Controlled client

Another discourse outlining the notion of adaptability is the attribution of laziness to the participants as a fundamental trait. The participants seem to express the need to have an obligation to seek work without which it would be difficult or even impossible to keep active. The idea of obligation as necessary brings implications to the contractualized frame of the labor market measures whereby the beneficiaries are put under the obligation to meet various deadlines. This discourse is further maintained and reinforced by a depiction of the inactive individual in need of negative incentives in order to function well. The following extract is an answer to a question about what the participant likes in the SeMo program:

'…that it obliges me to search, at the same time…because I use…or I have to get up, come here and do the things, you know, instead if I were at my place well…I know that I would get up from my bed…at one or two in the afternoon' (Luca M17)

46 A = Aline, I = Interviewer

The idea of obligation has been endorsed to the point where the participants seem to present it in a positive light. The same is evident in the discussion about the agents (career guidance officers) from regional placement offices (ORP):

'If there weren't for the ORP agent I don't think I would have worked so much, so at least now I know that euh…I have to show my job searches to an ORP agent, so in fact I am obliged to do them, so it helps me' (Ana F16)

The meetings with the ORP agents take place around once per month with the presence of the participant, the agent and the SeMo professional. These meetings mainly have the purpose of controlling the participant; whether the required number of internships and job searches has been done, whether the participant has behaved properly and the number of sanctions they have.

Therefore, while the question is purely a matter of control in order to evaluate the participant's rights for the welfare benefits, some of the participants seem to have adopted these obligatory measures as something that help them in doing job search. The contractualized logic of the labor market measures implies the necessity of putting deadlines and making the beneficiaries follow these obligations. For the professionals, the contractual base with sanctioning procedures offers a tool for controlling the behavior of the participants:

'…if we really have oppositions or lack of respect, we resort to the sanctioning system, we have this tool to put pressure on them' (Véronique - professional)

Thus, the idea of control by positive incentives, offering carrots instead of sticks seems to be absent in these discussions while the dominant logic is rather on the pressure as means of control regarding participation in the measure.

However, this was not the case in all of the workshops. In SeMoNord, there are two workshops with more space for maneuver: one out of the immediate physical vicinity from SeMo and another with a focus on non-productive activities. The latter targets more precarious populations with more problematic background often due to difficult family relations or psychological issues. The participants normally come from other institutional settings such as the Youth Protection Services (SPJ)⁴⁷ or Integration Income (RI)⁴⁸. The participants with SPJ background are out of the sanctioning system that concerns most of the participants in other workshops.

Otherwise, as mentioned earlier, there are participants in all the workshops that do not receive any benefits due to the fact that they do not fill the conditions of the unemployment insurance. In practice this concerns the liberation from the obligation for paying contributions, which requires that the insured should have resided in Switzerland for the last 10 years (LACI Art.14). Normally, the insured

47 Service de Protection de la Jeunesse

48 Revenu d'Insertion: The Integration Income allows people without jobs, without the right to social insurance benefits, waiting for benefits, or with income that does not allow them to reach an adequate subsistence level to receive public financial support or entrance into professional measures.

is liberated from this obligation due to the fact that during the last 12 months she has failed to pay contributions due to schooling. However, young people having migrated to Switzerland within the last 10 years and those who have had ruptures in their schooling are not eligible to any unemployment insurance benefits. The same situation also applies to young people having done an internship or apprenticeship for 12 months after finishing obligatory school but have had a period in-between during which they have not been active. Hence, all these cases fall out of the sanctioning system, which has consequences on the practices of the program. This is particularly evident in workshops having participants with SPJ background due to the diversity of the population:

'For the social or for the SPJ (.) it's…it's a different tool for pressure for example the the young person who is a beneficiary of Integration Income (.) and so we can tell him (.) 'be careful, you have not shown up for euh so and so many days, if you continue not to show up (.) I take 15% away from your salary' (.) so it's for sure that it motivates (laughs) whereas…the the young people who are not paid (.) euh well we don't have any tool for pressure at least of of of this pressure there is nothing (.) no tool for pressure (.) so we have to find other strategies' (Olivier - professional)

From the professionals' perspective, the sanctioning system clearly appears as a tool for pressure. It facilitates their everyday work as it poses a threat of being sanctioned, which is seen as an incentive to obey their orders and the rules of the program and, once again, a simulation of what they expect the labor market to be. The young people outside the sanctioning system are perceived as more difficult to control as the system does not work with them. In such cases the means for control are under professional discretion and the control requires different strategies. The approach, as explained by the professional of the workshop, is based more on comprehension and working together with the young person:

'The difference is not (.) in the fact that we give a sanction, the...the (.) the difference is in (.) what we ask them to do to fix the sanc...for fixing what he has done (.) for example a young person from SPJ, we cannot...if we had to t...take the the sanctioning system with the SPJ youth and we would follow the same (.) the same routine (.) after one week, one week and a half, we could put them (.) out of the door and that's not the work we do here (.) it's not the aim (.) so we have to find (.) we have to give a response to breaking the rules but euh it's just that the response is different, it's that our response is not 'I give you a sanction', the response is 'we will try to find it together', we work a lot on fixing with them' (Olivier – professional)

The means for control in these cases is, thus, derived from involving the participant and together searching for the best ways to manage the situation rather than direct control by means of sanctions. The logic of control illustrates a general conception that putting pressure in the form of sanctions motivates young people. While this seems to be the most pertinent logic in the workshops

aimed at good or service production, even some of these workshops do demonstrate a more extensive space for maneuver than others. Professional discretion is much more visible in these workshops, which becomes evident in the ways of applying the sanctioning system:

'We have a bit our own (.) policies here, our own euh…yeah so they also feel its effects so euh indeed…it allows us to be more cool and then also from…our side (.) it's also a way of functioning, I hope it works, I mean in any case so far it works so euh…we'll see in the future then (.) but that euh…we have the same table (of sanctions) (.) but we're…a bit more broad, yeah' (Martin - professional)

The space for discretion is defined in this specific case as implying less strict adherence to timetables and more tolerance for delays and misbehavior. It also means more negotiation power for the participants and different ways of dealing with the undesired behavior of the young people:

'I prefer dialogue, trying to find solutions together…discuss really of…everything (.) taking into consideration (.) before giving sanctions' (Martin - professional)

Hence, the sanctioning procedures differ according to the workshops but the overall discretional space seem to be rather high as illustrated by the division of the three major sanctions into 26 small sanctions in the case of SeMoNord. This allows more opportunities for the professionals to sanction non-desirable behavior without serious consequences for the participant. The sanctioning system is a tool for providing the frame and limits of behavior for the participants.

The use of the word 'frame' (FR: cadre) and 'framing' (FR: poser un cadre) illustrates the idea of control and suggests a space for the participants where they can move freely while the final limits are posed by the professionals:

'Once the young person is with us, it doesn't mean that he can do what he wants (.) far from that (.) but we manage to (.) to frame them well enough so that it…it goes more or less well' (Olivier - professional) 'I will in any case put the limits, I have to euh (.) I mean to be a guarantor of…of a certain frame' (Philippe - professional)

As the framing and posing of limits is done by means of sanctions and by using the ORP to back up the sanctioning process, the expectation is that motivation to finding a job is mainly based on negative incentives for integration. Together with the time pressure mentioned in the last chapter, adaptability driven by the cooling out – processes and by the sanctioning system has consequences on the young people's capabilities and agency.