Georgia’s Celebrated No-Cost Labor Scheme: Cheating the Jobless? [View All]

[Better Believe It]

Georgia’s Celebrated No-Cost Labor Scheme: Cheating the Jobless?
by Michelle Chen
September 2, 2011

For a typical boss, there's only one thing better than getting away with not paying your workers: getting the government to supply you with people who will work for free. It's an employer's dream that may soon become reality around the country, as President Obama has moved toward incorporating it in his emerging job-creation agenda.

The job-creation flavor of the week is GeorgiaWork$, a job program that has for several years funneled unemployed workers into job slots as "trainees." Under this half-internship, half-indentured servitude scheme, a worker can earn a $240 weekly stipend on top of regular unemployment benefits for eight weeks, working 24 hours per week. Unlike other job subsidy programs, which use generally use public dollars to supplement workers' regular earnings, GeorgiaWork$ allows the state to capitalize on existing unemployment payments while giving a free boost to private employers. Workers, often hired in service sectors like child care and restaurant work, can only hope that their bosses will hire them after their preliminary test run ends.

This system fits well with Obama's anti-spending, quasi-pro-stimulus double-speak, and his forthcoming jobs plan may include a federal version of Georgia's virtually free labor system.

In other words, although GeorgiaWork$ looks like a steal for employers who want cheap labor, when it comes to helping people make a dignified living, there's no free lunch after all. Maybe the unemployed aren't as desperate as officials hoped; they might have just enough pride left to insist on an honest day's pay for an honest day's work.

Read the full article at:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/04-2

And if you haven't read it already check out the post:

Obama’s newest jobs plan for the unemployed: Go work for free!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1863174&mesg_id=1863174