Ill Considered Policies in Action

[Occhidiangela]

From the UK's Telegraph.

I was giggling into my coffee on the insanity and illogic of what at the outset surely seemed a logical, German approach to a sector of their service industry. In another thread, I posted my support for legalized prostitution. This article is fair warning that synergy or interaction with other labor regulations could create some odious side effects to my position.

The moral of this story about "immoral" (or not) avocations?

Policy makers: Do Your Homework, and do both Unit and Integration testing!

'If you don't take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits'
By Clare Chapman (Filed: 30/01/2005)

A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing "sexual services'' at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.

Prostitution was legalised in Germany just over two years ago and brothel owners – who must pay tax and employee health insurance – were granted access to official databases of jobseekers.

The waitress, an unemployed information technology professional, had said that she was willing to work in a bar at night and had worked in a cafe.

She received a letter from the job centre telling her that an employer was interested in her "profile'' and that she should ring them. Only on doing so did the woman, who has not been identified for legal reasons, realise that she was calling a brothel.

Under Germany's welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job – including in the sex industry – or lose her unemployment benefit.  Last month German unemployment rose for the 11th consecutive month to  4.5 million, taking the number out of work to its highest since reunification in 1990.

(Occhinote:  German Lurkers.  Does this sound true to you, or has The Telegraph gotten it "not quite right?")

The government had considered making brothels an exception on moral grounds, but decided that it would be too difficult to distinguish them from bars.

Occhinote:  Can't tell a bar from a cathouse?  Here's the Rogue's Recommended method.  Observe transactions.  To determine which is a bar, and which a brothel  . . . In the bar, one may give money to the barman hoping to find a roll in the hay; in a brothel, the guess work is taken out, the fee likely higher.

As a result, job centres must treat employers looking for a prostitute in the same way as those looking for a dental nurse.

Occhinote:  That appears to be The Law.  (see below for more on "The Law.")

When the waitress looked into suing the job centre, she found out that it had not broken the law. Job centres that refuse to penalise people who turn down a job by cutting their benefits face legal action from the potential employer.

"There is now nothing in the law to stop women from being sent into the sex industry," said Merchthild Garweg, a lawyer from Hamburg who specialises in such cases. "The new regulations say that working in the sex industry is not immoral any more, and so jobs cannot be turned down without a risk to benefits."

Occhi:  Government legislating morality, immorality.  How interesting.

Miss Garweg said that women who had worked in call centres had been offered jobs on telephone sex lines. At one job centre in the city of Gotha, a 23-year-old woman was told that she had to attend an interview as a "nude model", and should report back on the meeting. Employers in the sex industry can also advertise in job centres, a move that came into force this month. A job centre that refuses to accept the advertisement can be sued.

Tatiana Ulyanova, who owns a brothel in central Berlin, has been searching the online database of her local job centre for recruits.

"Why shouldn't I look for employees through the job centre when I pay my taxes just like anybody else?" said Miss Ulyanova.

Ulrich Kueperkoch wanted to open a brothel in Goerlitz, in former East Germany, but his local job centre withdrew his advertisement for 12 prostitutes, saying it would be impossible to find them.

Mr Kueperkoch said that he was confident of demand for a brothel in the area and planned to take a claim for compensation to the highest court. Prostitution was legalised in Germany in 2002 because the government believed that this would help to combat trafficking in women and cut links to organised crime.

Miss Garweg believes that pressure on job centres to meet employment targets will soon result in them using their powers to cut the benefits of women who refuse jobs providing sexual services.

"They are already prepared to push women into jobs related to sexual services, but which don't count as prostitution,'' she said.

"Now that prostitution is no longer considered by the law to be immoral, there is really nothing but the goodwill of the job centres to stop them from pushing women into jobs they don't want to do."
© Copyright of Telegraph

My slant? Having been involved in policy writing, a tweak to job filling policy (no pun intended) may be in order. Or maybe not. I wonder. Maybe the lady objecting to this is alone in her objections, or one of a very small group. Note the attorney "specializing in these cases." Insert "self licking ice cream cone" joke here ___ no puns intended.

The state of play depicted is an example of the pitfalls of a purely, albeit limited, logical approach -- unit testing if you will -- to any system without working out extended, cross functional if-then trees -- integration testing. It is also an example of how, unintentionally, a bizarre extension of global Women's Liberation, laws of labor supply and demand, and the entry of women into The Labor Pool writ large leaves one woman in the "full circle" irony of . . . being forced to work on her back to pay the rent? Law of unintended outcomes: Case 1, 869.

That she is an unemployed IT worker strikes me as particularly relevant to the white collar crunch in The West. Hey guys: Could you accept career change to gigilo if the IT job dries up? Would you object?

Charles Dickens, through Mr Bumble in Oliver Twist, said it better than I ever could:

"The Law Is A Ass!"

“If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, “the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.”

Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, ch. 51, p. 399 (1838).

Occhi

[Occhidiangela]

Apologies to all, I have asked the Mod to move this to the Lounge, I posted it on the wrong board.

*blushes in shame*

Occhi

[Mithrandir]

It seems absolutely ridiculous to me that individuals are being forced to work in the sex industry against their wills. Does anyone else see the strong parallels to government sponsored rape, all for the sake of policy? The mere fact that limp-wristed lamentations of "It would be too hard..." are being put ahead of human life is bordering on disgusting.

Don't get me wrong, it's a dicey quagmire of what jobs are okay to force people to work in, and which ones aren't, if they have been on unemployment benefits for too long. I don't necessarily believe that prostitution is immoral either, but that doesn't give a government the right to exploit that person if they have honest moral convictions against it. To paint everything in a society with only two brushes and ignore the vast middleground that exists is myopic and irresponsible.

Side note: What is so difficult with forcing brothels to be registered nationally? Then, if your boss at a non-brothel bar (for example) says "have sex for money, or you're fired" you can then take take legal action against said boss. Obviously I'm oversimplifying here, but the basic idea seems plausible at least.

[Obi2Kenobi]

They government isn't 'forcing' anyone to work anywhere. What they are saying is that a person should only get unemployment benefits if they are, in fact, "unemployed" (ie: not being able to get a job, but searching for one). This is also not a situation of the government determining morality, that's just the articles take on it. It's not that the law says that prostitution is moral now, laws aren't meant for that. It's just saying that it's no longer illegal. Big difference between not illegal and government endorsed and moral.

[whyBish]

They government isn't 'forcing' anyone to work anywhere.
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You beat me to it.

[Mithrandir]

They government isn't 'forcing' anyone to work anywhere.[right][snapback]66923[/snapback][/right]

That's like justifying armed robbery by saying "I just put the gun to his head, I didn't make him give me the money." In both cases threats are being made to harm someone if they do not perform a desired task by the person or institution doing the threatening.

If the individual is legitimately looking for a job and just isn't having any luck, how can you honestly legitimize forcing them to work in a brothel?

[Lord_Olf]

Hail Occhi,

coming from Germany, I have not heard anything about this - and I guess it would have made the papers, so I'm a bit scepetical. Maybe someone else from Germany can confirm this or knows about some "hoax", but it's news to me.

Also, on a more general note, nobody is "forced" to do any job - but people lose their benefits if they don't, ending up less money. Kinda makes sense to me.

On the matter of prostitution: It is no longer illegal, that much is right. But if it is really treated like "just another job", I'm not sure at all.

Well, should I read anything about this, I'll be back to you.

Take care,

Lord_Olf

[Kylearan]

Hi,

I seriously doubt the truth of that story. I did several Google searches on the subject, and found no German site mentioning this specific case - only a lot of English ones. The possibility of this has been raised in the discussion about Hartz IV (the new job law this is all about) though, mainly in this article, if you understand German and are willing to read an article from an extremely left-wing newspaper which is known for, err, 'bending' the truth a bit to further their agenda. ALL other sources I found on the subject quote that one article, and Mechthild Garweg, the lawyer quoted in the Telegraph article, is mentioned there as well. It raises some interesting points though, for example that you wouldn't need any education to work as a prostitute, and that brothels, now that they are legalized and have to pay taxes, have a right to get offers from job centres.

But there's still the law about prostitution that says no woman (hmm...and man?) can be forced into prostitution, and Hartz IV itself says that you have to accept any job unless there's an important reason against it, and I'd say the law about prostitution is a good reason. ;) Working as a waitress in a brothel would probably be okay, though, but I'm no lawyer.

You have to understand that Hartz IV, the law in question, caused a great uproar here in Germany last year. Large demonstrations have been organized, and discussions became very heated very fast, so I would take any article about it with a grain of salt. As long as nobody can point me to a reliable source describing a case where a woman lost her unemployment benefits because she refused to work as a prostitute, I rate articles like this propagandistic BS.

-Kylearan

[Nystul]

You have to understand that Hartz IV, the law in question, caused a great uproar here in Germany last year. Large demonstrations have been organized, and discussions became very heated very fast, so I would take any article about it with a grain of salt.
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Oddly enough, the law in question seems fairly reasonable to me (although I'm sure the devil is in the details). If someone is going to claim unemployment, and they are offered jobs they are capable of, they should have to take one within a certain amount of time or lose their benefits. Now, making someone immediately take the first job offered may not be a good approach, because you end up with skilled laborers in professions they are not the most efficient at (or something they flat out don't want to do). But at some point, you have to draw the line and make the people take a job or pay their own bills.

The legalized prostitution, on the other hand... If you are going to consider something like that a legitimate profession, you may as well scrap maximum hours, workplace safety, and minimum wage type laws and let people choose to take any crummy job they are willing to do. After all, it's not the governments place to make those judgments, right?

[Roland]

That's like justifying armed robbery by saying "I just put the gun to his head, I didn't make him give me the money." In both cases threats are being made to harm someone if they do not perform a desired task by the person or institution doing the threatening.

First of all, not at all. The comparison is flawed on so many levels I don't know where to begin.

If the individual is legitimately looking for a job and just isn't having any luck, how can you honestly legitimize forcing them to work in a brothel?

Because they've had a year to find a job. That's how. Even in the U.S., being on unemployment for more than 6 months is a rare case, and only then because you ARE looking for a job.

I'm not saying it's moral or immoral; that is not the place of the law (generally speaking). The law stipulates that any woman over the age of 55 (already we're cutting out a huge portion of the population) that as been unemployed for over a year (and thus further reducing the count) must take up a legal, offered job or risk losing her unemployment benefits. Quite frankly, from a stance of practically I see nothing wrong with it. No one is forcing her to take a job she doesn't want to - she's had AMPLE time to find a job suitable to her moral standards; if you can't find a job after a year, either you need to move to a new area, or you're not doing enough to find one. I cannot possibly believe that there are NO jobs at all whatsoever aside from brothels. Besides, how many people are going to want senior citizens working in brothels? The law, as stated in the article, ONLY applies to women over 55 who have been riding unemployment for over a year. That's a pretty damn slim margin, I'd be willing to wager, even with a high rate of unemployment.

And, you know, there's always McDonalds. :P

[ShadowHM]

The legalized prostitution, on the other hand...  If you are going to consider something like that a legitimate profession, you may as well scrap maximum hours, workplace safety, and minimum wage type laws and let people choose to take any crummy job they are willing to do.  After all, it's not the governments place to make those judgments, right?
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Your logic completely escapes me.

Why should a prostitute not be permitted the benefit of maximum hour regulations, workplace safety regulations and minimum wage laws? Your slippery slope argument is misplaced.

People do take on all kinds of crummy jobs - jobs I sure would never do, and they still (ostensibly) get the protection of those regulations. A number of 'they couldn't pay me enough to do that' jobs come to mind - working in a chemical factory, working at a waste disposal site, cleaning sewers..... The list is long for me. If that is all I were qualified to do and that is all there was available, should I collect unemployment benefits because those jobs were abhorrent to me and I wouldn't take them? If moral judgement is your issue, then how about working as a secretary at an abortion clinic? Should a qualified individual still get (government paid) unemployment benefits if they refuse to take that job?

[Kylearan]

Hi,

The law stipulates that any woman over the age of 55 (already we're cutting out a huge portion of the population) that as been unemployed for over a year (and thus further reducing the count) must take up a legal, offered job or risk losing her unemployment benefits.

It's any woman below the age of 55, not over. Older people have a much harder time to find a new job, and thus don't have to accept any job offered to them.

Quite frankly, from a stance of practically I see nothing wrong with it. No one is forcing her to take a job she doesn't want to - she's had AMPLE time to find a job suitable to her moral standards; [...] I cannot possibly believe that there are NO jobs at all whatsoever aside from brothels.

That's a standard argument often heard: That everyone would be able to find a job if only (s)he would really be willing to work. Well, just today the new unemplyment statistics for Germany have been published, and officially, there are over five million people without a job. But the statistics are made so that some people won't be accounted for, and six to seven million people are probably more realistic. Now I cannot believe that way over 10% of all Germans potentially able to work are lazy bums who just don't want to work. And even if IT professionals start to clean toilets and lawyers serve Big Macs, I have a hard time to believe that we will see more McDonald's restaurants in the future that had been unable to open up before just because they lacked toilet cleaners and Bic Mac cookers...

-Kylearan

[Occhidiangela]

People do take on all kinds of crummy jobs - jobs I sure would never do, and they still (ostensibly) get the protection of those regulations.  A number of 'they couldn't pay me enough to do that' jobs come to mind - working in a chemical factory, working at a waste disposal site, cleaning sewers.....    The list is long for me.  If that is all I were qualified to do and that is all there was available, should I collect unemployment benefits because those jobs were abhorrent to me and I wouldn't take them?  If moral judgement is your issue, then how about working as a secretary at an abortion clinic?  Should a qualified individual still get (government paid) unemployment benefits if they refuse to take that job?
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Oh dear, Shadow, is it can of worms time?

What is the difference between "that job is too icky/risky for me" and "I cannot do that job on moral grounds/for personal reasons." Who gets to draw the line? Kylaren reports that there is indeed a provision in the German law, see below, that mitigates some of the moral issues in that particular case. The line drawn is via statue or regulation.

On the other hand, job as prostitute is available. Some women figure it pays the rent, and take it up for a while. Others make it a career. Others object on personal grounds, others on moral grounds, and won't do the job. Works for me.

Let's take a less odious, from a moral perspective, job.

You don't want to do the chemical waste disposal job because . . . it's too dangerous? It smells bad?

Not to poke fun at your position, but what constitutes a good an sufficient reason to reject a valid job when one is unemployed and receiving benefits from "the state?"

I have hauled trash, shoveled sh**, swept and mopped floors, cleaned filty restrooms, all for low to minimum wage, in my day. Getting to work moving furniture was a step up when that opportunity opened.

The "moral" and "it's against my religion to . . ." arguments in re employment represent significant difficulties in applying a fair labor law, or fair labor regulations, where benefits accrue for not working. Before the law, aren't all citizens equal? Or, as Orwell observes, are some more equal than others?

I'll sign up for the "more equal" group, thanks very much. :D But if I have to dive septic tanks to pay the rent, so be it.

Occhi

In a P.S. to Kylaren:

Thanks for the sanity check. I sometimes wonder how "right" reporters get their stories.

But there's still the law about prostitution that says no woman (hmm...and man?) can be forced into prostitution, and Hartz IV itself says that you have to accept any job unless there's an important reason against it, and I'd say the law about prostitution is a good reason.  Working as a waitress in a brothel would probably be okay, though, but I'm no lawyer.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

Oddly enough, the law in question seems fairly reasonable to me (although I'm sure the devil is in the details).  If someone is going to claim unemployment, and they are offered jobs they are capable of, they should have to take one within a certain amount of time or lose their benefits.  Now, making someone immediately take the first job offered may not be a good approach, because you end up with skilled laborers in professions they are not the most efficient at (or something they flat out don't want to do).  But at some point, you have to draw the line and make the people take a job or pay their own bills.

I believe you don't lose your benefits immediately; I think it will happen after you've denied three jobs offered to you, but I could be wrong.

I agree, that part of the law sounds reasonable to me too, assuming scenarios like these (woman forced to work as prostitutes) won't happen. But Hartz IV is a lot more than that, it also means a lot less money for people that were unemployed for over a year, and things like forcing people to move if a job far away gets offered to them. Now here in Germany, we don't move so often and so readily like you Americans seem to do, and additionally, people were used to the high social welfare. Horror scenarios like the one mentioned in the article and a lot of false information floating around about the law heated up the discussion as well, and so good effects like unemployed single mothers receiving more money than before, got drowned in the uproar.

The law is in effect since the beginning of the year, and I really hope things will cool down around here...

-Kylearan

[ShadowHM]

Oh dear, Shadow, is it can of worms time? 

What is the difference between "that job is too icky/risky for me" and "I cannot do that job on moral grounds/for personal reasons."  Who gets to draw the line? 

...

The "moral" and "it's against my religion to . . ." arguments in re employment represent significant difficulties in applying a fair labor law, or fair labor regulations, where benefits accrue for not working.  Before the law, aren't all citizens equal?  Or, as Orwell observes, are some more equal than others?



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Oh dear Occhi :) That was why I included the question about the secretary at the abortion clinic. :P

There may well be a can of worms there. * My view is that I, as a tax-paying citizen, should not have to subsidize your moral choices in employment. You, of course, are perfectly free to make those choices in the first place. If you find certain areas of work abhorrent, whether for moral or any other reasons, you do not have to do them. You draw the line, not me.

I would have a concern if certain types of employment that in fact were abhorrent to you were your only choices, but that is another topic altogether, and involves issues like freedom of movement, freedom of education opportunities, freedom from coersion, etc.




*Aren't there always cans of worms sprinkled liberally around all issues of social policy? ;)

[Occhidiangela]

*Aren't there always cans of worms sprinkled liberally around all issues of social policy?    ;)
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I'd say . . . yes! :)

Occhi

[Nystul]

Why should a prostitute not be permitted the benefit of maximum hour regulations, workplace safety regulations and minimum wage laws? Your slippery slope argument is misplaced.

Let me try to rephrase it. A government might let someone work as a sex slave, but won't let them work 90 hours at a shoe factory for $.50 an hour, or 40 hours at an unsafe uranium mine for $1000 an hour. Which is a worse working condition, and who makes that decision? Obviously the government in question makes that decision, and I am merely voicing my disagreement with their opinion on the matter.

Your example of a secretary at an abortion clinic does not seem relevent because although the job could be considered immoral, the working conditions would be relatively equivalent to any other secretary job. An actual surgeon being requested by an abortion clinic, or some sort of fetus disposal job, would be a better comparison, if you really want to open that ugly topic. However, my concerns about the legality of abortion are a lot more about the fetuses who don't have a choice in the matter than anyone who works in that profession. On the list of things I'd like to see criminalized worldwide, abortion is about 10 trillion times higher in priority than prostitution :rolleyes:

[Armin]

Okay, let me try to clear up a few things here... :)

First of all: truth is, effective January first the 4th stage of the German "Arbeitsmarktreform" has gone into effect. Also called "Arbeitslosengeld 2" or short "Hartz 4", named after Peter Hartz, chief executive in charge of human resources at Volkswagen AG and main advisor for the government for that job market reform.

I'll skip any comments about the sheer idiocy of making a human resources manager from a stock market company responsible for *creating* jobs, when destroying them has become second nature to any large shareholder-value driven enterprise...

What the new law says is basically:

- for the first 12 months of unemployment you still receive "Arbeitslosengeld" ("unemployment money") which is an insurance payment financed by obligatory unemployment insurance fees that every employee pays. It amounts to 60% of your last income (after taxes) and is capped at a monthly income of about 5000 €.
Payments can be held back, if it can be proven that you neglect the attempt to get a new job. In effect, it's rarely done.

- after that you used to receive "Arbeitslosenhilfe", which was less than "Arbeitslosengeld", but still depended on your last income. This has been abolished.

- Nowadays, after 12 months you receive "Arbeitslosengeld 2", which is a pretty name for social welfare and is a fixed amount that covers only the most basic cost of living.

- This payment can be denied if you *repeatedly* refuse to take a new job that would be "reasonable" (German: "zumutbar", it doesn't translate well, perhaps "without undue hardships" would catch the meaning better). The criteria for this "Zumutbarkeit" have been *significantly* lowered, but, no, Prostitution is still not among them :P

The attempt to get the job exchange board to offer jobs at a brothel probably came from an attempt to ridicule the new policy, which is still pretty controversial around here...

Especially the pressure to accept basically *any* job, even at sub-average or below-tariff pay, and way below one's qualification could lead huge parts of the populace into social decline. But not into brothels in large numbers I guess :shuriken:

[ShadowHM]

Let me try to rephrase it.  A government might let someone work as a sex slave, but won't let them work 90 hours at a shoe factory for $.50 an hour, or 40 hours at an unsafe uranium mine for $1000 an hour.  Which is a worse working condition, and who makes that decision?  Obviously the government in question makes that decision, and I am merely voicing my disagreement with their opinion on the matter.

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Perhaps our issue is with definitions? I do not define a prostitute as a sex slave. I would define a prostitute as someone who sells sexual services for a fee. Slaves are not paid. Slaves do not get a choice in what they do.

It is inarguable that some prostitutes are, in fact, sex slaves. I would argue that the root cause of that is the fact that, since what they sell is illegal, they are beyond the safety nets that our government provides for other workers. They do not get the benefit of workplace safety legislation. I cannot see any problem in having prostitution legal so that sex workers can get that benefit too.

The original point I was making was that if someone chooses unemployment rather than undertake a legal job, then they should not expect to claim tax dollars in the form of unemployment benefits. Their reasons for doing so are irrelevant.

[Nystul]

It is inarguable that some prostitutes are, in fact, sex slaves. I would argue that the root cause of that is the fact that, since what they sell is illegal, they are beyond the safety nets that our government provides for other workers. They do not get the benefit of workplace safety legislation. I cannot see any problem in having prostitution legal so that sex workers can get that benefit too.

I see the ban on prostitution as being part of the safety net, itself. Obviously, any workplace regulation won't apply if your employer chooses to ignore it, and never gets prosecuted.

The original point I was making was that if someone chooses unemployment rather than undertake a legal job, then they should not expect to claim tax dollars in the form of unemployment benefits. Their reasons for doing so are irrelevant.

I suggested the same thing in my first post. If there is any problem with what is supposedly happening in the story we are reacting to, the unemployment law ain't it.