Walks to One-Euro-Jobs in Berlin

Written by the group no service from Berlin for Wildcat #74, summer 2005. See also the articles in ppnews #1, 3/2005, on Hartz IV and Hartz IV - Update.

find out, get involved… instigate

For about half a year we have been organizing bi-weekly walks to the agencies and worksites of One-Euro workers in Berlin/Germany. Our aim is to talk to those workers and get involved. Contrary to the isolated and anonymous encounters at the state-offices, at the One-Euro-Job people come together and see each every day. We wanted to know whether it would work to put masses of people into these jobs without any problems? Or does it stir up resistance? Does it produce an explosive mixture of former social welfare-recipients, academics, black (illicit), home- and casual workers? Or is it rather the people who still have regular jobs and see them in danger who start struggling?

One-Euro-Jobs in Berlin
With 19.7 percent Berlin is one of the regions with a very high unemployment rate. Since the beginning of the nineties there has been a vigorous deindustrialization with job cuts in production and the end of the boom in construction. At the end of May 2005 nearly 325.000 people were registered unemployed, two thirds of them are getting the “Unemployment Benefit 2” (Arbeitslosengeld 2, Alg2) [1]. While in Berlin and the whole of Germany regular jobs with social benefits are being reduced further, petty employment – like small-scale self-employment (Ich-AG), “Mini”-jobs and One-Euro-Job [2] – has been expanding continuously, for the first time leading to a slightly lower unemployment rate in May 2005 compared to the month before. Currently there are 17.200 One-Euro-Job in Berlin. The city-government wants to bring it up to 45.000 by the end of the year. Employment- and educational contractors (gsub, KUBUS e.V., Lowtec, BUF, KEBAB, Internationaler Bund, Goldnetz, pro futura e.V. and more) [3] make a fortune with the One-Euro-Job and expand.

The Context of the Hartz IV-Attack
The media present the One-Euro-Job as a new chance to enter the primary labor market. [4] But they do not hide the fact that the basic aim is to reduce the wages and the expenses for social benefits in Germany. What stands behind the current attacks, the Hartz IV-welfare reform and the One-Euro-Job in particular?
1. Massive uncertainty: Already before the coming into effect of Hartz IV a threatening scenario was created to pressureworkers with “regular” jobs. Workers at Siemens, DaimlerChrysler, Karstadt, the Vivantes hospitals in Berlin and many smaller companies were confronted with wage-cuts and the extension of working hours. [5] Hartz IV means one year of “Unemployment Benefit 1” (Alg1) – the amount depends on the last income. After that comes living on the level of social welfare (Alg2) and possibly the humiliation of a One-Euro-Job. Workers in the companies have realised that; the one-week wildcat strike at Opel Bochum showed it. [6]
2. Deterioration of the work- and living-conditions: Alg2 lowers the level of public social welfare. The aim is to force workers to accept jobs with lower wages. For many people One-Euro-Job are unacceptable because they consider them humiliating. Others are being excluded from welfare payments because they live together with people with an income. [7] In order to get by they need to work a low wage job. The low wage sector is being extended further. But the development also has its contradictions: Alg2 plus rent plus One-Euro-Job might add up to 850 Euros, the equivalent of a 1.000 Euro job (before tax). [8]
3. Cuts of regular jobs: The introduction of One-Euro-Job is an indirect subsidy to local governments. Over the past years the reduction of financial resources and job cuts have torn holes in the public infrastructure, holes the One-Euro workers are supposed to fill: in gardening and landscaping, maintenance, renovation and cleaning-jobs, in social assistance, education, culture and care-taking. In reality the “additional” activities of the One-Euro-Job are often compulsory local government tasks, and the worker’s skills are used on purpose. [9] At the same time private crafts enterprises get less contracts and have to cut jobs or go bankrupt.
4. Ideological impact: The aim is to show young people once and for all that life without work is unthinkable and that the times are over where people could relax on the “social hammock” [10]. It is about a new definition of what can be seen as “normal” conditions of work and reproduction and about scaling down any perceptions of entitlement.
5. Disciplining and controlling the unemployed: Unemployed people with a One-Euro-Job are supposed to prove that they can get up early in the morning and adapt to a work rhythm. The 30-hour-week of a One-Euro-Job makes it hard to continue doing black (illicit) work. If one goes on sick-leave for more than two weeks the One-Euro-Job gets terminated and the stress with the unemployment agency starts all over again. In general, the One-Euro-Job allow greater control over the time of the unemployed, prevent them from travelling and doing other enjoyable things.

Find Out, Get Involved... Instigate
Last year an surprisingly high number of people took the streets in a self-organized way for several weeks during the Monday-demonstrations (especially in the Eastern part of Germany), all protesting the implementation of the Hartz IV laws. [11] At the same time we found a new and broad openness for discussions about work conditions and exploitation. The discontent was obvious. We wanted to find out how the people acted and get a picture – beyond the sensational media reports – of the actual situation in One-Euro-Job. That led us to the idea with the walks. Since early January we are on the streets every two weeks to research and discuss. The walks are based on small forms of breaking the rules: We do not ask for appointments or permission and reject the mediation of superiors. We want to discuss with the people directly at their work places. When we show up we are nearly always met with openness and interest, and it is not uncommon that we have exciting debates. We found that many people (like ourselves) swing back and forth between unemployment, training schemes and casual work. The walks are an attempt to break the isolation and division into separate work places and to share people’s experiences with others.

Explosive Mixture?
We met a large number of people who do the One-Euro-Job “willingly”. But talking to them, this “willingness” was quickly put into perspective. People not only give in to the increasing pressure and harassment of the unemployment agency, the few Euros more are also important as an additional income. People think about it carefully, and a One-Euro-Job might in fact be the better alternative. The official wage of a bakery sales-clerk is 5,52 Euros, about the equivalent of Alg2 plus One-Euro-Job, but the work pace is higher and the working hours are longer and more awkward.
Many people say they are happy “to get outside for once”. They have found nice colleagues through the One-Euro-Job (or ABM [12]) and/or the job is fairly interesting. That clearly shows what a grueling experience unemployment can be for some people.
In past months though more and more people were forced into working the One-Euro-Job. They are already dissatisfied because this axes their own plans. A (One-Euro)“janitor” told us he could not work his black (illicit) job in construction any more. That is how he had made his living for years. A man working in a (One-Euro) metal-shop got to the point: “We are held unemployed and being controlled here so we cannot do black (illicit) work on the side.” Others hate the One-Euro-Job because they have an appropriate skill but cannot find a regular job with the right wage.
Whatever, whether “voluntary” or “forced”, nearly all of those we talked to are unhappy about the fact that they do not get paid the extra-cash for the One-Euro-Job when sick or on holiday. It is not possible any more to take days off (by claiming to be sick) and get paid. There is also a fundamental critique of the forced character of the jobs. Few people expect to get a job on the primary labor market [13] by working a One-Euro-Job. But how can this critique become more radical?

Difficulties...
The predominant conditions in One-Euro-Job make it difficult to develop collective forms of resistance:
* The One-Euro workers often work isolated or together with just a few others, so they do not get to know much about each other.
* Since they work together for just a short period – the One-Euro-Job are limited to nine months – no common perspective can evolve.
* Since the people are employed according to their skills it is only partly true that people with different experiences are getting together.
* Since those who (still) have regular jobs and One-Euro workers work separated from each other (for instance in crafts and gardening enterprises at One-Euro-contractors) their anger does not often combine in everyday situations. It might also be the case that the cuts of regular jobs have already taken place in past years, like at schools or kindergardens.

... and chances for resistance
Still, over and over again we have met people who try to oppose the conditions. Many avoid disciplinary action by repeatedly calling in sick for a few days and returning each time in order to avoid the sack. Working slowly, extending breaks, “organized loitering” are part of the everyday work situation of One-Euro workers. In some cases they get the support of regular workers. “They pay you less, so work less accordingly.” – the attitude of a (regularly employed) janitor towards his One-Euro “helper”.
With the walks our own questions changed too. After our first visit of the workshops of a contractor in Berlin-Neukoelln [14] we had the impression that the people there would actually stir up some trouble. So we went back several times and tried to discuss the possibility of a strike. But the fear of cuts in Alg2 dominated their thoughts. They had no perception of their own power.
How can we (collectively) break that feeling of powerlessness? Where are weak points, where can resistance be effective?
One-Euro-Job are currently being discussed everywhere. A strike of One-Euro workers would not paralyse any important production process, but it would attract broad public attention. If One-Euro workers openly fought for better conditions that would not only neutralize the intimidating and humiliating effect of the One-Euro-Job. The protest could be supported from many sides and become politically relevant. Taking the broad discontent and frustration around Hartz IV it could spread to other areas. Direct pressure could be exercised on the contractors since their One-Euro-Job often do not fulfil the official criteria (additional jobs, job training...), but the contractors do depend on the cash inflow bound to these jobs.

Open Process
Meanwhile, we have found out a lot and recorded that in reports that were published for instance on labournet.de and wildcat-www.de. Nevertheless, it is very difficult to establish ongoing contact with One-Euro workers. We do not know much about what they discuss further amongst each other, about what we instigate when we turn up. But here is a possible effect of our walks: We are thinking of being more direct, of throwing more ideas and concrete considerations into the discussion – for instance in a leaflet on “Strikes in One-Euro-Job”. We will focus on sites where many people get together and where it is possible to collectively discuss the raised questions.
Other left-wing groups have picked up the idea of the walks to One-Euro-Job (for instance in Cologne). We hope that this practical activity will go beyond the common left-wing habit of political campaigns. Furthermore, we discuss how to extend the single focus on One-Euro-Job. It would be possible to organize walks to other places where people have to do lousy jobs...
[Berlin, June 2005]

Additional information on One-Euro-Jobs
1. One-Euro-Job – the official term for it is MAE (Mehraufwandsentschädigung, compensation for additional effort). Recipients of Alg2 can be forced to do these jobs; a rejection is followed by payment cuts (first by 30 percent, for repeaters down to just rent plus food stamps). In Berlin, One-Euro workers get 1,50 Euro an hour (some just 1,20 Euro). Usually they work 30 hours per week. So they earn about 180 Euros MAE on top of Alg2 plus rent. The One-Euro agencies or contractors get 500 Euros per month for each MAE job (for management expenses and qualification efforts). By law the One-Euro-Job need to be “additional”, i.e. they should not put regular jobs at risk.
One-Euro-Job do not constitute an employment contract so employment rights (like sick pay, holiday pay or the right to go on strike) do not apply. In Germany a total of 176.000 MAE jobs has been created up till now (6/2005); the predicted number for the end of 2005 is 600.000. In contrast, the number of retaining and education programs sponsored by the unemployment agency has decreased – within a few months – by 67 percent (even 80 percent in Berlin). The One-Euro-Job are designed not just for Alg2-recipients but also for people without work permits like those seeking political asylum and refugees with a toleration status (war refugees...).
2. The following article from the newspaper Berliner Zeitung (4th of June 2005) shows how the service union Verdi tries to follow the implementation of One-Euro-Job by adding legal regulations: Twenty Complaints due to One-Euro-Job. Fraud, economic subsidy fraud and deception in connection with the use of One-Euro-Job – those are the charges. According to the main staff council the public prosecutor has already handled 20 legal complaints and charges against employment contractors dealing with One-Euro-Job for possibly destroying regular jobs. Seventeen times private firms have filed charges with the support of the Chamber of Crafts, three charges come from Verdi. The outcome of these cases is open. There are also civil law suits against One-Euro-Job. These civil-law-suits are currently about six One-Euro workers at the Bruno-Taut-school and nine unemployed at the Regenbogen-school, both in Berlin-Neukölln. A staff council member reported that last autumn 18 jobs in secondary school-libraries were declared redundant. The employees are now part of a job pool. [15] Their places were taken by “library assistants” with the same work tasks. At a school in Berlin-Tempelhof/Schöneberg a janitor was allegedly sacked; two One-Euro workers took over his tasks. Meanwhile the job placement rate from the job pool dropped to 10 percent. Another example: Out of formerly 306 jobs at the department taking care of public parks in Berlin-Lichtenberg only 150 are left. Seventy-three gardening-employees in the job pool were made redundant. At the same time the town district has asked for 235 One-Euro workers for taking care of public parks. The authorities let the “redundant” gardeners get retraining for other jobs.
3. Under the headline Hundreds of Youths do not feel like Working the newspaper Berliner Zeitung (1st of April 2005) reported that in Berlin-Neukölln alone 6.377 youths are unemployed. “Many of them do not want to hear anything about job offers or qualifications. About 4.000 young unemployed got a letter from the job center. Just about 1.500 reported back.” The job center has already reduced the Alg2 of 300 unemployed youths under 25 years or cut it completely.
4. One employment contractor has workshops and work groups in many districts in Berlin, also in Berlin-Neukölln. We have met many people there who are sick of their ABM or One-Euro-Job. The mixture of work that is considered tedious (e.g. taking the insulation of copper cables or the knitting of small and ugly puppets) and lousy work conditions (rigid break rules, whoever comes late gets hours taken off, listening to radios is not allowed, poorly equipped workshops and a tiny room for taking breaks) stirs up discontent. So far 120 people were employed in these workshops – meanwhile, the employment contractor reconstructed and expanded. From June onwards there are 400 One-Euro workers. Besides the completely filled jobs in the workshops (wood, metal and sewing workshops) there are several work groups deployed for gardening in city parks and for waste disposal. The qualifying measures for which the contractor gets additional funding are a joke: job application training, instructions on the usage of fire extinguishers (without a fire extinguisher) or even the introduction into painting small wooden pieces for children’s toys. At the same time the people are deliberately utilized according to their skills and work experiences as sewers, mechanics and builders. Most people there consider their job there simply shitty and show a corresponding attitude (from the usual dilly-dally to going on successive sick leave to openly refusing to work).
5. Five to six thousand One-Euro workers work at schools in Berlin. In the district Berlin-Neukölln one out of four employed at schools or kindergardens is a One-Euro worker. Some schools just function through these job-schemes. In March we visited a primary school with more than 30 people working as ABM or One-Euro workers, among them school leavers, academics, craft workers, long-term unemployed and former housewives. They are responsible for janitorial, renovating, taking care of children at the school station [16], support for individual cases, maintenance and support in the computer room, work in the school canteen... Two regular educator’s jobs were slashed already five years ago and are being filled by One-Euro workers now. Apparently, the only regular workers are the teachers.

Translator’s Footnotes:
[1] As part of the Hartz IV-welfare reform the “social security” and part of the old unemployment benefit were put together in the “Arbeitslosengeld 2”. The paid amount is about the same as the old social security (345 Euros plus rent, a bit less in former East Germany). See also ppnews #1, 3/2005, Hartz IV - Update.
[2] The Hartz IV-reform introduced new forms of small-scale self-employment, the so-called “Ich-AG”. For a year the state pays 600 Euros per month to newly self-employed, for another year 300 Euros. “Mini”jobs – currently up to a monthly income of 400 Euros have existed for years; they have simplified and lower taxes; the unemployed can work them and keep up to 60 Euros which is going to be changed to about 160 Euros.
[3] Many of these contractors are agencies who get a contract for a certain number of One-Euro workers and pass them on to smaller actual “employers”, taking part of the 500 Euro per One-Euro worker the unemployment office pays; some have been involved in dealing with training and exploiting the unemployed before, using one or more of the several government schemes for the unemployed: some have their own schools, workshops, etc.
[4] The primary labor market is the “regular” one with private and public enterprizes as employers; the secondary labor market is the one created by government funds to “employ” unemployed through various schemes.
[5] In all of these companies – and many more – the workers were forced to accept lower wages and worse conditions threatened by layoffs or closures... met by resistance in some places.
[6] See the article on the wildcat at Opel/Bochum in ppnews #1, 5/2005; the reason for the strike was the plan to lay-off thousands and close factories but the introduction of Hartz IV and the perspective of maybe having to live on 345 Euros plus rent played a role in the worker’s considerations.
[7] Hartz IV uses the term “Bedarfsgemeinschaft” (roughly: need based relationship); husbands, wives, children, partners are part of this as long as they live together; they will get reduced unemployment benefits. After the introduction of Hartz IV the number of single households grew rapidly because people “separated” or changed apartments (or claimed to). Even bourgeois newspapers published articles how to present yourself to the unemployment office in order not to be considered as “Bedarfsgemeinschaft”.
[8] That is more than many people earn in regular low wage jobs, especially women.
[9] According to the Hartz IV-laws the One-Euro-Job need to be “additional”, and it is not allowed to cut jobs and substitute “regular” ones with One-Euro-Job – which is a common practice now. One-Euro workers are also supposed to be trained to improve their chances on the labor market; but now One-Euro painters are painting public offices, One-Euro computer workers are teaching in schools etc.
[10] A term used by politicians to blame lazy people for using the welfare system in order to avoid work; also used by lazy people to describe how the welfare system can be used to avoid work.
[11] See the article in ppnews #1, 3/2005, on Hartz IV.
[12] Arbeitsbeschaffungsmassnahme, ABM (job-creation measure), other state-run job scheme but with wages that correspond to those in the private sector. Currently, many ABM-jobs are replaced with One-Euro-Job.
[13] See footnote 4.
[14] See report on this contractor below.
[15] Public employees whose jobs have been declared redundant, are put into the “job pool”, a kind of temp agency for public servants. They have to do other – often unqualified, temporary – jobs in public services. The job pool was created because the government – not just in Berlin – wants to drastically reduce the number of public servants but cannot lay off many of them because they have contracts ending with retirement.
[16] The school station is where children can go to discuss problems, get support, etc.

[prol-position news #3, 8/2005]