Unemployment is skyrocketing and promises about fixing it have done fuck all. Job shortages continues to intensify and the cracking down of those receiving WINZ payments carries on despite virtually no change within the job market. Most jobs are easily getting over 500 applications within a couple of days and even if you’re among the first ones applying the chances you get a reply from prospective employers is minimal.
Consequently, those on the benefit get scapegoated as well as having immense pressure placed on them for having to deal with barely surviving on the income given by WINZ as prices continue to steadily climb, obligations get even stricter and the job market looks just as bad, if not worse. My girlfriend was recently a victim of WINZ as they took away her Job Seeker Benefit due to my own earnings in a job that was deemed “above the threshold” income-wise and the ridiculous concept that a single income (no matter how meager and without accounting rising expenses) counts for two people in a relationship. We both depended on that money and it just taken away like it was nothing and left us struggle even though they knew that my girlfriend had a medical certificate confirming she was not capable of working due to anxiety. They did not care about that at all and it took a lot of work to find something suitable for her to work on, and WINZ was not supportive in the process.
For reasons like these, and more, organising unemployed workers is important. Restrictions against gaining benefits are more harmful than it is of use to “budget keeping” as it works to scapegoat those on WINZ payments when they are already suffering as it is. They are also classist, sexist and extremely ableist requirements and obligations that does next to nothing at addressing genuine concerns, conditions and circumstances that any given group of individuals might be going through, especially in these times. Since unemployment is a phenomena that is fabricated rather than one made by the people belonging in the category, it is imperative to push back against the stigmatising rhetoric that seems to persist about people that are in any sort of governmental assistance.
Advocacy models are limited and it is our job as workers to represent ourselves, we know best what we’re struggling with, not case managers sitting in their air conditioned offices. In the past, there used to be Unemployed Unions, like Te Roopu Rawakore o Aotearoa (Unemployed and Beneficiaries Movement of New Zealand), who were a national unemployed and beneficiaries’ movement organised largely by women, Māori, and young people during the 1980s recession. I believe these circumstances demand for the unemployed, beneficiaries and workers alike to organise unions like Te Roopu Rawakore o Aotearoa. The unemployed, beneficiaries as well as the immigrants are our comrades-in-arms, not are enemies, and what harms them also harms us alike, contrary to popular beliefs and lies usually spread!
The conditions surrounding the emergence of these Unemployed and Beneficiaries Unions and other forms of collectives are indicative of trends similar to those faced now, such as high unemployment, widening gaps on income versus rising living costs, the scapegoating of both the unemployed and of immigrants and racial tensions as Te Tiriti continues to be undermined in favour of even more divisive policies that are also economically harmful to us as the rich keep getting richer.
Unemployed workers need to organise themselves just like all workers must!