Essen, an industrial city in Germany, is set to pay alcohol and drug addicts to clean the streets in return for beer, tobacco, food and small amounts of cash. The project, dubbed "Pick Up", will have a team of six people who will sweep streets and collect rubbish in return for $1.50 an hour, a warm meal and three bottles of beer after their shift, as well as tobacco for smokers.
The plan has drawn sharp criticism, with one aid group for the homeless labelling the "cheap labour" project dehumanising and asking why alcoholics should be given beer on the public tab.
More: Al Jazeera English
Amsterdam has been doing it for a couple of years already. It works fine.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what to think about this.I'd hate to see a precedent set where an employer could feed workers some crappy food and weak beer to avoid paying them a living wage. A New Zealand company paid workers less than minimum wage and sometimes beer instead of money. A court ordered them to pay retroactive minimum wage.
ReplyDeleteIt's not salary for labor really. It's aimed at a population that has exhausted all other attempts to help them. The guys who have been in rehab, in prison often, who cannot keep a job, the bunch that you see every morning at 8 on park benches with beers in their hands. It gives them something to do, it engages them with a purpose, with an activity. Their productivity is negligible anyway.And this way they don't need to steal. This is NOT a population of regular people who want a beer, it's the basket cases.
ReplyDeleteAs long as it's not an excuse to get out of paying minimum wage and is voluntary I guess it serves a purpose.
ReplyDelete