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To: Minister for Employment, Michaelia Cash
Modern slavery in Australia ? End Work for the Dole
We must end Work for the Dole as it must be recognised as a heinous crime that the unemployed people around Australia are subjected to modern slavery practices such as servitude and forced labour. These are grave violations of human rights and serious crimes with devastating impacts that have no place in our community.
WfD will end as it is also a form of exploitation as the jobless should properly enjoy award working conditions including superannuation and wages that meet the minimum award wage.
WfD will end as it is also a form of exploitation as the jobless should properly enjoy award working conditions including superannuation and wages that meet the minimum award wage.
Why is this important?
Work for the Dole looks like slavery.
The International Labour Organization - ILO - is the UN agency for the world of work and forced labour is defined by ILO Forced Labour Convention No. 29 (1930) as ‘all work or service that is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily’.
The jobless are required to sign contractual ‘Job Plans’ with employment agents termed ‘providers’, with work requirements and penalties clearly specified—there are no options to be negotiated. In say the Community Development Project (CDP) and an estimated 17,000 to 20,000 jobless aged eighteen to forty-nine, work requirements are specified at five hours a day, five days a week, forty-six weeks in the year, with no end date, potentially year in, year out.
Deploying the definition in the ILO convention above, the WfD is a form of forced labour. Given that forced labour is so central to the definition of modern slavery, the WfD is a form of modern slavery. And when people work for government agencies or in the private sector for pay below the legal minimum, they are being exploited. WfD is also a form of involuntary servitude, because if people do not turn up for work and exercise their basic human right to withdraw their labour, they are punished with financial penalties. Ultimately, refusal to participate results in a person being placed entirely outside the safety net of welfare support.
The International Labour Organization - ILO - is the UN agency for the world of work and forced labour is defined by ILO Forced Labour Convention No. 29 (1930) as ‘all work or service that is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily’.
The jobless are required to sign contractual ‘Job Plans’ with employment agents termed ‘providers’, with work requirements and penalties clearly specified—there are no options to be negotiated. In say the Community Development Project (CDP) and an estimated 17,000 to 20,000 jobless aged eighteen to forty-nine, work requirements are specified at five hours a day, five days a week, forty-six weeks in the year, with no end date, potentially year in, year out.
Deploying the definition in the ILO convention above, the WfD is a form of forced labour. Given that forced labour is so central to the definition of modern slavery, the WfD is a form of modern slavery. And when people work for government agencies or in the private sector for pay below the legal minimum, they are being exploited. WfD is also a form of involuntary servitude, because if people do not turn up for work and exercise their basic human right to withdraw their labour, they are punished with financial penalties. Ultimately, refusal to participate results in a person being placed entirely outside the safety net of welfare support.