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The expense of such a program would be considerable. However, we
are of the opinion that, if at least 2% of the workforce at any given time were
to be on Paid Skills Development Leave, a sizeable number of workers would, by
necessity, be added to payrolls across the country, thereby decreasing
unemployment. And it is not as if the unemployed I do not cost the state money
as it is: last year, the cost of Unemployment Insurance Benefits were
8.6-billion dollars. 30 Creative use of such monies is
what is required right now. Professor Louis Emmerij, Rector of the Institute of
Social Studies in The Hague, says that:
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Social security money [is] more and more used to alleviate
or to hide structural unemployment problems . . . and it would be more honest
to recognize this fact and to separate out those funds. |
He suggests that some people will favour using such funds to
create more jobs, and this, he agrees, is a first priority. However, he adds:
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What are we to do when maximal effort in that respect is
not sufficient to supply all those who present themselves on the labor market
with productive work. "Productive work" is indeed the key phrase... Is
it not much better and also more productive to use the "structural money," not
only to give people the opportunity to return to the educational system, but
also time to do other things, including voluntary activities in the public
sector for example? The educational part of creative leave would make people
more productive, more flexible, and in general more inclined to follow and
anticipate changes in their work environment. 31
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The Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Educational Leave and
Productivity, 1979, in its investigation of educational leave in Europe, found
that the expense of an educational leave program does not pose a particular
hardship to industry:
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The right to educational leave has not caused major
disruptions to company operations nor has the cost created onerous and
unacceptable burdens on industry. Educational leave policy has been most
successful in expanding vocational training thereby improving the vocational
competence of the labour force and in providing opportunities to workers'
representatives so that they might acquire the knowledge necessary to perform
their duties in an informed and responsible manner. It has been least
successful to date in overcoming educational inequalities. 32 |
We believe that, in the Recommendations proposed throughout this
Brief, the issue of inequities has been addressed in a manner that will provide
guidelines for the development of just policies for Paid Skills Development
Leave and also the criteria for its successful implementation. |