Danish Workfare Watch was founded in 1998, following implementation of new labour market laws which were nothing short of a direct assault on unemployed people and personal liberties.

Now, what's that all about?
Isn't it true that Denmark offers the very highest unemployment benefits and welfare allowances anywhere in the world, inline with a long tradition of relative citizen equality! True or not, let us put any such statement into perspective by considering the excessive tax pressure that accordingly goes with it. Tax payers tolerate status quo based on the preconditional understanding they are paying for a top notch social insurance - meaning - an insurance that can be claimed without hassle, in case it is needed some day by oneself or any other solid countryman.

System obesity
However, this agreement is gradually being undermined by a system suffering from a severe case of obesity, as it aggressively attempts to keep tax funds for it's own consumption instead of letting them go where they belong - in the pockets of ordinary unemployed citizens.

It is for you own good!
Danish Workfare Watch Group may be seen as a symptom of oppressive policies. The unfortunate development was kick-started seven years ago by the socialdemocrat Nyrup-administration. It saw the birth of the idea that unemployed should be seen as a bunch of poor sods excluded from the labour market for good - loosers in every aspect of social life and most likely without any useful education. This was used as an excuse for implementing forced measures supposed to help people back in real jobs; since they cannot help themselves. At the same time an array of sanctionary tools were introduced, designed to cut down those who wrongly thought they had any say in relation to participation in various forced labour schemes.

Lack of transparency
The set of labour market and social laws rapidly reached new levels of complexity leaving countless pit falls. Intentional repairs made it even worse; building one exception on top of the other, rapidly evaluating this and (oops!) reversing that etc. Undisclosed amounts of tax money were wasted on courses for social workers, in a vain attempt to keep those certified lamers up-dated. The inevitable collapse made way for increased use of judgemental case management, in order to deal with the mess. A lot better, they said, because individual considerations could now be taken in each case. Of course, it killed off the last remaining fragments of civic justice, since system decisions became harder to challenge with reference to plain facts and/or legislation.

Fiasco policies
Massive amounts of public funds have been spent (and wasted) on forced labour schemes over the years, reaching a peak of approx. DKr. 15 billion in the year of 2000 (£ 1.2 billion Sterling). However, the unemployment figures have remained much the same; 130.000 non-insured welfare recipients and 120.000 insured unemployed. If anything, the prolonged unemployed appear to be stuck. Those are the very people who have been through the whole mill of forced schemes supposed to help them out. The opposite has happened according to a number of surveys. Supporters of these schemes claim that some people have ended up in real jobs. True, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the forced labour schemes, as there's always been a level of mobility in and out of the labour market. Net-numbers of unemployed have remained much the same.