Requesting labour activation without addressing inequalities A move towards racialised workfare in Slovakia

• Published in: Austerity Across Europe pp. 154 - 166
• Main Authors: Škobla, Daniel, Filčák, Richard
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 2021
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Labour Activation Programme; Active Labour Market Policy Measures; Unsubsidised Job; Workfare Policies; Roma Ethnic Minority; EU Structural Fund; Iron Fist; Roma Population; State Labour Office; Central Government; Low Level Labour; Welfare Reform; Town Hall; Active Labour Market Policies; Labour Activation Activities; Labour Office; Long Term Unemployed; Mandatory Activation; Social Assistance System; Labour Activation; Workfare Programmes; Workfare Regimes; Work Habits
• ISBN: 9780367673741; 0367192519; 9780367192518; 0367673746
• DOI: 10.4324/9780429201332-15

This contribution critically explores labour activation, which is unpaid work activity for social benefits claimants, introduced in the wake of the financial economic crisis (2008–2009) in Slovakia. The official goal has been to integrate the long-term unemployed into the labour market by helping them to regain their working habits and skills. Typically, labour activation activities are menial and low-level labour, such as sweeping streets, cleaning pavements, mowing grass and watering flowers, is done by jobseekers. The chapter is based on empirical data gained from ethnographic field research in the rural regions of eastern Slovakia, characterised by the high share of the long-term unemployed and vast Roma population living there. In the chapter we argue that labour activation failed to reach its official goals and in fact increased inequalities along ethnic lines between the Slovak population and Roma groups. While non-Roma social benefit claimants have been more often allowed to enrol in education and training, ethnic Roma were requested to carry out compulsory menial and stigmatising outdoor work. Thus labour activation has become a racialised phenomenon since it ushered some racial meanings to previously racially uncategorised social welfare administration practice.