Rundale

Lucy Bowen

The fear of job loss is never far from the Irish psyche. But what if, even amidst recession and no matter your skillset, you could rely on a good job, if you wanted one? Say, one in a local cooperative, doing meaningful work, for a living-wage? Far from a fantasy, public job guarantee programs have seen both historical success and, in some parts of Europe, are a current reality.

A job guarantee is a policy through which the state provides access to socially and ecologically necessary work to anyone who wants it – from care and community services to environmental and cultural work. At a minimum, such a policy can serve as a backstop to prevent mass unemployment during economic downturns, and there are varying examples of this approach. However, emerging European research more ambitiously frames the job guarantee as a ‘twin solution’, both to involuntary unemployment and to the vast labour needs of a just climate transition. Indeed, with Ireland predicted to widely miss its 2030 emissions targets, the task of accelerating renewable energy, modernising our grid, retrofitting homes, overhauling transport and transforming agribusiness will require not just investment, but people.

Not just a job, but a good one

A job guarantee necessarily entails the creation of public works, allowing us to move the decisions around how to use resources away from profit-driven stakeholders such as corporations and consultancies, and redirect some of our labour capacity towards socially and ecologically beneficial activities. For many of its advocates, such a policy sits within a broader long-term package of universal basic services, a basic income and reduced working hours – serving as one step towards releasing Ireland from the grip of corporate power, a step that must necessarily sit within a broader ecosocialist political mass movement.

Here, I will make the case specifically for a good job guarantee – meaning that the work in question would be locally and democratically determined and run, pay at least a living-wage and be both voluntary and unconditional. In the long term, such a good job guarantee could shift collective bargaining power away from the private sector and towards workers by reducing the fear of unemployment. It could similarly also support demands for work time reduction, better pay, and participatory workplaces wherein employees have a meaningful say in decision-making. The risks of challenging low pay, discrimination or harassment are not so scary if you can easily get another job. This would compel poverty-paying employers toward living wages and better conditions to compete, preventing unemployment from being wielded as a force that retains corporate advantage.

A means of engaging communities in a just transition

A decentralised approach to implementation is key: experts such as Pavlina Tcherneva generally argue that these programs should be publicly funded but locally administered, based on locally identified social and ecological needs of a given area. While the government pays or co-pays salaries (at least at first), people would be employed by local, democratically run coops, non-profits and community groups. The government could also provide subsidies and incentives to employers who meet strong labour and environmental standards. Currently, such schemes in Ireland (such as the Green Public Procurement Strategy, ACRES CP and the PSO levy) tend to treat businesses as economic actors defined by production or environmental performance, rather than explicitly incentivising them in their role as employers providing high-quality work.

Despite Ireland once being best in class on community development, Moray Bresnihan describes how over the years, neoliberal governments have systematically dismantled thousands of independent, localised, community-led projects and their participatory democratic structures, bringing the sector instead under central government control managed by market-driven service providers. However, we know that the basis of climate action must be meaningful community empowerment, and 100% of members of our 2018 Citizen’s Assembly on climate change recommended that the State ensure maximum community ownership in future renewable energy projects.

A job guarantee engages more people in social and climate work by proving that it can be both fulfilling and reliable. At present, those working in climate action tend to be professional, university-educated individuals, which warps the outcomes towards their (and their’s institutional funder’s) concerns and potentially overlooks the vision and needs of groups most affected. Inviting communities to co-create projects, especially in rural areas where structural inequality is higher, can instead directly enable them to ‘make their own decisions about how to increase food sovereignty or expand renewables-based energy systems’ – thus tackling not just financial instability but the psychological and social harms of unemployment.

Bottom up participatory models have been shown to be much more robust and resilient than top down governmental proposals, and there are some great examples of burgeoning community-led initiatives, such as the Bohemian Cooperatives in Dublin which aims to demonstrate how public investment can seed locally owned enterprises that provide living-wage jobs and upskilling, while building community wealth. Bohemians plan to build a cooperative ecosystem in food, retrofitting, renewables and other services, inspired by others such as the Mondragón cooperative, which I visited with them on a recent study trip. It’s a great example of the kind of model that, with local support, could be replicated across the country within a state-funded national job guarantee to tackle real local needs.

Another focus is agribusiness, the ‘lifeblood of rural Ireland for generations’. There is a pervasive perception that action to combat environmental damage would undermine rural livelihoods and communities, and with reason. For instance, Bord na Mona has cut 700+ jobs in recent years by shifting from peat toward renewable energy and waste management. It’s clear that any progress on climate requires the real empowerment of rural communities to identify as agents of change and implementing partners in the transition, which in turn will require meaningful solutions to real problems of employment, debt and out-migration. One 2020 report found that retrofitting alone could create up to 32,000 jobs. There is further need for labour and retraining in regenerative agriculture, silvopasture, and local processing. If Bord na Mona’s layoffs were paired with retraining programs within a job guarantee to retrofit houses, for example, we wouldn’t leave so many behind. Bohemians plan to tackle this skill shortage within their coop by partnering with the Education and Training Board to upskill and educate employees in green trades.

The economics of a public job guarantee

Financing a national job guarantee is a fair concern. Scaling international job guarantee cost estimates to a living wage in Ireland’s labour force (USA, Austria, France) allows us to synthesise a rough annual investment in the region of €4 billion, including public works (less than 1% of GDP). There are several potential funding pathways to be explored for this on the national, regional, and EU-level. Many costs would be offset by savings on welfare and social services, as well as increased tax recipients: local pilots in France and Austria have already shown that employing people directly can be more cost-effective than long-term unemployment. It’s also not as inflationary as some might expect, with Tcherneva framing its function rather as an ‘anti-cyclical economic stabiliser’. 

There are also strategic funding levers: if we miss those 2030 legally binding climate targets, for example, we’ll have to pay out an estimated total of between 8 and 26 billion euro to cover planned and existing measures, emission allowances, compliance penalties, and emergency measures – depending on how we choose to act. Instead of handing over that cash, we could front just a fraction that sum on a job guarantee and public works program – hiring and training people to build renewable infrastructure and creating resilience, energy sovereignty and economic stability in the process. On this note, it’s important to bear in mind that the cost of a job guarantee is also an output – every hour of labour hired produces new value and should be treated as an investment, just as in the private sector.

Without considering off-ramps away from state dependance, any public works program associated with a job guarantee would face structural vulnerability: if the state cuts funding, the jobs – and organisations built around them – disappear. The Bohemian Cooperative’s approach to long-term stability is thus carefully considered. At first, it plans to secure guaranteed demand through procurement deals with public institutions, whose purchases will fund local employment within its enterprises. However, over time they plan to build economic sovereignty by developing diversified revenue streams and a stable market demand. Well-designed job guarantee programs could similarly build their own independence over time by gradually diversifying income sources and building community capital through localised cooperative infrastructure.

Success stories to draw from

There are emerging examples of success. One job guarantee program in Austria has reported increased social cohesion, as well as immediate and long-term mental and physical health improvements. Another in France finances jobs across 83 pilot regions on the principles that no one is unemployable, there is no shortage of useful work, and that it’s not money that’s lacking. A job guarantee must be accessible to avoid reinforcing inequalities, and this program employs groups in diverse situations of long-term unemployment, including those who would like to work but have been dissuaded or prevented due to disabilities. Hiring is done without selection and the job is adapted to the individual, not the other way around – including workplace adjustments, disability liaisons, awareness, training and skills development. Over 200,000 people are currently recipients of long-term disability payment in Ireland, and suffer high levels of poverty compared to other EU countries. Such a voluntary and radically unconditional scheme (not replacing disability supports or compelling anyone to work) could make a real difference to those who would like to work.

What next?

Public works and job guarantees, when delivered through cooperative and mission-locked infrastructures, can be transformative in securing good work, fostering democratic local economies, and tackling the climate crisis simultaneously. 

But at present, our government is much more comfortable handing over money to consultants and corporations, than supporting any form of community wealth building, and efforts to pass the Cooperative Societies Bill have faced repeated delays in the legislature. Nonetheless, coops like Bohemians are challenging norms and laying important groundwork towards enabling worker autonomy, community agency, and meaningful climate action in Ireland.

The details of a job guarantee, its political and financial logistics and rollout need to be explored in greater detail in the context of Ireland. We could start by exploring small-scale public works projects that enable a job guarantee in specific areas, such as reskilling Bord na Mona employees in retrofitting social housing, or through coops like Bohemians. On a narrative level, a citizen’s assembly on the topic could generate discussion and surface potential issues. Every country is different, and we can learn a lot from others while building a tailored policy that works for our particular realities. Irish people are hardwired to be grateful for what we have and accept what we’re given. But perhaps it’s time to override our reticent inner monologues and demand useful, fulfilling work for ourselves and our communities, embedded within a democratic economy equipped to tackle the polycrisis.