Aan de poort van de sociale werkvoorziening : een studie over besluitvorming en marginalisering als twee kanten van de toetreding

In 1980 about 75.000 people in the Netherlands had a job in the Social Employment (sociale werkvoorziening), comparable with sheltered workshops for disabled persons. The Social Employment offers work under adapted circumstances. This facility is executed on the basis of the Social Employment Facility Act of 1969, which defines the category of persons who can be considered as candidates for a job in the social employment. This category is defined as those persons who cannot get a job in a ,normal' way because of 'near the person situated factors' (for example a disability). Before a new employee can be taken on, it should be determined whether that person belongs to this formally defined target group.
This study deals with the entry and selection of candidate-employees at the social employment. Two questions are the main topics in this study.
In the first place attention has been paid to the way officials make decisions about the applicants. Secondly, what is the position of the people who come at the gate of this facility and what does this mean to them? This book presents the results of casestudies at eight organizations of social employment and interviews with 204 applicants.

The permanent stream of new candidate-employees implies a potential source of uncertainty for the organization. Fixed procedures, formal rules and the keeping up of relations with referring organizations can all be considered as ways of reducing this uncertainty for the organization. But what do these procedures, formal rules and relations with other organizations mean to the officials, who have to deal with and make decisions about the applicants?
Fixed procedures mean a routinization of their work. It prevents them from having to take decisions about how to go on every time. However, these procedures introduce new problems for these officials. This is a consequence of the fact that they do not only have to deal with the uncertainty of the environment, but that the organization itself is a source of uncertainty to them. By introducing fixed procedures they can be controlled from within the organization. By developing informal procedures and by distinguishing 'urgent cases' they develop some flexibility in dealing with the environment and the organization.
Keeping up relations with referring agents only reduces the uncertainty if there is not a conflict of interests between these officials and these agents. In case of such conflicting interests these officials try to develop informal counter-strategies, which increase their autonomy with respect to these referring organizations.

Officials make decisions by using typifications and following rules. For developing typifications, they use formal aspects (of the law), aspects which are important to the continuity of the organization, and some other aspects like the applicant's ,motivation' or 'social background', for example. They use typifications for several reasons. They have only limited time to spend for every candidate. Still, they have to make decisions. By using typifications officials 'know' what to expect of certain types of candidates. The use of typifications is also a consequence of the indefinite character of the formal concepts with which they have to work. Typifications facilitate the use of these formal concepts, which are too vague to be applied to individual cases. The program of formal rules to be used when making decisions about the applicants, has the character of a conditional program. This is a way of reducing the autonomy of officials, and a way of taking care that decisions are made in accordance with the politically formulated goals of the social employment. Some rules, however, get another meaning when used in practice and other rules seem to be ignored. Officials do not only use formal rules, but also take into account the demands of their organization. Sometimes they also apply rules, which seem to reflect their own moral ideas.
These officials appear to have a considerable autonomy. This autonomy is a consequence of the open character of the formal program. It is a way of dealing with the conflicting demands from within and without the organization and is only possible because of the 'boundary-spanning-role' they have.
This autonomy makes it possible fore the officials to have a certain flexibility. It provides an opportunity to adapt the decisions to every individual case. One of the ways this autonomy is used, however, is by controlling the applicants. By limiting the information given to the candidate, the officials keep their own work-situation 'workable'. This is only possible because the candidate is dependent on the social employment organization and does not have many possibilities to influence the decisions which are made about him.

The people who get in contact with the social employment, have in common their marginal social position. For some reason they cannot get a job in a 'normal' way. The only possibility for them to get a job is by accepting work in the social employment. What does it mean to them to be dependent on this facility?
Although working in the social employment has the same functions as working elsewhere, most people would prefer a 'normal' job. Many candidates feel the stigma of the social employment. It is popularly called a 'madman's plant'.
Still, these people came at the gate of the social employment. Why? In the first place, most of them do accept the stigma, because the social employment is the only possibility to return to the working part of society. In the second place, some of them have the feeling they are forced to do so, because they are afraid to lose their (unemployment or disability-)benefit. Their marginality does not end, however, by accepting a job in the social employment, but is being recognized and (formally) affirmed. Because of these stigmatizing effects and the isolating consequences, and the fact that it minimizes the possibilities to get ever a 'normal' job, the social employment can, contrary to its integrative goals, be considered as a marginalizing institution itself. This marginalizing character of the social employment must be understood in relation to the social control-function of the social security-system. This function is not only realized by keeping 'a safe gap' between benefits and wages, but also, and at least as important, by other mechanisms, such as considering workless people as 'unusable' or by suspecting them of abusing their benefit-rights. To get a job in the social employment does not stop this marginalization, but is rather an affirmation of it. As a result of the gulf between people working in the social employment and people who have a 'normal' job, the marginality becomes more recognizable. This decreases the chance to return to a job outside the social employment.