While I am in favor of legalizing prostitution, methinks there is something wrong with a law that would require someone to work in a job they may morally object to.
Exactly what goes on in German bars? :eek:
I’m not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, the woman is out of work and needs a job. On the other hand, I can’t see forcing women into prostitution if they don’t want to work as a prostitute. And what if a woman is married? Can she be penalized for turning down a brothel job because she’s married? I can’t see her Herr saying, “Wow, sweetie, you finally got a job! That’s terrific!”
I guess if a business is legal, they should be allowed to advertise for employees, but forcing someone to take a job, any job, just because they’ve been out of work for a year smacks of involuntary servitude to me.
When you think about it, all work is basically whoring yourself out to someone. If they’re going to make an exemption for sex work, why not make an exemption for vegetarians who don’t want to work in a meat factory? The list goes on and on.
Nobody is being forced into prostitution. However, if they are able to find a job, any job, and refuse to take that job for whatever reason, then they lose their unemployment benefits.
Quite frankly, I have moral objections to all sorts of jobs and companies. But I don’t think that should matter when it comes to unemployment benefits.
That said, I think there should be a bit of leeway. I don’t know how their system works, but I think turning down a single job for any reason should not in itself be enough reason to lose benefits. Perhaps if you turn down two in a row, then you should lose benefits, or something of that nature. This would allow everyone a “freebie”, and prostitution would not have to be made the single exception to the law. I could turn down one because I don’t want to work for, say, a defense contractor; a vegan could turn down one because they don’t want to work in a meat packing plant; etc. After that, tough noogies.
Nobody is forced to take any job, sex related or otherwise. What happens is that people lose government unemployment benefits after a year. This might be motivation for somebody to accept a job, but it’s not force.
Blaron, whether it’s forcing a vegan to work in a meat factory or forcing someone to work in a brothel, the important thing here is lack of choice. The gov’t is saying, “Work here or we’ll cut your benefits.” Not an easy choice if you’ve been out of work for a year.
According to the article, Germany’s unemployment rate has been rising the past 11 months. Maybe some EuroDoper can provide some insight into why that is happening.
If the choice is between a job in the sex industry or destitution, you are being at the very least intolerably coerced. These are venerable people to begin with. Nobody should be forced to do a job they find morally repugnant. I’m really very shocked a policy like this (as described in the article) has come out of a liberal European democracy. Any German dopers reading? How is this story playing out over there?
I’m not shocked at all! This kind of thing is exactly the reason that many of us conservatives do not want the government in charge of “taking care” of us. Government can’t do anything efficiently! There is no room for individual circumstanc. Everything is applied in cookie-cutter fashion, and the people who are responsible for approving or denying benefits are wholly disconnected from and uncaring about the plight of those over whom they are making decisions. Liberalism, like communism, would be a great thing…if only it worked. But throw in human beings – with their concomitant human nature – and you get crap like this.
This isn’t forcing women (or men, there are male prostiutes too) to do anything.
And even if it was, do you really think it’d be any different if the welfare system was different (or non-existant) or prostitution was illegal? If you think women worldwide aren’t forced to chose between destitution and prostition, you’re naive. At least in Germany, if forced to those lengths, they won’t be arrested and have some legal prtection as prostitutes.
That said, while I don’t have a problem with welfare benefits terminating after some time if a job is turned down, I do think there should be some exceptions: dangerous jobs, jobs that would keep a parent away from kids at odd hours, and the sex industry. It’s a flaw in the system, but it’s an easy fix.
I saw the article on Drudge Report. Prostitution was legalized as a way of preventing coercion into the sex trade, and this is the unintended consequence. I doubt the situation as it stands will survive a legal challenge (though I know nothing about German law).
How about something that violated your religion? Should a Muslim or a Jew be compelled to work at Honey Baked Hams under this system? (I was thinking the religion clause would get the woman in the article out of her predicament, but atheists have rights too.)
How does not paying somebody money equate with forcing them to do something? I have a job. But if everyone reading this thread were to send me a monthly check for $1000 I’d quit my job. So now everyone who doesn’t send me a check is forcing me to work. You’re all in violation of the 13th Amendment.
In Spain, you get unemployment benefits for up to 24 months.
The first year you get a “salary” equivalent to 70% of what your previous salary was, the second year 60% (there’s an upper limit, so the ex-CEO of a bank would get as much as an ex-cashier from the same bank). There is no need for medical benefits: everybody is covered the whole time. Hint: one way we have of telling that a US company starting a new factory here has no idea where they landed is if their wanted ads offer “medical insurance”. No shit, Social Security is required by law.
We also get preferential access to some courses. Not college stuff, but things like “how to use MSOffice”, “how to use AutoCAD”, taught at academies. I’ve had some interesting ones, which I doubt I’ll ever use but it gives me something to do and gets me out of the house.
If I get TWO interviews via the official, central-government employement agency and I refuse to go to them, I lose my “salary” and the preferential access to courses. This agency is called INEM.
But getting an interview via the agency is about as common as green, six-legged dogs. Usually when a company that needs people with any kind of tech expertise asks INEM about it, it means that they already have a candidate but need to do some kind of dance to convince someone (foreign owner company, INS) that they have searched high and low, really Mommy. It’s happened to me twice: I got this letter saying to contact the company and when I contacted the company they were all a-hums and a-hems, gave me the papers I needed to show to INEM but that was it.
If I had a brothel I would want “girls” who are at least halfway vocational, you know… or at least decidedly voluntary. I wouldn’t be looking in INEM.
Well, when they say “Turn down a job” I assume you must first apply for the job and then get offered the job. So it doesn’t look like a problem to me. I’ve been unemployed. Not once did any person or corporation in any industry at all call me up, unsolicited, and say, “Hey, I’m offering you a job! Come to work for me/us!”
Can’t see that happening in Germany either–particularly if unemployment is rising.
Also I’m betting that any woman who didn’t want to work in the sex industry could figure out how to make herself appear very unsuitable for the work.
Unemployment benefits are the same in America, too. They require that you be actively looking for work and accept the first job you are offered, even if it is being one of those guys who decide if a car safety flaw will kill enough people to be cost effective to fix. We don’t have legalized prostitution, but I’m sure all of us could think of a few jobs we’d find strongly morally objectionable. It’s not a great system, but there arn’t many others. Heck, at least the German’s have health insurance and unemployment benefits for over a year.
Note that nobody has ever actually been “forced” to work as a prostitute through this program- so far they have only dealt with jobs like waitress and clerk at brothels- and that it is unlikely to happen unless on of the job centers goes off it’s rocker.
After reading the Telegraph article I very much doubt its accuracy. For one, prostitution was not legalized in Germany two years ago, as the article states - it has been legal long before, subject to zoning restrictions and public-order regulations. What happened two years ago was mainly aligning employment law and social insurance law on prositution to that in other industries. Which did not amount to much because most prostitutes are self-employed anyway.
The incident of a job seeker being referred by the job centre to a sex industry position was reported in the German press months ago, but in the context of of reporting on the job-offer database not being policed by the employment agencies (the job descriptions are usually entered into the system by the employers themselves, without an appreciable effort at review by the employment agency, which from time to time leads to media reporting on hilarious, outrageous or downright illegal job offers in the official database. My union journal usually features at least one of these each month.)
The consequence of being denied benefits on refusing a sex industry job are pure speculation on the Telegraph’s part IMO, designed to spice up an article about an otherwise dull topic. The article does not state that such a penalty has actually been imposed or even threatened. My read on public opinion is that heads would roll if such a thing happened - the labour market reforms are unpopular enough; the government won’t want the feminists on the case too.
Anyway refusing a job offer is contingent on being offered the job. People who don’t want the job offer have always found ways to be unacceptable enough in the job interview. Arriving with alcohol on your breath is sufficient.
Thank you, tschild, for the clarification. So I take it the unemployed can go on the interview, but there is nothing the gov’t can to do ensure the applicant puts forth a good faith effort to get the job?