The Workers’ Party have said that only a comprehensive job creation programme providing sustainable long-term employment with decent pay and conditions will be acceptable as a replacement for the JobBridge scheme which, it has been announced, is to end in September.

Jimmy Dignam

Workers’ Party Dublin North West representative Jimmy Dignam said that while the end of the JobBridge scheme is to be welcomed any new scheme which continues to provide free or heavily subsidised labour for employers in often dubious positions will be completely unacceptable and the party has said that one immediate action the government should take is the ending of the civil service jobs embargo.

“It is interesting”, said Dignam, “to hear government ministers who defended JobBridge to the hilt over the past five years suddenly speak about its being out of date.  The truth is however that it was never a suitable replacement for real job opportunities. It was a means of artificially keeping the unemployment figures down and promoting a low-pay environment”.

Dignam said that abolition of JobBridge alone would not end the exploitation of workers and he called on the government to abolish all so-called activation measures which were designed to force people into low-paid, exploitative jobs while driving down wages and militating against trade union membership.  “Instead of creating real and sustainable jobs with properly paid workers who contribute to the economy and feel a sense of self-worth JobBridge and the activation schemes destroy self-esteem and are a drain on the economy.  This country needs full employment, not an workfare and low-pay hell which benefits nobody but unscrupulous employers” said Jimmy Dignam