Revamped work scheme for jobless tackles wage abuse

Close to 600 individuals engaged in a community work scheme will be transferred to the private sector after the General Workers’ Union won a tender to operate the scheme.

The scheme, launched in 2009 for the long-term unemployed, now also includes those registering for work to provide them placements of up to 30 hours a week with local councils, schools and NGOs at a rate of 75% the minimum wage, offering them an opportunity to contribute 30 hours per week to a local council, school or NGO. In exchange, they received 75 per cent of the minimum wage. 

As unemployed, the participants were not entitled to statutory benefits.

The scheme attracted 598 LTUs but failed to put them  into work or obtain skills to help them find a job. Clyde Caruana, chairman of the Employment & Training Corporation said most were “trapped” in their placement. “A substantial number will reach retirement age in a few years; others are unemployable, with no skills whatsoever,” Caruana said.

Participants would also claim to have worked a set number of hours when in reality they would have worked fewer. The fact that they weren’t entitled to any vacation or sick leave did not help.

Under the GWU, the participants will work up to 40 hours a week and will regarded as being in employment. “Participants refusing the scheme will be struck off the register and will not be entitled to benefits for six months,” Caruana said, adding that the aim of the scheme is to regularise such workers and “curtail abuse”.

Caruana said he hopes the scheme will increase the workers’ productivity and help them cross the bridge over into employment, apart from honouring a government pledge to scores currently in precarious employment.

The GWU clinched the tender with an offer of €980 for each participant. The Demajo-Grant Thornton consortium tendered with €1,178 per particpant, while JF Group offerred €110 per participant – an error in the bid that led to its automatic disqualification because the offer did not even meet the minimum wage requirements.