'Welfare to work' - a taboo subject?

First topic message reminder :

I must say that i have been surpised at the lack of comments and discussion on the what looks like a collapse of the 'Welfare to work' scheme..It feels like this subject is taboo... :affraid:

We have comapnies withdrawing their involvement in the welfare to work scheme following Tesco's job centre advert for 4 weeks work 'experience' where the reward is job seelers allowance plus expenses....

Now whilst I can see some benefits to the scheme perhaps it should have been thought through a little more......

would you be willing to work for £2.30 per hour with no guarantee of a job at the end of it........

Thoughts, opinions, rants?

oftenwrong wrote:There's little wrong with gaining a year's work-experience, even for no pay at all. It helps a possible future employer to identify a candidate who is not work-shy, understands commitment, and can follow instructions.

There are two types of applicant for unskilled work - the first type needs to be told, "See that bucket? I want you to take it by the handle and carry it over to that tap on the corner of the building. Fill the bucket with water and bring the full bucket back to me here without spilling too much of it."

The second type can be asked to fill a bucket. They get the job.

Supermarkets have to comply with Employment Law. If there are bad practices in the industry the Laws need to be changed.

That's just it, it wouldnt be work experiennce under a Tory Government, it would be exploitative slave labour

Talk about expoloitation of the workforce by supermarkets and the subsidisation to them via the taxpayer to fund housing benefits and Council tax benefits, all because they pay their staff such poor wages. I wouldn't mind so much if they reduced their prices or better still took less massive profits by paying their staff a living wage.

If you feel OW that they are honest by offering the young a pretence foot up the ladder by paying them £250 per hour, take a look at this for honesty and morality.

TAP WATER SOLD IN SUPERMARKETS.MARK UP OF AROUND 2,500 %.
And you think they are there to help the young without exploitating them?
Well for once you are WRONG. Not often I agree, but this time I am sorry to say you are.

Mel wrote:Talk about expoloitation of the workforce by supermarkets and the subsidisation to them via the taxpayer to fund housing benefits and Council tax benefits, all because they pay their staff such poor wages. I wouldn't mind so much if they reduced their prices or better still took less massive profits by paying their staff a living wage.

If you feel OW that they are honest by offering the young a pretence foot up the ladder by paying them £250 per hour, take a look at this for honesty and morality.

TAP WATER SOLD IN SUPERMARKETS.MARK UP OF AROUND 2,500 %.
And you think they are there to help the young without exploitating them?
Well for once you are WRONG. Not often I agree, but this time I am sorry to say you are.

Mel, I take it you are ticking off, "oftenwrong", and not me ?

Not you Ivanhoe,

I respect oftenwrong very much indeed. "Ticking off" is a bit strong and I wouldn't consider doing that to a man who carries a much higher interlect than myself.
Just making a point I feel strongly about. We can all be right and wrong in many cases. He is rarely wrong in my view. Perhaps on this occasion I think he is wrong.


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Mel wrote:Not you Ivanhoe,

I respect oftenwrong very much indeed. "Ticking off" is a bit strong and I wouldn't consider doing that to a man who carries a much higher interlect than myself.
Just making a point I feel strongly about. We can all be right and wrong in many cases. He is rarely wrong in my view. Perhaps on this occasion I think he is wrong.


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Mel, what makes you think oftenwrong has a higher intellect than you ?

Mel says.
If you feel OW that they are honest by offering the young a pretence foot up the ladder by paying them £250 per hour, take a look at this for honesty and morality.
Mel, you have either missed out a decimal point or teenagers only need to work a couple of hours a week, they would be well made.

Mel says.
I respect oftenwrong very much indeed. "Ticking off" is a bit strong and I wouldn't consider doing that to a man who carries a much higher interlect than myself.

You make OW sound like Herculese with the weight of the world on is shoulders, the only thing wrong has far as i can see, his name should be Seldom Wrong. That all depends on who agrees and disagrees with him though.

Some of these posts remind me of the situation where a chap turned up to a new job and was handed a broom by the supervisor and told to sweep the floor.

" Sweep the floor?! SWEEP THE FLOOR?! I 'll have you know that I used to be a Tory MP until I lost my seat", said the new employee.

The supervisor replied : " Oh sorry I didn't realise that. I'll show you which end to use in a moment ..."

Hello Jack,
Long time no see.

I shall be watching you like a hawk for your little decimal point errors or similar, or is that you never make an error? That is of course when you decide to visit us again.

"Mel, what makes you think oftenwrong has a higher intellect than you ?"

Thanks for that Ivanhoe although it must be obvious to anyone.

Phil, I dont like it when Tories lose their seats, because I then no longer have the opportunity of kicking their asses.

Oftenwrong is vastly over-rated.

I'm convinced the 'fellow' is actually a computer.....

Mel wrote:Hello Jack,
Long time no see.

I shall be watching you like a hawk for your little decimal point errors or similar, or is that you never make an error? That is of course when you decide to visit us again.

Sorry Mel, i think you are getting me confused with Mrs Jack, she the one with the Plaque that says, faults i have many, being wrong is not one of them.

"I'm convinced the 'fellow' is actually a computer..... "

Ah no!!!! And there was I thinking he might buy me a drink in return for the praise. Dam it!!

"Sorry Mel, i think you are getting me confused with Mrs Jack, she the one with the Plaque that says, faults i have many, being wrong is not one of them."

I'm sorry for you Jack. I thought you were all right ( and now you have my sincere sympathy.

A third of unemployed young people have not received any responses to job applications in the past year, new research has shown.

A survey of 2,000 16 to 30-year-olds, 250 of whom were jobless, also showed that almost two thirds described looking for work as "demoralising".

Ah yes, "get on yer bike and look for work" whilst the Tory led so called Coalition sack more and more public sector workers.
"Private sector will take up the slack" ? lying ba5tards.

There is something very strange about the current set of government statistics, which show unemployment stable (not rising) at the same time as the Nation's GDP appears to have gone down. Quite clever economists admit bafflement, and suggest that we might expect a revision of the GDP figure within a few days.

Either way, "FTSE 100" Company Chairmen are paying themselves an average 14% payrise.

Because they're worth it.

The Tory view of the state: those who need it don't deserve it

Extracts from an article by Tanya Gold:-

"If Job Centre workers do not sanction jobseekers, and get them on to fewer benefits, or none at all, they will be disciplined. To encourage them to do so, there are targets and league tables. This repulsive policy was swiftly denounced by the employment minister, Mark Hoban, who denied that any such thing exists. But faced with the evidence in pixels, the DWP said it was a mistake.

Though it sounds like a dream from ‘The Thick of It’, it isn't fiction. How many benefits have been unfairly removed or reduced? This is a rehearsal for the future of the welfare state, as seen through Tory spectacles – they are resentful at paying for anything. Need is now irrelevant. The PR for the project, enthusiastically pursued by the Tory press, is ongoing, if unsophisticated. Its purpose is to incite so much contempt for benefit claimants, and so much denial about who, and who is not, a benefit claimant, that we will dumbly watch children live in revolting conditions without complaint.

UKIP jumps on the bandwagon, seeking to make benefit claimants pay for necessities by electronic card, so they cannot squander their bags of taxpayer gold on Sky TV, cider, ciggies, condoms and, presumably, membership of the Communist Party. The project chugs on, fuelled by distortion and lies, denouncing the weak, praising the strong.

Poverty is sinful, and it must be punished; wealth, meanwhile, can be irritating, but it is essentially benevolent – to the victor, everything. And so the state must shrink to a nub, because the humans who need it don't deserve it. Not that the government will say this publicly yet; it is still better, at this stage, to lie to Parliament, to the media, to us all."

For the full article and reader comments:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/25/tories-shrink-state-wont-say-publicly?CMP=twt_gu&fb=native&commentpage=1

Great post, Ivan - thanks for the link!

Yes, we need to get our country working again. Sadly, Workfare is not going to do it.

Extracts from an article by Sonia Poulton:-

The problem with the Workfare scheme is we, the public, have been fed a steady stream of half-truths about it as reactionary commentators have leapt into the fray, usually motivated by little more than giving the 'lazy' and 'feckless' a good kicking. There has been a 40% increase in attacks on the sick and disabled since this government came to power.

Despite some commentators building their entire argument around this being the perfect way to get the youth into the market place, the notion that Workfare is only for young people is a nonsense. Workfare placements equally apply to 60-year-olds. If you are unemployed and have been given more than six months to live then you are ripe for inclusion in Workfare. Yet a DWP report states: “There is little evidence that Workfare increases the likelihood of finding work.”

Cameron's coalition loves to portray the people of our country as a something-for-nothing nation. Ironic considering it is not ordinary citizens, but MPs, who sit back and cream vast profits from their numerous directorships while contributing little but their name to proceedings.

For the many who are broken and beaten by George Osborne's austerity measures, it has not gone unnoticed that times are not hard for us all. Indeed, Cameron's own 'back to work czar' Emma Harrison has been paid millions, literally, while he expects the unemployed to put in a 37-hour week for what can amount to less than £70 remuneration.

For the whole article:-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2108255/Yes-need-country-working-Sadly-Workfare-going-it.html

Heard about this the other day, on Matthew Wrights ~ (don't hold that against me I know I'm still a noob on here but I honestly can say I was flicking through to another channel) Guardian journalist Patrick Wintour managed to gain access to leaked emails from within the DWP that clearly indicated that their was a sanction policy going on within the DWP. Interview here Also has another link within this that spells out what has been going on. If someone has already posted this I'm sorry for the repetition.

This is in Rochdale Job Centre:-
 

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BXvIHBtCYAIWccd.jpg:large

It's not even original. In 1986 the company I was with had YTS school-leavers on "work experience" which cost us nothing.

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1985/mar/19/employment-and-training-measures

US President Reagan thought it was a wonderful idea, and so did his principal admirer Margaret Thatcher. Such friendly people, too.