Periodic Reporting for period 3 - WorkFREE (Slavery, Work and Freedom: What Can Cash Transfers Contribute to the Fight for Decent Work?)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2023-01-01 do 2024-06-30
WorkFREE emerged out of frustration with mainstream efforts to ‘save’ workers at the margins of global capitalism. As has been widely documented, these efforts often make people’s lives worse because they fail to ask people what help they need and do not address the underlying structural conditions pushing them into difficult circumstances in the first place. We wanted a trial that was rooted in principles of solidarity rather than charity.
To this end, the WorkFREE project does two simple things: 1) it provides all participants with unconditional cash, on the understanding that cash matters massively under capitalism; 2) it works with participants to identify and collectively address their problems. In this respect, our pilot attempts to model a way of doing social policy that foregrounds agency and solidarity in addressing the issues that people face. If successful, it could provide a blueprint for doing things differently.
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The Basic Income Earth Network defines UBI as a periodic cash payment delivered to individuals unconditionally, i.e. without any sort of means-test or work requirement. This is not a pie in the sky idea. Scholars from around the world have interrogated its potential (and feasibility) as a radically transformative social policy, and their combined work makes a compelling case for why UBI should move from theory to reality. Research suggests that a UBI could:
• be more efficient and effective than traditional social protection policies
• restore the dignity of individuals that is denied by targeted or conditional benefit systems
• promote real freedom of choice in the labour market
• deepen democracy by creating the breathing space necessary for action
• advance racial justice by redressing some of the legacies of racialised inequality
• promote gender equality by giving financial and social recognition to care and domestic work
• support the necessary transition towards a post-carbon future, in part by offering all people a safety net during a period of intense change
However, most UBI pilots have important limitations and WorkFREE exists in large part to address them. First is the fact that few are asking the most radical questions. For example:
• Does UBI really promote freedom in the labour market?
• Does it substantially reduce or even end exploitation?
• Does it increase civic action?
• What role could it play in the green transition?
Second is the fact that most UBI pilots take the form of RCTs, meaning that they include randomly selected, entirely disconnected individuals as opposed to entire communities. This choice prevents these pilots from showing us how UBI works, and what changes it could trigger, at a collective level. The WorkFREE pilot is different. It models community as well as individual-level impacts while providing the conditions necessary for unanticipated collective change to emerge. It also adds a human-centred, relational ‘plus’ to the delivery of cash: the provision of needs-focused, community organisers who work with recipients to further grow their capabilities to meet their needs. Finally, the WorkFree pilot uses a mixed-methods design that is more effective than a randomised control trial at documenting what, how, and why changes at both individual and collective level. We call this approach ‘UBI+’
To this end, the WorkFREE project does two simple things: 1) it provides all participants with unconditional cash, on the understanding that cash matters massively under capitalism; 2) it works with participants to identify and collectively address their problems. In this respect, our pilot attempts to model a way of doing social policy that foregrounds agency and solidarity in addressing the issues that people face. If successful, it could provide a blueprint for doing things differently.
...
The Basic Income Earth Network defines UBI as a periodic cash payment delivered to individuals unconditionally, i.e. without any sort of means-test or work requirement. This is not a pie in the sky idea. Scholars from around the world have interrogated its potential (and feasibility) as a radically transformative social policy, and their combined work makes a compelling case for why UBI should move from theory to reality. Research suggests that a UBI could:
• be more efficient and effective than traditional social protection policies
• restore the dignity of individuals that is denied by targeted or conditional benefit systems
• promote real freedom of choice in the labour market
• deepen democracy by creating the breathing space necessary for action
• advance racial justice by redressing some of the legacies of racialised inequality
• promote gender equality by giving financial and social recognition to care and domestic work
• support the necessary transition towards a post-carbon future, in part by offering all people a safety net during a period of intense change
However, most UBI pilots have important limitations and WorkFREE exists in large part to address them. First is the fact that few are asking the most radical questions. For example:
• Does UBI really promote freedom in the labour market?
• Does it substantially reduce or even end exploitation?
• Does it increase civic action?
• What role could it play in the green transition?
Second is the fact that most UBI pilots take the form of RCTs, meaning that they include randomly selected, entirely disconnected individuals as opposed to entire communities. This choice prevents these pilots from showing us how UBI works, and what changes it could trigger, at a collective level. The WorkFREE pilot is different. It models community as well as individual-level impacts while providing the conditions necessary for unanticipated collective change to emerge. It also adds a human-centred, relational ‘plus’ to the delivery of cash: the provision of needs-focused, community organisers who work with recipients to further grow their capabilities to meet their needs. Finally, the WorkFree pilot uses a mixed-methods design that is more effective than a randomised control trial at documenting what, how, and why changes at both individual and collective level. We call this approach ‘UBI+’
The major task for the entire first period of the grant – and indeed the sine qua non for the majority of our expected findings in the second period – was to successfully set up and run the pilot. This began on May 1st 2022. The research and technological achievements involved in this process included:
1) Obtaining full ethics clearance from the ERC, the HI and from a partner research institution in India, as per the established good practice guidelines articulated in the Global code of conduct for research in resource-poor settings. This process took two and a half years, from the announcement of the award of the grant, through the extensive and thorough pre-grant agreement phase, and up to and including the entire first 12 months of the project (which included completing all the deliverables listed in the Description of the Action). We have made all the documentation involved in this process available and free for download on our project website. We have also have published what is, to our knowledge, the first peer reviewed paper analysing the state-of-the-art and proposing mechanisms ‘Towards ethical good practice in cash transfer trials and their evaluation’.
2) Working through and documenting the complicated field practicalities associated with a) building a social experiment, and b) establishing an ethically-sound, cash-based, trial. All of this is currently being worked up into a soon-to-be-freely-available Working Paper on Process Documentation.
3) Designing, testing and beginning the use of our methods. This in and of itself was a complicated endeavour, since our project partners multiple institutions across multiple countries and brings together a focus on many different themes – labour, freedom, gender emancipation, cash transfers, social protection, and even the Green Transition. Our team includes three separate PhD students as well as experts in quantitative and qualitative tools. Ultimately, we put together a now freely-available Research Design (https://www.work-free.net/research-methods(odnośnik otworzy się w nowym oknie)) piloted all our methods before the baseline collection of data, and conducted the baseline in February-April 2022. All three PhD students completed their Confirmation of Status exams, conducted the preliminary thematic literature outlined in the grant agreement, and are now preparing papers for publication.
The empirical results from our first two round of data collection will begin to come on line in early 2023.
1) Obtaining full ethics clearance from the ERC, the HI and from a partner research institution in India, as per the established good practice guidelines articulated in the Global code of conduct for research in resource-poor settings. This process took two and a half years, from the announcement of the award of the grant, through the extensive and thorough pre-grant agreement phase, and up to and including the entire first 12 months of the project (which included completing all the deliverables listed in the Description of the Action). We have made all the documentation involved in this process available and free for download on our project website. We have also have published what is, to our knowledge, the first peer reviewed paper analysing the state-of-the-art and proposing mechanisms ‘Towards ethical good practice in cash transfer trials and their evaluation’.
2) Working through and documenting the complicated field practicalities associated with a) building a social experiment, and b) establishing an ethically-sound, cash-based, trial. All of this is currently being worked up into a soon-to-be-freely-available Working Paper on Process Documentation.
3) Designing, testing and beginning the use of our methods. This in and of itself was a complicated endeavour, since our project partners multiple institutions across multiple countries and brings together a focus on many different themes – labour, freedom, gender emancipation, cash transfers, social protection, and even the Green Transition. Our team includes three separate PhD students as well as experts in quantitative and qualitative tools. Ultimately, we put together a now freely-available Research Design (https://www.work-free.net/research-methods(odnośnik otworzy się w nowym oknie)) piloted all our methods before the baseline collection of data, and conducted the baseline in February-April 2022. All three PhD students completed their Confirmation of Status exams, conducted the preliminary thematic literature outlined in the grant agreement, and are now preparing papers for publication.
The empirical results from our first two round of data collection will begin to come on line in early 2023.
As discussed, simply managing to complete the process of designing and rolling out this social experiment constitutes an advance beyond the state-of-the-art. A pilot of this nature has never before taken place within the considerable body of research on cash transfers/UBI. This is because the vast majority of pilots: 1) use randomised control trials and thus do not trial across entire settlements; 2) fail to meaningfully integrate strong qualitative methods like ethnography; and 3) fail to include community organising as a ‘plus’ to the cash. This was all foreseen in the Description of the Action and so is not unplanned.
Secondly, it was a significant achievement beyond the state-of-the-art to establish best practice ethical guidelines for managing such a pilot and to codify/theorise these in a first-of-its-kind peer reviewed article on the ethics of cash transfer piloting. This piece begins to fill an important gap in the field. Again, this component was foreseen in the Description of the Action.
Between now and the end of the project is when we expect the vast majority of results, publications and impacts to take place. We have now completed baseline data collection and will complete midline in January 2023. This means that initial results will begin to come online in early 2023.
Concretely, we anticipate two to three monographs to arise from this research, a number of articles published by the PI and different members of the research team, at a minimum with a focus on: methodology, pilot design, impacts of the intervention on labour, freedom, dignity, gender relations, and political participation. Three doctorates will be completed.
Secondly, it was a significant achievement beyond the state-of-the-art to establish best practice ethical guidelines for managing such a pilot and to codify/theorise these in a first-of-its-kind peer reviewed article on the ethics of cash transfer piloting. This piece begins to fill an important gap in the field. Again, this component was foreseen in the Description of the Action.
Between now and the end of the project is when we expect the vast majority of results, publications and impacts to take place. We have now completed baseline data collection and will complete midline in January 2023. This means that initial results will begin to come online in early 2023.
Concretely, we anticipate two to three monographs to arise from this research, a number of articles published by the PI and different members of the research team, at a minimum with a focus on: methodology, pilot design, impacts of the intervention on labour, freedom, dignity, gender relations, and political participation. Three doctorates will be completed.