11.07.2018.

BULGARIAN WELFARE DOES NOT COMBAT POVERTY BUT THE POOR

A Review

Publisher: Collective for Social Interventions, Sofia 2018.

download publication

KOI’s 2018 report «The people» against welfare payments: or the art of making those in need ask for more restrictions against themselves» authored by Vanya Grigorova is a follow-up of an earlier, 2016 report entitled Poor Against Poor. That previous report detailed the ever-proliferating types of welfare payments existent in Bulgaria, the common misconceptions about them, and the discursive and policy stratagems the Right deploys to limit access to the social safety nets. The main thesis, then and now, is that the political class and the media rely on a false narrative about the ostensibly «generous welfare system» in Bulgaria and on racist tropes about «minorities abusing the system» in order to justify each round of savage cuts. Grigorova’s report dispels this myth and proves that Bulgarian welfare cannot guarantee decent life for none of the ever-dwindling number of people (of whatever ethnic background) who manage to pass the draconian criteria for receiving welfare. Another issue the report takes stock with is the widespread confusion (even among experts and reformers) between the social security and the welfare systems. Too often experts and politicians justify austerity by reference to the supposedly bloated and unsustainable «welfare budget». Grigorova shows that the source of this confusion is that they lump under this vague category both welfare (which comes from the state budget) and the social security payments (which every worker makes out of their own salary), amounting to a manipulation that aims to build a social consensus for the cuts.

Tags: Economy, Rad, Radnička prava

06.02.2019.
|
Collective for Social Interventions
EXPLOITATION & RESISTANCE
Authors: G.Medarov/J. Tsoneva/M. Nikolova
Among European Union member-states, Bulgaria has the highest proportion of people who live in severe material deprivation, and it also tops the rankings on income inequality.
19.07.2018.
|
Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung
THE LOST REVOLUTION
Andreja Dugandžić/Tijana Okić (Ed.)
The volume we present to the public is one of the results of many years of work by the comrades of the Crvena Arts and Culture Association on the digitisation of documents to create an Archive of the Antifascist Struggle of the Women of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Yugoslavia.
12.07.2018.
|
Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung
DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS
Authors: Marija Ćaćić/Dora Levačić
«Without us, the world stops working» – This was the slogan under which millions of Spanish women launched a general strike on 8 March 2018. The strike was more than just a strike, however, giving women the opportunity to discuss different related topics and engage in processes of self-organization around questions like work, care, and consumption. No...

Publication

06.02.2019.

19.07.2018.

12.07.2018.