There’s been some interesting discussion on this thread about Therese Rein’s business on the deeper problems surrounding the Job Network. One of them certainly is the very low rates of pay which are common in the employment services sector. There’s no doubt that the award for people working in that sector is vastly inadequate, and a business model which accepts very low wages (often around 30k for a full time position) and ties the capacity to earn in excess of the baseline pay rate to performance indicators which reinforce the perversities of the design of the job network rather than one which rewards skills and training is a legitimate point of criticism.
In comments, Stephen Hill linked to a report from Catholic Social Services Australia [pdf] which provides a critique of the current system. This paper has also been picked up on in a column in The Age by Ken Davidson, who points to one significant anomaly - the fact that funding is effectively denied to social service agencies, such as the Brotherhood of St Lawrence (who have withdrawn from the Job Network), which seek to do the hard work of actually providing the services necessary to address the needs of long term unemployed clients and other disadvantaged job seekers rather than the reward for minimal effort job placement incentives which the JN centres on.
There are two points worth making about the politics of this discussion.
The first is whether or not a real conflict of interest exists whereby Labor policy on the JN might be affected by a conscious or unconscious desire not to harm Work Directions Australia’s business. It’s worth pointing out here that there are many who are knowledgeable about social policy who will tell you WDA is very far from being the worst JN provider and indeed that its ethos regarding tailored assistance to disadvantaged clients is in fact translated into a genuine difference in its approach to the provision of employment services. The second is that Labor has in fact done some very good policy work on workplace participation. If you consult the shadow minister Penny Wong’s website, you’ll find a discussion paper which appears to be a very comprehensive piece of policy work. Wong promises that Labor will conduct a review of the JN in office, measuring the effectiveness of the current model against some principles, which appear to me to be sound ones and ones which respond to many of the criticisms of the prevailing approach within the JN. You can make up your own mind and read the paper here [pdf]. It would seem, at least at this stage, that Labor has proceeded ethically and that its policy process hasn’t been influenced by any potential conflict of interest.
The second point is that the ongoing investigation by the Office of Workplace Services into WDA’s staffing and pay practices has the likelihood of making it less likely that there’ll be a genuine debate about the inadequacy of the JN model and the best way forward for providing employment services. Many of the problems that have been highlighted so far about WDA are in fact common across the sector, but Labor will be less likely to point this out lest continued attention be drawn to Ms Rein’s company. That suits the government very well, and indeed, suits the self interest of WDA’s competitors. It also highlights the intrinsic and structural constraints that are created by an employment services quasi-market which privileges profit-making enterprises over public and community provision. Labor’s discussion paper doesn’t appear, at least on a quick reading, to question whether or not the JN should continue be structured in such a way as to open up the opportunity for businesses which are primarily motivated by commercial concerns. To the degree that closeness to WDA (and indeed other commercial providers of employment services) and the existing stakes they have in the continued commercial orientation of the JN has influenced Labor’s approach, that probably really is a disturbing outcome.
Disclosure: I once applied for a policy research position with Ingeus (the parent company of WDA) which in the end they didn’t proceed with. The process of application did however give me some insight into their corporate approach and principles.
The job network is one big perversity. I am a former client, one who will never again use it. Every business I know who has used it not only found it to be totally unsatisfactory, suggesting they give it “one more go” triggers instant derisive laughter.
Though how else to pay people, if not by performance? Certainly a business paying people by training & skills alone is ..er.. incredibly stupid.
My point, steve, is that the people who work in the JN often are not trained and skilled to do anything much other than the basics of fitting square pegs into round holes or doing the paperwork to collect the money when clients get jobs (often with no actual input or help from the provider). In terms of performance, both the two papers I’ve linked to suggest other ways in which incentives could be provided for far more meaningful outcomes. Achieving such outcomes, though, would require better resourced and trained staff.
Precisely Mark.
It is a chicken/egg problem. The product is hopeless the way it is currently packaged.
Would better staff improve employer/unemployed satisfaction? (Upon reflection I hesitate to use the word “client”, for really that is federal govt)
Or would the current structure of the JN mean that no matter how it is staffed, it will revert to the current standard of staffing?
Why would competent staff remain in such an unrewarding position?
Who would put quality staff (who command higher pay) into a business/job which does not require it?
Every so often a bright young thing comes to see me, gushing about what JN can “do” for me. When I explain that dealing with JN (even talking to her) is a waste of my time, & explain why, they usually are unable to process what I tell them. Nor do they care.
But they do stay out of my way, at least until another person steps into their role, & she starts all over again….
I’ve pretty much had my say on all this in the other thread but I don’t believe the debate should be about why the JN system doesn’t work (in an ethical sense). I don’t think it was ever intended to work in that form and was purposefully devised to ram as many people as possible into any shit kicking position. The entire system from it’s structure through to the providers and the one’s doing the funding is crooked. It all fit’s perfectly with the usual right wing suspects ideals that there should be a large pool of unemployed to choose from for the big businesses who can and should have the power to hire and fire them at will. Expendable cannon fodder.
Thankfully that article by Ken has come out and confirmed to who ever is supposedly listening that people are not objects and why Howard’s WorkChoices, Job Network’s and Welfare To Work “reforms” were the most deceitful acts witnessed by any government in sometime.
Some remarkably stupid statements here,and I will not give evidence,accept to say is some work that people have to apply for intelligent enough for applicants!? You may run a pub,but how much hotels are sometimes like the bank robber =doctors ,is in the treatment of disease. And I do not think Labor is ethical about anything it does,and example is what the problem was with Mighell! If a union official cannot use the same tactics a business to win profits ,what are they then talking about. In the arsenal of business includes going for tender,and auctioning,credit out of debt against competitors etc. And seeing a American warned Australian pensioners about their funds in Macquarie Bank,who of recent times wanted to be a numero there? Well coca cola drinker no doubt and get a hip replacement later,Bob Cark.Sorry I am biased,my father was a life-long supporter of Labor and voted once out of nervousness because the poll place was across the roads.Unions didnt do much for him in his life,because being sweaty and laboring didnt gel well with the drunks not far from Carlton and United.Now even sober electricians get it in the neck.They are a abomination Labor. Ask the appropriate question!?How long did it take Master Hawke as a Union worker in many guises to achieve the beer money breakthrough!? The only reason the ALP exist is to keep the lazy non thinkers in the income they receive by the rip off of anyone they can. Mighell played the same game,and soap has never been needed of business peoples mouths.!?Surely a gross over reaction if there was one,the pathetic bastards!
Steve at the Pub,
Unemployed people are obliged to use the JN if they wish to go on collecting their dole money.If you do not any longer use it what do you use?Is your labour skilled or in Futt’s words “shitkicker”? Do you import your labour from overseas or use a recruiter? How can you reject all job applicants from the JN simply because they come via the JN?I have heard that for a certain large utility all staff are card carrying members of the Liberal Party.Does your place of employment make similar demands of its workforce?
When I worked for the J/N, the one thing going for it was that it was relatively well paid. I started in 1998 on $41k , which was about standard. That was $3k more than a Class 4 (the standard operating level) had made in the CES. Just after I left in 2001, as I understand it, the Gov. cracked down on the more obvious rorting. The response of the companies was to dramatically lower the salaries of their staff. Now, as Mark mentions, the pay is often around 30k.
The staff turnover was big before. It must me massive now.
That’s pretty much my view. In many ways, it’s really a scam for people to make money (and to prop up churches whose income streams from parishioners are drying up) rather than a well targetted system of labour market assistance. WDA is not the only mob who’ve made a fortune from the JN.
Job network is partly itself a job creation scheme. As the Penny Wong discussion paper suggests, the majority of ‘clients’, directed to them, pick up work by themselves. Whether by the grapevine or increasingly internet job ad sites. So big money is picked up from the government for the offer of a flash new CV or a new pair of boots, if the punter is lucky enough.
The long term unemployed become longer term unemployed and instead of any training or education get the chain gang; so unsympathetically known as ‘work for the dole’.
You have to wonder why, if the work these poor sods have to do, is actually “work”, why the slave drivers, who coined this expression, could not give them the dignity of at least acknowledging it as such, without the extra, cruel caveat of “dole”. It is a sick joke on the most disadvantaged and unempowered.
Well done Mark, for going for the wider issue, than just the focus on the Rein.
I am still concerned that Labor may be less likely to properly review the “scam” because it might reflect badly on the first lady. Still, that is one bridge I hope they have to cross.
Yes, me too, joe2. Hence:
Which makes Therese Rein a scammer.
Labour hire firms have always been bottom-feeding scum; the JN twist doesn’t do anything to alter that.
Cynically - I can’t see any goverment getting rid of Job Network, or at least an outsourced version of job placement because it costs them less than when they did it themselves. That said, they’ve got very good at contract management and there’s very little profit left in the core service of Job Network. Only those who can get economies of scale and keep ‘performance’ high can stay in the game. In fact DEWR has got so good at managing the contract I think they’ve lost sight of the real aim, to get people into jobs.
Rein’s mob just lost a whole lot of JN contracts in the latest round of reviews btw. It’s a tough business to be in. And not a very attractive business either, I’d hope that it can shift in the future and really look at the stuff that’s not working for the long term unemployed and those marginally attached to the workforce.
Disclaimer: I am employed by one of the majors in this market but in a different area of the business.
Dead right Dan le Roux! Nobody even gets a job interview with me until they are able to provide rock solid proof they are a member of the Liberal Party.
Anghardad,
If you are in the business why not go to a public library and using a different blog identity tell us all what really goes on in JN providers’ offices?
Steve at the Pub,
Mate it sounds as though your business requires people with the skills and the necessary opportunist outlook to run a chook raffle .You should be praised for not exposing long term unemployed to such ephemeral work.
steve at the pub said:
I think all five members already have jobs steve.
You might be getting a flood of applicants soon though - with all sort of government experience.