Former Greek deputy Finance Minister Petros Doukas came with a revolutionary proposal to reduce unemployment. Jobless should work on voluntary basis and without payment. On his private website, and in his article “90+ Suggestions for a Greek New Deal II”, Doukas proposes that the state, the municipalities and even the private sector should invite unemployed Greeks to work with “no charge for the businesses that will employ them”.
The country’s jobless can offer work for no payment in sectors like “picking olives, cleaning beaches and streets, plant trees, making ancillary technical works in shops and other businesses depending on age, skills and demand. The businesses can hire the unemployed for three months. The state organisations can pay them, if they have money available. The jobless will have the chance to be active and meet future employers,” notes the genius ex finance ministry deputy of conservative Nea Dimocratia.
As Doukas explains, his proposal is based on the fact that taxes scare foreign investors and local businessmen cannot hire personnel because they have no money available.
Petros Doukas calls his 90+ suggestions as Get Greece back to work: Manifesto of 90+proposals to take the country out of the crisis and for Greece of creativity. Petros Doukas served as deputy finance minister 1992-1993 and 2004=2007 under Mitsotakis and Karamanlis governments of conservative Nea Dimocratia. He was assigned in the sector of the … Public Debt lol
Now let me think…. when was the last time we heard about similar voluntary work offered by jobless without payment in order to reduce unemployment? Oh, that was in Germany, they called it “Reich Labour Service” (Reichsarbeitsdienst or RAD) an institution established by Nazi Germany as an agency to help mitigate the effects of mass unemployment through a state sponsored voluntary organisation that provided services to civic and agricultural projects.
And how was the slogan later? Labour makes (you) free?
PS What I would like very much to know is whether “expired” and active Greek politicians do smoke or just drink something, we, normal Greeks, have no access to.
this particular ‘medicine’ needs to be injected straight into the vein
Wrong. In the 1980s there was a similar scheme in The Netherlands. I have participated in it and later hired people through it when I got work myself. A lot of people, who were at a dead end at that moment were very capable and it was just the step they needed to get out of that dead end in that very economical depressed time in that country.
to hear such a proposal by somebody who probably had his shared to the ruinb of the country is ‘very bold’ (to say it polite). and why not part of neoloberalism pracitce to make worst looks softer.
I wanted to answer with “As part of a well thought out policy and in the hands of capable people, a policy like this could work very beneficial to those who participate.” But you are right. Alas, as this is Greece there won’t be any “well thought out” part nor “capable people” to implement and run schemes like this. It will be cheap labor for those businesses who have the their friends in the right places. And the EU-subsidy will, like always disappear in the pockets of other friends and family.
Greeks could even accept this if monthly salary for civil servants and MPs drops down to 1,000 euro 🙂
Similar schemes ran (run?) in Ireland, they were (are?) called Social Employment Schemes. But, you don’t work for nothing. You get what you would be entitled to under your unemployment status, you had to be long-term unemployed or youth unemploed and most of these schemes were indeed schemes to do things that need doing but don’t necessarily generate revenue directly. They also ran on 2 year contracts. The great thing about those schemes was that they did indeed get people back into doing something meaningful. They also removed the necessity of “being available for work at all times” is is with unemployment, and allowed many people to go and take up a few hours of work over a week end etc and get back on their financial feet. I know many Irish who started their own business from within such a scheme. (Only to be shafted 15 years on, but that’s another story)
And there is indeed serious scope for such schemes anywhere, providing they are run and managed by competent people and in the ionterest of the community rather than help fattening an “entrepreneurs” bank account even further, be the account in Greece or in Switzerland…
Firstly Mr Doukas should give up any salary and lead by example.
Secondly in Greece this will not work because the unemployed get no unemployed benefits and they will also not get any food on their plates. They will also be used as slave labour so the employer can then fire all his paid workers and take on the free slave labour.
Yes, guys like Doukas should lead by example indeed. And agree with your second point, about why this wouldn’t work in Greece now, too. Only the last part would not be so different for part of the population with what was.