THE Right to Work: Right to Welfare group has lobbied Belfast City Council to ensure public works schemes address the long term unemployed.
Made up of unemployed people from across Belfast, the group presented over 1,500 signatures gathered at every dole queue in the city to councillors seeking the motion ‘Real Jobs Now’.
The motion asks that the £40m spent annually by Belfast City Council on goods, services and construction through the procurement budget should include a legal clause creating fully paid ring-fenced jobs and apprenticeships for the long term unemployed (those out of work for over 12 months).
Sean Brady of Participation and the Practice of Rights, the organisation founded by the late Inez McCormack which supports the Right to Work: Right to Welfare group, said the proposal could have a major positive impact.
“What this motion, and the people who signed it, are asking for is legal, and it has a precedent in the public sector here,” he said.
“It is a modest proposal which can bring massive impact to the lives of people experiencing severe economic and financial hardship.
“As such it has been received very positively by every councillor and party the group has met. The only question for council should be, when do we start?”
Since April, the group has been monitoring people’s experiences of unemployment and the welfare system outside all dole offices across the city and gathering ideas on what measures both Belfast City Council and the NI Executive could take to generate real jobs for the people in most need.
In 2005, it states, the Department of Finance and Personnel carried out a successful pilot project ensuring private contractors employed a certain amount of the long term unemployed when they received public money.
Evaluated by the University of Ulster, the welfare group the pilot was found to be ‘economical, effective, efficient, and did not breach any European legislation’.
The newly renovated Ravenhill rugby stadium also made it a legal requirement for the contractor to ring-fence real jobs and apprenticeships for the long term unemployed.
The Right to Work: Right to Welfare group believes its motion provides new potential to start tackling long term unemployment for those who are out of work in Belfast and indeed, across Northern Ireland as a who are out of work in Belfast and indeed, across Northern Ireland as a whole.