Recently looking at job-advertisements I was amazed to
see the number of (managerial, well paid) jobs in the voluntary sector
while the volunteers ofcourse get some miserly expenses at best.
If these jobs need to be doing, why can't they be done for decent
money? If there is enough money for the managers, why not for the
workers? It is an insane society where the socially responsible jobs
have to rely on haphazard charity and the interconnectedness (crony)
ways of the nomenclature...
Eva
> Sally Lerner wrote:
>
> > >I'd be interested in commentsto this list on an idea that some of us feel
> > >would be far better than the coercive and punitive Ontario Works Program.
> > >It's very simple: find people on assistance who *want* to work and/or
> > >train. Then help them find volunteer work positions (and provide 'work
> > >readiness mentoring' if needed) and help them find funding for the training
> > >they need/want (not surprisingly, most people on assistance don't have
> > >money for training courses.)
> >
> I agree very much with this approach, although one of the problems I see
> both with Workfare and with this approach is that unless there is some
> realistic expectation that there may be a job at the end of it...then it
> really is just make-work and another form of blaming the victim ie. the
> reason you are unemployed is because you lack job readiness "life"etc.etc.
> skills or whatever the HRD buzz word of the day. This may be true but no
> amount of life skilling/job readiness-inging (sp) is going to do much in
> the absence of real employment opportunities.
>
> Now those employment opportunities could come from the public
> sector--as us FWers know, there is a lot of "work" to be done even if
> there aren't paid jobs to wrap around them, but (IMHO) only
> transitioning (other-wise employable youth) or de-classe middle class
> folks are going to make very much out of short term, contract "social"
> sector employment (anyone else remember Opportunities For Youth and the
> "counter sector that it resulted in).
>
> I think what Sally is suggesting works, for example we have made it work
> with some ex-TAGS (transitioning ex-fisher) folks here in Nova Scotia but
> it didn't just happen by creating a program... it took a lot of money
> time and effort at creating contexts out of which real
> employment/employment opportunities were able to emerge.
>
> Governments looking for quick fixes/magic bullets don't have the patience
> to put that kind of investment into the mix.
>
> No verdict--possible but unlikely
>
> regs
>
> Mike Gurstein
>
>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
