Today, a Danish man activated in the financial aid system because he is without a job, had a most horrible experience. As if it isn’t enough, the Danish authorities rule the jobmarket, and activate jobless people as ‘trainee’ at companies who don’t pay a penny – the Danish State pays the trainee – now the Danish authorities really showed how it’s obviously not the idea, people get a job. Instead, the idea seems to be, to have them working for free wherever they are needed, and whether they like the work or not.
It is already questionable, whether we can call a ‘financial aid’ system that activates people in work, chosen for them, for less than the minimum wage in such a job, is legal. If a person is activated full-time, it’s not the person receiving financial aid anymore; it is companies receiving financial aid instead. Of course, not everybody is being activated full-time; but many are. It is very close to slavery, having to take any job, with in reality no possible means of refusing the work.
Our friend, let’s call him Jan, applied for a job. Applying for jobs is his duty; the law underlying the financial aid system says, that a person receiving aid should always be active in finding a job. So that’s what he did. He got an invitation for a job interview. And he got the job. So he informed the local authorities that they should stop activating him. The authorities asked him why, he told them he got a job, they asked him where….and he told them. Next thing that happens is, the company where he got the job, informs him that he doesn’t get the job after all, but a traineeship instead. The local authorities had contacted the company, without Jans knowledge, and told them, they could just as well have Jan for free instead of offering him a job…..
Thank you very much, Danish government. When will you stop this mess you created, and spend the money on what it is meant for, which is on the social systems your citizens are paying almost the worlds highest tax for? And when will you educate local authorities employees with some basic human values and principles of law?