The Discarded

The Discarded

 

27^th April updated 29^th September 2010

 

The discarded, that’s what they are. Unemployed and unemployable. No skills to sell other than their labour: their raw energy and their hand – eye coordination.

 

For over 20 years I have been writing and speaking and taking part in initiatives to generate employment opportunities for this category of people: the poor who are willing to work but have no skills other than their labour.

 

There have been many discussions about unemployment; so many policy statements about the need to generate jobs. Yet the discussion quickly morphs into concern about unemployed matriculants (12 years of schooling) and university graduates. The conversation goes something like this:

“83% (or whatever figure is available) of youth between the ages of 18 and 23 are unemployed, 25% of them are matriculants: What can be done for these matriculants?”

 

In two steps a vast number of people have been discarded and office-type employment becomes the focus of further discussion, particularly IT.   

 

The first step was to concentrate upon the youth. What about those between 24 and 65?[1] A large proportion of the unemployed fall out of sight. (Rural / Urban further distorts)

 

The second discard step is to focus only on the unemployed matriculants and to ignore the remainder of the 18 to 23 cohort. If 80% of the age group is unemployed and 25% of these are matriculants, then the non-matriculants account for 60% of the number unemployed in the 18 to 23 age group. This group has also been discarded and also falls out of sight. Are they not worthy of consideration simply because they do not have a matric?[2]

 

Employment opportunities must be generated for both categories of the discarded.

There are more options for younger than for older people. So they will be considered separately. But before discussing options it is worth considering the factors that have lead to the focus upon those with a matric.  These factors suggest that developing policies to address the unemployed who have no skills requires changing attitudes on the part of those who make decisions. This will not be straightforward. Logic becomes derailed by prejudice and the inertia within the existing socio-technical system.

 

Why does attention always swing to matriculants?

 

Because they are urban and able to be vocal and active near to centres of power?

 

Because it is seemingly easier to see them fitting in to an industrial / services economy as they are literate and numerate and to have reached matric must have a basic work ethic?

 

Why are the balance discarded from further consideration?

 

Because:

“For ye have the poor with you always and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always”(Mark 14: 7) which has been conveniently shortened to: “The poor ye shall have with you always”.

 

The difficulty of imagining work opportunities for unskilled people

 

If imagined, the images are found to be offensive to a largely soft-handed political class, the bureaucracy and, later, the industrial decision makers as well.

 

The discarded are generally located further from the centres of power in very depressed and rural areas.

 

There are a variety of complicating factors:

 

Suspicion about the efficacy of the public sector

 

Belief in the supposed efficiency of the market in general, which in part stems from or leads to the glorification of the small entrepreneur

 

 

Current South African factors

 

High discontent about the lack of service delivery

 

Entitlement without obligation

 

Scepticism about the worth of the labour of unskilled people:

Inefficient

Unreliable

Potential Labour Law CCMA cases.

 

For years I have demonstrated that labour-intensive construction could make a significant contribution to the generation of employment opportunities.

 

It is time to conclude that I have failed to get a thorough long-term programme going.

I have been involved in four major endeavours, none of which has succeeded, on a large-scale over the long-term, in generating a significant increase in employment per unit of expenditure. These endeavour include:

The Framework Agreement (1993-4)

The National Public Works Programme and its sub-programme
The Community Based Public Works Programme

The Expanded public Works Programme

 

The reasons for the failure of these Programmes to achieve their original objectives may be found in various papers.[3]

 

Should I admit defeat and leave the building? That is an option. Must I finally accept that I am “out of step with the time”? But, deo volente (sp?), I have about 10 to 15 years of productive life left in me. I wish to continue the endeavour to generate employment opportunities for the discarded.

 

What additional points to include?

 

It is widely stated that education is required for there to be a meaningful generation of employment.

 

Those who have been educated can then slot into an industrial /service economy.

This is a long-term strategy, and is accepted as such.

Why is it not acceptable to consider a long-term, or at least a medium-term strategy for the unskilled? Because the type of work would not fit into the zeitgeist / ethos of the time.

 

One avenue would be to concentrate upon artisans or semi-artisans (civil construction artisans) and to emphasize that the best way of creating artisans would be to start with the youth.

 

In the 1950’s and 1960’s it was not accepted that artisans were essential for the building industry because it was assumed that the building of houses would become industrialised i.e. produced under factory conditions (re-word). However, it is now acknowledged that construction requires site-based skilled artisans who have sufficient skills to make sensible technical decisions during the course of a day’s work. And almost every artisan generates opportunities for the unskilled e.g. bricklayer plus team.

 

This line of thinking leads to the whole question of the education and training required to create a skilled artisan.

 

In turn this leads to the need for an educational system that allows an artisanal option, as opposed to an academic one, to be taken. Such a system would be more effective if it were set up in such a way that someone choosing the artisanal route can do so without loss of self- respect. The Norwegian system is worthy of serious consideration.[4]

 

Keywords: youth employment, artisans

 

Another line of thinking would be to concentrate upon the rural; probably doesn’t even have to be deep rural. Most of the municipalities have very little technical capacity, yet a great deal of their responsibilities would involve relatively simple ‘basic needs stuff’: the construction and maintenance of sewerage, water supply, roads, stormwater drainage, solid waste collection and disposal.

 

To be continued…