German Alcoholics Offered Free Beer and Cigarettes to Clean City Streets

[FrodosPet]

Modern slave labor.

Hey! Let's exploit people's weaknesses for cheap work.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/german-alcoholics-offered-free-beer-cigarettes-clean-city-225131748.html

Problem drinkers in the German city of Essen are to be given free alcohol and tobacco in exchange for helping clean the city, Die Welt newspaper reports.

As part of the scheme, "socially isolated and stigmatised" drinkers will collect rubbish and sweep the scrofulous streets around the industrial city's railway station. As a reward they will be given tobacco, warm food, $1.50 an hour and three bottles of beer - once their shift is over.

The project, "Pick Up", is based on similar schemes in Holland but not everyone is happy with the public in effect subsidizing drinkers' beer habits. One homeless charity called the scheme "cheap labour" and said it was dehumanizing.

"The city wants to get the homeless out of public sight," said Horst Renner, who works at a nearby homeless shelter. "It should not be tolerated that beer is served to severe alcoholics, paid with public funds."

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[FourScore]

1. Disgusting! I expect better from Germany. n/t

[lame54]

2. but then who's gonna pick up the cig butts and beer cans?

[CBGLuthier]

3. I must have missed the part where they round them up and force them to do this

Perhaps your concept of slave is a bit inaccurate?

I guess you prefer the american system where they stand on street corners with little cardboard signs and dumbasses give them money to make themselves feel better.

[jwirr]

4. From experience: they had better make sure the job is done before they hand over the alcohol.

[Cleita]

5. But...but...but...not being paid for work is not slave labor, so I've been

told on DU. Only being owned by another person is slave labor. Otherwise it's just fine to work without getting wages.



Seriously. In my burg they use prisoners. Why not just pay people regular wages for doing day Labor? I know some people, because of their limitations, can't hold a regular job, but they can do day labor like this that only requires them to show up for the job that day when they are able to.

[NightWatcher]

6. I paid my friends with pizza and beer to help me move years ago

[hunter]

7. It's not a bad idea.

As people mentioned above we could incarcerate them, maybe use them as prison labor, or we could do what we do here in the U.S.A., cast them out to become sometimes aggressive petty thieves, panhandlers, and automobile window washers, or, failing any other initiative on the addicts' part, leave them to die on the streets.

In Germany and Holland it's actually possible for a jobless person to obtain both medical treatment for addictions, and public housing. But you can't force mostly harmless and unemployable addicts into treatment, and even if you do they usually return to their old lifestyles upon their release. The decision to change has to come from within them.

Getting unemployable alcohol addicts on their feet and walking about doing positive things in exchange for warm food, beer, and cigarettes reduces the harm addicts do to themselves and others, keeps them in contact with social services, and might even change their lives for the better should they decide to take the next step up and deal with their addictions.

Like needle exchanges for I.V. drug addicts, or handing out condoms to street prostitutes, the idea is not to "rehabilitate" people, but to reduce the damage they do to themselves and others, and to keep contacts with social service agencies open.

Dealing with these problems in a judgmental fashion is entirely ineffective. It's not a question of work ethics, moral failings, or fair wages.