself it is your duty to society to do so.

neuro-praxis

So Sleepy tell me this: how exactly does a person get time off to go to interviews etc. if they're busy working a 9-5 in Spar where no manager gives a crap about you, and all for the princely sum of €262.50 a week (minimum wage...wouldn't even cover my rent every month, never mind anything else, btw).

If you have been paying PRSI you have every right to take time off and claim dole until you find a job suitable for you. Sleepy your attitude is fine in theory but the practicalities of finding a job mean that you need days free for job hunting and interviews. And sometimes if you have been laid off you will need time simply to reconsider the direction of your life.

It's not like the dole is enough to live on anyway. The utterly crap level of life on the dole would be motivation enough for me to find a job anyway.

I know people who decided to risk it, quit their jobs, and give all their worth to becoming professional musicians/artists/whatever. I think that's really admirable, seeing as how my life is enriched by people like that. That kind of commitment is is not possible while working some crummy office job.

It's not a black and white issue. If society were to provide filler jobs as you suggest, we might aswell start building elaborate barns and roads to nowhere like we did in the 1840s. What a laugh that was.

simu

Sleepy wrote:

Many of the people on the dole (and this includes some of my friends) are only on it because they consider the work available to be beneath them. To my mind, this is no excuse: if you can support yourself it is your duty to society to do so.

Some jobs are beneath some people! Say someone completes a PhD but does not succeed in getting a job before their time at uni is up. They go on the dole for a while, waiting for a suitable job to appear - do you really think it's better to force such a person to engage in menial tasks for a while, and as Neuro said, deprive them of time in which to search for a job?

Redleslie2

Sleepy wrote:

An underworked civil service wouldn't need extra money to administer this. Besides, I can't imagine it taking any more effort to organise than the current hand-out system we employ.

I think it would also drastically reduce unemployment numbers as most people would rather work in a newsagents / whatever than pick up rubbish/clean graffitti etc. Many of the people on the dole (and this includes some of my friends) are only on it because they consider the work available to be beneath them. To my mind, this is no excuse: if you can support yourself it is your duty to society to do so.

The government has been cutting funding for CE and JI schemes so if there isn't the money for them how is your scheme going to work without raising taxes. Try as I might I can't see promises of forced labour and tax rises going down too well on the doorsteps.

BuffyBot

Also sleepy, what about the people whom employers class as "over qualified/over experienced" for their "menial" jobs - what are they supposed to do?

Sleepy

neuro-praxis wrote:

So Sleepy tell me this: how exactly does a person get time off to go to interviews etc. if they're busy working a 9-5 in Spar where no manager gives a crap about you, and all for the princely sum of €262.50 a week (minimum wage...wouldn't even cover my rent every month, never mind anything else, btw).

Well, I've never heard of anyone working a 9 to 5 in a Spar tbh, it tends to be rostered work but regardless. I'd expect them to find the time the same way I'd have to: by taking holidays/sick days/whatever. Anyone in any job that's trying to get a promotion by changing companies has to be creative here, why allow some people to sponge off others simply because it's not nice to have to be sneaky to get to an interview?

If you have been paying PRSI you have every right to take time off and claim dole until you find a job suitable for you. Sleepy your attitude is fine in theory but the practicalities of finding a job mean that you need days free for job hunting and interviews. And sometimes if you have been laid off you will need time simply to reconsider the direction of your life.

"time simply to reconsider the direction of your life" - sounds like a holiday to me. Why should the taxpayer pay for your holiday? The practicalities you speak of apply to everyone. Look at today's job market. Most people going to an interview are doing so on lunch breaks, on afternoons where they've told their current employer they're at the dentists, on holidays. I don't see why the person doing this should have to pay for the person they're competing against for the job to have a nice lie in, a long hot shower and a leisurely breakfast before they get to the interview. Doesn't seem very fair to me.

It's not like the dole is enough to live on anyway. The utterly crap level of life on the dole would be motivation enough for me to find a job anyway.

For you. For other's it's not motivation enough. Particularly if you can subsidise it with a nixer of some kind (child-minding, web-design, whatever)

I know people who decided to risk it, quit their jobs, and give all their worth to becoming professional musicians/artists/whatever. I think that's really admirable, seeing as how my life is enriched by people like that. That kind of commitment is is not possible while working some crummy office job.

If you're a professional artist, you're not on the dole, you're self-employed. Otherwise you're an amateur who's sponging off the state.

It's not a black and white issue. If society were to provide filler jobs as you suggest, we might aswell start building elaborate barns and roads to nowhere like we did in the 1840s. What a laugh that was.

Why build roads to nowhere? There's plenty of road-building needed in this country. You're just being silly here. It's quite black and white really. If you're claiming unemployment benefit, other people are paying for your existence. This is fine if you haven't chosen to be in that position and are trying everything in your power to change it. If however, you're refusing work because your pride tells you that the work is beneath you, you're just as much to blame as someone who decides that they'd like a dole holiday for a few months.

Sleepy

simu wrote:

Some jobs are beneath some people! Say someone completes a PhD but does not succeed in getting a job before their time at uni is up. They go on the dole for a while, waiting for a suitable job to appear - do you really think it's better to force such a person to engage in menial tasks for a while, and as Neuro said, deprive them of time in which to search for a job?

That's exactly what I believe. People have a duty to pay their way in society. To think that any job is beneath you is just complete arrogance. I don't get this attitude at all, if you're too proud to sweep floors/stack shelves/whatever how in the hell aren't you too proud to beg off the state?

And I'm sorry, I don't accept the argument that you're depriving anyone of time in which to search for a job by expecting them to hold down a job. Particularly in the scenario I advocated above of temporary government positions. It would be extremely easy to factor in flexible hours to facilitate interviews etc in this type of scheme.

Sleepy

Redleslie2 wrote:

The government has been cutting funding for CE and JI schemes so if there isn't the money for them how is your scheme going to work without raising taxes. Try as I might I can't see promises of forced labour and tax rises going down too well on the doorsteps.

How does it cost any more money? Sure, those being supported by the state would be costing slightly more than current dole recipients, however there would be fewer numbers of people receiving the dole as you'd find that many of the current recipients of the dole would find some of the work they saw as beneath them more acceptable than they previously had.

I also contend that you underestimate the value of labour. With more people actively participating in the economy, the economy will benefit.

Finally, with regards to your initial point of administration costs. Why do you see this as being more difficult to administer than the current dole system? If it's a matter of more staff being needed, it's the one element we're not short of in this scenario.

Sleepy

BuffyBot wrote:

Also sleepy, what about the people whom employers class as "over qualified/over experienced" for their "menial" jobs - what are they supposed to do?

I think you've completely missed the point. If someone can't find work, they sign on for temporary governmental work. In return for this work they receive money. Not much more than the current dole but enough to survive on. When they find work, they sign off this temporary work and take their new job.

The problem of being "over qualified" for a certain position isn't a new one, nor is it furthered by the scheme I suggest.

simu

Sleepy wrote:

That's exactly what I believe. People have a duty to pay their way in society. To think that any job is beneath you is just complete arrogance. I don't get this attitude at all, if you're too proud to sweep floors/stack shelves/whatever how in the hell aren't you too proud to beg off the state?

And I'm sorry, I don't accept the argument that you're depriving anyone of time in which to search for a job by expecting them to hold down a job. Particularly in the scenario I advocated above of temporary government positions. It would be extremely easy to factor in flexible hours to facilitate interviews etc in this type of scheme.

It's not that I am too proud but over-qualified. I know people are often over-qualified for their jobs but the example I gave - having a PhD and doing menial tasks - is a quantum leap of an overqualification. Also, I see nothing wrong with accepting dole money for a while - I've paid taxes in the past, I'm paying VAT constantly and I'm a citizen of this country so the government has a duty to help me out in times of need.

I don't see these temporary government positions being viable at all - any job, no matter how simple requires some training so you'd need to hire trainers. There would be an extremely high turn-over rate so whatever work was being done probably wouldn't get done very consistently. People are unlikely to put much effort into this work as it is forced upon them and if there's a possibility of getting fired, there's no safety net beyond that. What about junkies and so on - would these guys have to work too? (Bundle of fun training them!). Also, such a scheme might drive long-terms dole users who have given up on the idea of employment (whether forever or temporarily) and are unwilling to work, further into the black economy.

rubadub

The difference between dole and minimum wage needs a wider gap. A guy can work minimum wage 9-5 or get the dole and clean a few windows on the side and make more money with no hassles of permanent employment

simu

rubadub wrote:

The difference between dole and minimum wage needs a wider gap. A guy can work minimum wage 9-5 or get the dole and clean a few windows on the side and make more money with no hassles of permanent employment

Well, we'd have to raise the minimum wage then and that would bring costs up for employers.

We couldn't lower social welfare payments as they're pretty low already. Sure, there are some people who mange to top them up but there are many more who struggle to get by on the existing payments.

rubadub

simu wrote:

We couldn't lower social welfare payments as they're pretty low already. .

How are ours compared to other countries? I always thought we had very high paying welfare

simu

rubadub wrote:

How are ours compared to other countries? I always thought we had very high paying welfare

I'm not comparing to other countries but considering the price of food, clothes, electricity etc in this country being on social welfare means you have to watch every cent.

seamus

rubadub wrote:

How are ours compared to other countries? I always thought we had very high paying welfare

What you really need is Social Welfare payment -v- Cost of living, and then compare that to the same figure for other countries. €130/week would get you much more in other places than in Ireland.

Redleslie2

Sleepy wrote:

How does it cost any more money? Sure, those being supported by the state would be costing slightly more than current dole recipients, however there would be fewer numbers of people receiving the dole as you'd find that many of the current recipients of the dole would find some of the work they saw as beneath them more acceptable than they previously had.

I also contend that you underestimate the value of labour. With more people actively participating in the economy, the economy will benefit.

Finally, with regards to your initial point of administration costs. Why do you see this as being more difficult to administer than the current dole system? If it's a matter of more staff being needed, it's the one element we're not short of in this scenario.

I can't be arsed with this rubbish. You're one heck of a sad stupid twat crank aren't you.

Redleslie2

Don't mean to be so blunt and you're not the worst here, but bloody hell, talk about thick.

Sleepy

Redleslie2, would I be right in assuming you're on a dole holiday at the moment?

Otherwise, I can't see why you'd take this so personally? Is it my "everyman for himself after a fair start" attitude you don't like or what? If my position is so thick, argue against it, punch holes in it and prove me thick, because otherwise you're the one that comes off looking stupid.