Jobless intend trek will prove a point

Press, 27 September 1988, Page 7

Jobless intend trek will prove a point

By

DEBORAH McPHERSON

Unemployed people are being encouraged to join a morale-raising jobsearch tour next month. The tour is being organised by a national network of unemployed and beneficiaries, Te Roopu Rawakore o Aotearoa (People who have nothing), in response to the rising number of jobless. Up to 80 people are expected on the march that will start in Balclutha on October 10 and end three weeks later with a march on Parliament. The aim of the tour was four-pronged, said a member of the Christchurch Unemployed Rights Collective, Ms Kate Watson. It would set out to prove there were no jobs, to

suggest ways employment could be provided, to support unemployed people and to pressure the Government into listening to what unemployed people were saying. The Christchurch collective is affiliated to the national network. “We don’t expect to find any jobs or knock on any doors, but our aim is to support the unemployed people out there who may be starting to panic,” said Ms Watson. The name of the tour mocked the job-search cards the Labour Department sometimes gave unemployed people to collect signatures from prospective employers, she said. Another reason for the tour was to try to put paid to “dole-bludger bashing,”

said another member of the collective, Mr Craig Satherley. "People should stop blaming unemployed people for being unemployed and take their grievances to Parliament,” he said. The network wanted State-funded job-creation schemes but was opposed to “patch-up jobs” that subsidised employers and consequently threatened the jobs of their workers, said Mr Satherley. It also wanted recognition of unemployed and beneficiaries’ rights in the way they were treated and in the need for a living wage and access to jobs and training. The network was also opposed to cuts in youth dole and national superannuation.