In 2013, "Active Unemployed Austria", the largest unemployed self-organization, worked on the platform organized by FIAN for a shadow report on the state examination of Austria on the implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and successfully participated in the joint NGO delegation in Geneva.
Now the next state examination by the UN is due and this time there is no longer an open NGO platform but only hand-picked large NGOs are allowed to participate. The part about the "right to work" was written by the umbrella association of socio-economic companies and an employee of the Vienna Workers Chamber, which is part of the political structure of the work agency and also the biggest suppliere of courses for the work agency. In other words, those who benefit most from the work agencies AMS measures based on the coercion of the sanctions regime write about the effects of the labour market policy that is based on the violence of the sancitions regime!
The current shadow report of the NGO platform "Social Rights Forum" is correspondingly lukewarm: neither the sanctions regime is criticized nor the failure to implement the UN recommendation to hold regular talks with the long-term unemployed. The recommendations even include the demand for more AMS staff, although a study by wifo on a field trial by AMS Vienna on more staff looking after job seekers had shown that not only the placement is increasing, but also the pressure put on unemployed people: As a result also the number of existence-endangering payment bans were increasing massively!
The association "Active Unemployed Austria" was discriminated by FIAN Austria shortly after the end of the shadow test because the largest self-organization for the unemployed had dared to make its own press release in which the Minister of Social Affairs, Rudolf Hundstorfer have been labeled as human rights violators, because of the sanction regime he was responsible for at the unemployment insurance and the tested minimum income ("Mindestsicherung").
Therefore, Vita Activa is now organizing together with "Active Unemployed Austria" a value chain shadow report from below so that not only the actors in the social sector but also those affected can get visible.
More information will follow.
If you want to participate as a member of a grassroots organization or as a person affected, please contact us!