Employment organised by the local government

A special case of discrimination against Romas in the world of labour is when the wrongdoer is the local government responsible for the organisation of communal works, public works.

The amendment to the Act on Social Security (Szt)[1] in 2000 connected the system of regular social aid and government organised employment. Pursuant to new regulation the obligation to work has been added to need for aid to the requirements for legitimacy for regular social aid According to the law municipalities organise 30 days of work for those eligible for regular social aid. Although the employee receives payment for his work, if he does not take the work or complete it, after this work, he will no longer be eligible for regular social aid. If the local government cannot offer suitable work for the petitioner – if he fulfils the given conditions – then the aid has to be granted. The local government can organise work for those who have already been granted regular social aid [2]. Work can be carrier out as public interest employment[3] or public purpose employment[4].

The purpose of the legislator with the modification of the law was to “improve the position of active unemployed individuals on the labour market”.[5] However, practice clearly shows that for those who apply for aid usually public purpose employment is organised. Thus there is little chance of the work lasting for longer than necessarily prescribed by the law. In smaller settlements, the local government can offer the unemployed the kind of work that does not require particular expertise, education: cleaning public grounds, park-construction, clearing the streets from snow, etc. This however means that the unemployed with low levels of education or no education at all must almost at all time accept the work offered by the local government. In practice this may seem that while Romas (among who those with low levels of education are generally more common) have to “sweep the streets to receive aid”, non-Romas (among who many have higher levels of education) receive it for doing nothing. Naturally in places where the local government has proceeded in accord with the laws, this problem does not occur, what’s more, sometimes the unemployed themselves ask to be allowed to work so that they can receive wages instead if aid. In several places however, the local government abuses its double role as both employer and the administrative organ that establishes the aid.

The local government is entitled to withdraw regular social aid, or it can reject the petition for it if the aided or the petitioner is not co-operating. According to the law a non-co-operating person is amongst others someone whose labour contract has been terminated by the local government with extraordinary termination. The most common complaint about regulating the regular social aid with this kind of regulation is that the local government can terminate the labour contract of an aided and employee on different grounds, then revoke the aid saying that the person was not co-operating.

The law sets out that the petitioner or aided is only obliged to take the offered work if it is form at least 30 days, he is employed with a labour contract, and his wage equals the amount of the compulsory minimum wage or, in case of part-time work, the minimum amount of the all-time oldage pension.[6] The individuals called in to work must be employed within the framework of labour contract and not through contract of agency, as it is done in certain settlements. The problem with employment based on a contract of agency is that different rules apply for it from those of labour relations. The employee has totally different rights during labour relations than the subjects of civil law. The labourlaw (hereafter Mt) offers employees significant protection. During the course of labour relations, the employee is entitled to sickness benefit, leave and unemployment benefit. The employer is obliged to secure healthy and safe working conditions. Although with a contract of agency, the fiduciary has significant freedom, this freedom has no real significance when clearing a ditch or shovelling snow.

Both public purpose and public interest employment is qualified as labour relation, thus in terms of working hours, labour contracts, end of and termination of labour relation, and guaranteeing adequate working conditions the parties have to proceed in accordance with the Mt. If the nature of work requires it, appropriate working clothes and protective drink has to be ensured. The individual obliged to work has to be given reasonable notice, so that he can fulfil his obligation to work. However, in practice the local government often does not take legal regulations into consideration and wantonly uses the institutions of public purpose and public interest employment as an appropriate tool of revoking social aid.

In the village of P. it has become common practice of the town-clerk to order people on regular social aid to work for shorter periods, many times just one day on and off. The order to work generally meant a call to immediately engage at work, with the condition that,