Briefing by the Right to Work: Right to Welfare (R2W) Group on the Northern Ireland Executive’s compliance with ICESCR’s Article 6 on the Right to Work

Participation and the Practice of Rights (PPR)6A Albert StreetBelfastBT12 4HQTel: 02890313315Email: sara@pprproject.org www.pprproject.org

#REALJOBSNOW

Human Rights Concerns

The State Party’s obligation to fulfil Article 6 includes the obligation to take ‘deliberate, concrete and targeted steps’ towards its full realisation (General Comment No 18). This includes adopting appropriate legal, administrative, budgetary, judicial and other measures to ensure its full realisation. The lack of proactive steps, such as the effective use of public procurement budgets to deliver employment equality outcomes for the long term unemployed, suggests a failure by the NI Executive to comply with its obligations under Article 6 of ICESCR.

Suggested Question

The Committee may wish to ask the NI Executive how, in light of ongoing austerity measures and continued high levels of long term unemployment, alongside its obligations under Article 6 of ICESCR, it is using public procurement budgets to create jobs and paid apprenticeships for the long term unemployed.

Context

The Right to Work: Right to Welfare group is a group of unemployed people who use human rights based approaches to campaign for government’s compliance with Articles 6 and 9 of ICESCR. The group has identified job creation for the long term unemployed as a key human rights issues in the Northern Ireland context that arise out of the Article 6 provision.

The work of the group has been commended by the (former) United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, Ms. Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona:

“ the important work being done by the Right to Work: Right to Welfare group in Belfast, Northern Ireland to hold the government accountable…is crucial and should be praised as a promising practice to be followed”.

Historically, discrimination in employment opportunities between the Protestant and Catholic communities in Northern Ireland (NI) was a significant factor underlying and fuelling over thirty years of violent conflict. While there is evidence of converging labour markets between Protestants and Catholics, there continues however to be marked differences within the unemployed population. Catholics remain more likely to be unemployed and to be long term unemployed: in 2014 the long term unemployment rate as a percentage of overall unemployment for Protestants was 41% whereas for Catholics it was 59%. Those areas most impacted upon by the conflict continue to experience much higher levels of unemployment, with unemployment rates in those areas being approximately three times higher than the NI average of 6.3%. Unemployment rates for Northern Ireland also continue to be higher than for other UK jurisdictions with the UK average standing at 5.1%. The long term unemployment rate for NI stands 47.8%, markedly higher than the UK average of 27.9%. The NI youth unemployment rate was 18.5%, compared to a UK average of 11.9%.

The REAL JOBS NOW Model

The Right to Work: Right to Welfare group has developed a solution focused, model of job creation for the long term unemployed which uses public procurement as a tool by which the Northern Ireland Executive can deliver on its obligations under Article 6 of ICESCR. The REAL JOBS NOW model requires public authorities to use social clauses to ring fence ‘real jobs’ ( as opposed to ‘back to work’ schemes) as well as apprenticeships for the long term unemployment in their public procurement contracts. The REAL JOBS NOW model requires the inclusion of such a clause as a contract condition in all possible public contracts.

In 2014 the largest of Northern Ireland’s local government authorities, Belfast City Council, adopted the REAL JOBS NOW model, thereby committing to ensuring that its £40 million annual procurement budget would be used to deliver fully paid jobs and apprenticeships for the long term unemployed.

However, despite the adoption by Belfast City Council of the REAL JOBS NOW model, there has been resistance to the actual implementation of the model, with Belfast City Council opting for

‘employment weeks’ rather than actual jobs as a condition of contract. Out of a total of 13 contracts, some of which were for major developments worth several million pounds, a total of only 41 jobs and 101 apprenticeships were created; an average of 3 jobs and 7.7 apprenticeships per contract. One major redevelopment project, the Girdwood former British army barracks site in North Belfast, cost £10 million but only resulted in 5 jobs being created.