Workfare - Long-term jobless 'made to work'

[espadrille]

The country went through a very difficult period in the 70's, 80's, 90's and 00's and there were mistakes made on all sides. Initially, the mistakes were made by the workforce and management, but subsequently governments - all of them - seemed to jump on the bandwagon and try to make things even worse!

 

I went to a school prizegiving at my son's school in 2002. The speaker (a lady politician) said (and I'll never forget this!): "We are gradually getting rid of those nasty, dirty manufacturing jobs and replacing them with service industry jobs. - The thing of the future!"

 

I was astonished.

 

IMO, the industrial and manufacturing sector of the British economy is too small - and far too much emphasis was placed on 'financial services' - but UK manufacturing isn't at an end yet. - Nowhere near! There are still plenty of manufacturers and exporters and UK products are highly respected overseas.

 

Unfortunately, occupations like 'engineer', 'fitter' and even (to an extent) 'scientist' have, over the past 40 or so years, become viewed as menial low-value occupations in the UK. In most of Europe, the qualification 'Dipl Ing' (a Masters' degree in Engineering) is highly respected. In the UK, the 'Ing' part seems more often to be translated as to mean 'Ingrained'- As in 'He's got dirt ingrained into his hands'.

 

Engineering is not widely viewed as a prestigious occupation in the UK. Yet the UK has in the past produced very many famous and noteworthy engineers - and still does so.

 

Physicists are widely sought-after in the UK. By banks, who seem to think that the disciplines taught to physicists at university are valuable in the Financial Sector. British physicists who actually work as physicists are usually paid considerably less than their European counterparts and it appears that the previous government (we'll have to wait and see what this one does - but don't hold your breath) weren't particularly interested in the UK's contribution to physics research.

 

(see: http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/32901

http://www.iop.org/news/archive/october/page_42297.html

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/8)

 

Jobs aren't just about money, but if what you do for a living is viewed as being of little value where you do it, would anybody be surprised if you went somewhere where your work would be (a) more highly respected, (b) more highly paid or © both?

 

Although the country does need university graduates, it doesn't need everybody to be a university graduate. Not everybody is suited to a highly academic course. In the 1960s only about 5% of people went to university, but there was no shortage of apprenticeships and other career training. Much of that training was highly respected and many of the people who went through it achieved prestige and were well-paid, too.

 

The pressure to get as many people as possible into universities seems to have been exerted at the expense of getting as many people as possible into jobs which suited them. If a student did have the drive and aptitude to undertake a stenuous academic course, then (s)he would be invited to do so.

 

A student who lacked the drive or aptitude was still encouraged to 'go to university and get a degree' but was pushed towards less 'academically-challenging' courses. Perhaps as a result of that policy there seems to be no shortage of people with degrees which don't actually help them to get a job - but there IS a shortage of people with good non-degreed qualifications.

 

BT offered 221 Apprenticeships this year. They had 24000 applicants. Does that not suggest that there is something seriously wrong with the post-secondary education career opportunities offered in the UK?

 

Back to the Curry Man. When he was interviewed (on Look North, AFAIR) he said that his son didn't want to go into the family business - his son is, apparently, a pharmacist. That happens. He said that he couldn't get people to work in his company. I don't know a great deal about the company, but I gathered from the News Article that he has a number of restaurants and also sells prepared food to supermarkets(?). it appears to be a thriving business and presumably there would be significant career opportunities for the right people, as well as jobs for cooks. He said he had been unable to recruit locally and needed to be able ti get immigration visas to allow him to import workers.

 

Then, of course, there's the NHS. The biggest employer in the country, which relies heavily on immigrant workers.

 

Why does the UK have to rely on the Philippines for a supply of nurses? Does that country have a centuries-old tradition of training nurses? Is nurse training something new in the UK?

 

Or do UK-trained nurses go elsewhere to work? If so, why? Are they not valued highly in the UK?

 

I couldnt agree more with the bit that is in bold.

I can remember when I left school at the age of 16 in 1978, only a handful of my friends( the academic ones) went on to university and I can always remember wondering how they knew they were going to a physiotherapist a lawyer etc, and funnily enough about 5 years ago I was in Blackpool and bumped in to one of these friends who now lives in the West Midlands and when I asked her what she did I knew she would say that she was a physiotherapist.People did seem to go to Uni then to get a specific qualification to actually do a specific job.

 

In response to your last 3 paragraphs, I dont have the answers.

I think that you have to be a certain type of person to be a very good nurse which is what we want, like you have to be a certain kind of person to be a good teacher.

Many do take up these professions when in actual fact you can see that they really arent suited to the chosen career path.

 

Maybe the culture is different in the Phillipines?

I dont know to be honest, but it is a really good question. Why dont we suceed in effectively training our people to equip them with the actual skills that our society needs.

[rubydazzler]

An adult over the age of 25 gets £65.45 Job Seekers Allowance per week. Forced labour for 30 hours per week means that they receive just £2.18 per hour.

Is that all they get? Don't they get their rent and CT paid as well? Those of us working have to pay those out of our wages? Won't that improve their hourly rate?

 

Being self employed I don't know, which is why I'm asking.

[INTERVIEWER]

The Tories and their Lib Dem puppets are portraying this four week forced labour scheme as a revolutionary move to help solve long term unemployment - when it is nothing of the sort. It is certainly not new. Under the Flexible New Deal claimants are mandated to do a 4-week work placement, or they lose their entitlement to benefits. And the requirement goes back to the old New Deal contracts.

 

Of course, under the New Deal small and medium sized employers didn't want the hassle of supervising those drafted onto the schemes, and the voluntary sector was filled to the brim with non-volunteers doing worthless 'placements' (which reduced the amount of paid employment in that sector).

 

What IS different this time, is that mention has been specifically made of 'manual' labour, and the emphasis seems to be on punishing the long term job seeker. But with so many public sector jobs being axed (nearly half a million) the unions are not going to stand for street cleaners and the like being replaced by unpaid work gangs.

 

All the while the uncaring Tories and their idiotic Lib Dem allies refuse to mention the wonderful bankers, but demand that the unemployed do manual work for less than £2 per hour!

[espadrille]

and I do think as a nation we value industries relating to making money higher than the (what I call) nurturing professions like nurses, care workers, youth workers etc.

[Campanula]

An adult over the age of 25 gets £65.45 Job Seekers Allowance per week. Forced labour for 30 hours per week means that they receive just £2.18 per hour.

 

Try working that out again with all the other stuff they get factored in - Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit and god knows what else. I think you'll find they'd be on a pretty nice wage there.

 

For the love of god! It's a placement for a few weeks at 30 hours a week not permanent 'forced' labour. Genuine jobseekers would probably appreciate the experience.

[INTERVIEWER]

I'm a decent human being. I'm intelligent enough to know that litter picking certainly isn't any kind of 'training' for a job of work. It IS work. Gardening is also work. The individual doing that type of work should be paid at least the minimum rate for the job. If not, its a form of economic exploitation.

 

Why do the Tories/Lib Dems believe that manual workers should be paid less than £2 per hour?

[espadrille]

I'm a decent human being. I'm intelligent enough to know that litter picking certainly isn't any kind of 'training' for a job of work. It IS work. Gardening is also work. The individual doing that type of work should be paid at least the minimum rate for the job. If not, its a form of economic exploitation.

 

Why do the Tories/Lib Dems believe that manual workers should be paid less than £2 per hour?

 

But what you seem to be ignoring is the benefit of the routine of the job, not the actual job itself. Why cant people just get this??

[Fishcake]

I think if it is done right it will be a great idea. Some big buts though (not rude). As has already been said, college or training should be in there with compulsory attendance. Maybe working in care homes, maybe working with charities, maybe doing manual work. It should have meaning and help towards getting into work and shouls be EVERY week but for no more than 20 hours. Potentially it could be a great thing BUT the chances are it will be rushed through and ill thought out

[rubydazzler]

Why do the Tories/Lib Dems believe that manual workers should be paid less than £2 per hour?

Have you factored in the other benefits they get, as another poster has mentioned, and the subsidised bus passes for the unemployed?

 

Maybe they'll probably be on more than minimum wage after all that's taken into account? Maybe they might even be above the tax threshold? Win-Win!

 

I think the advantage of this scheme is that it'll give them an incentive to get out of bed in the morning and get off to work, as well as preventing doing cash in hand jobs, which are often more akin to full time work anyway.

 

We really to see how it works out in practise before we start moaning about it.

[INTERVIEWER]

For the love of god! It's a placement for a few weeks at 30 hours a week not permanent 'forced' labour. Genuine jobseekers would probably appreciate the experience.

 

The type of manual work Ian Duncan Smith and his Tory/Lib Dem buddies want the unemployed to do is currently being carried out by convicted criminals sentenced to the Community Service programme. The ConDems are deliberately associating the unemployed with being a criminal in the eyes of public opinion. And as being unemployed is now a crime, it stands to reason that they must be punished!

 

If you haven't committed a criminal offence then why should you be forced to do the same work as criminals?