
I wrote an opinion article for the blog Sargasso in response to a recent documentary on the workfare programme in Rotterdam, the article (in Dutch) can be read here: De tegenprestatie en de psychodwang van de social dienst. Below you can read it in English.
De documentary (watch it here) shows us how case managers at Social Services engage with their ‘clients’. We see a worker trying to encourage an unemployed man: ‘From now on we’re going to think in solutions, not in problems’, she says, and: ‘Let’s keep the problem with ourselves.’ When she later gets up to print the so-called agreements form she says, making enthusiastic arm movements, ‘Hundred per cent, right?’.
Another worker suggest that work experience is not required for doing production work and delivering mail, and says – fists swinging – to the unemployed man sitting opposite of him: ‘You’ve got to show you have guts!’ A 60-year-old man tries to foster compassion, it’s a ‘difficult age’ for finding a job. Yes, the worker answers, ‘but we can’t give up.’ Later in the documentary we hear a worker say that it’s important to look to the future, because ‘What do you want to focus on, something you can’t change, or something you can change?’
Psycho-compulsion
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