Yesterday, 10 July, I met two officials of the Economic
Affairs office of the city of Amsterdam, about my criticism
of the URBAN II programme. URBAN II is a European Union
programme for disadvantaged urban areas: the emphasis is on
workfare, gentrification and support for business. The
programme in Amsterdam starts later this year, and runs
until 2006. The workfare aspect is primarily in the form of
'reintegration' projects: private companies place the
unemployed in jobs or training, under threat that their
unemployment benefit will be stopped.
One of the officials is the coordinator of the programme in
Amsterdam (in the western inner city). He confirmed that
commercial re-integration firms, financed under the URBAN II
programme, can compel women to work in prostitution. Since
last year, prostitution is 100% legal in the Netherlands:
prostitutes are indeed 'sex workers' (the popular new
euphemism). The only difference from a normal business
activity is, that local governments may restrict the
activity to one single location. The disadvantage of 'sex
work' becoming normal work is, that it can enters the normal
employment policy - including workfare-type sanctions on
refusal to work. In reality, of course, work in the 'sex
industry' is anything but normal. That's why almost all the
'workers' are immigrants, many illegal. Since legalisation,
however, the sector has access to the unemployed as a labour reserve.
The coordinator sees no reason to forbid compulsory
prostitution in URBAN II workfare programmes. He relies on
public opinion to prevent any abuse. However, I don't trust
public opinion on this issue. Workfare projects are the
result of a vengeful attitude to the unemployed, and the
right-wing press would probably rejoice at their
humiliation. Only the christian-democrats, and the smaller
protestant parties, are likely to object.
The coordinators colleague, incidentally, found it
acceptable that women who have objections to working as a
prostitute, should lose their unemployment benefit. She
accepted that people have a right to conscientious objection
to any particular job, but saw no reason why the State
should support them, if they exercise that choice. This is
an accurate reflection of the neoliberal attitudes at the
Economic Affairs office, and this is why they take a hard
line on the issue. Allowing women to object to market forces
in the case of 'sex work' would allow others to raise
conscientious objections to other work offered. The office
rejects that idea entirely. No compulsion, no workfare.
So what does the European Commission think? After all, they
are paying part of the bill for the re-integration firms.
They think officially nothing about it: they refuse to get
involved. The head of URBAN II programmes, Rudolf Niessler,
refuses to discuss any criticism of URBAN II in Amsterdam.
He says it is not his responsibility, it is a matter for the
national government. In other words, he is hiding behind the
subsidiarity principle. His boss, the man politically
responsible for URBAN II all over Europe, is Michel Barnier,
European Commissioner for Regional Policy. If you want to
ask more about this issue, or protest, then you can mail his
office at:
[log in to unmask]
But I suspect, that all you will get is bland denials.
--
Paul Treanor
http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/urban2.html
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