Workfare - Long-term jobless 'made to work'

[laineyiow]

My daughter lives in Stafford and her OH is just on his fourth week of his 4 week stint of "work experience"! So this scheme in some parts of the country is already in place. He actually went and found his own "work placement" and it took over a month for PERTEMPS (who are the agency that deal with the work placement posts) to authorise his working there.

 

Some people on here have said that it will help get non workers into routines - well the thing that has got my daughter and her OH into a routine was the birth of their son - they have certainly had to get a routine there and done so very satisfactorily.

 

Her OH has been in numerous short-term jobs/work experience posts over the past few years but at the end of the "time" has been layed off so getting a full-time permanent job from these jobs I don't think will happen at all. Like other posters have said on here it will just encourage employers to get extra money for taking on these people and then after the "time" the same people will just go straight back onto benefits.

 

All this will achieve is to "fudge" the unemployment figures for the Government making it look like the unemployment figures have fallen when in fact they have done nothing of the sort.

[harvey19]

£1 an hour to clear rubbish... new IDS blitz on the workshy

 

The feckless unemployed will be forced to take part in a punishing U.S.-style ‘workfare’ scheme involving gardening, clearing litter and other menial tasks for just £1 an hour in a new crackdown on scroungers.

 

And if they fail to turn up on time or work hard they will be stripped of their dole for three months.

 

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith will tomorrow unveil ‘compulsory community placements’ in an attempt to stop people living on benefits for years without bothering to look for work.

 

The ‘Workfare UK’ project will be targeted at tens of thousands of people suspected of sabotaging attempts to make them work.

 

The measure is a key part of David Cameron’s drive to slash Britain’s annual £192 billion welfare budget.

 

But Labour MPs condemned the scheme. One said: ‘This sounds like slave labour.’

 

The scheme is also likely to run into fierce opposition from some Liberal Democrat MPs.

 

Under Mr Duncan Smith’s anti-scroungers blueprint, employment office chiefs will be given the power to order the long-term jobless to take part in four-week mandatory work schemes.

 

Instead of receiving their usual £65-a-week Jobseeker’s Allowance for sitting at home doing nothing, they will get substantially less – and will have to clock on and off on time and work flat out.

 

The Government has not decided how much people on ‘community placements’ will be paid but it is understood the figure will be between £30 and £40 a week – the equivalent to £1 an hour, one sixth of the minimum wage.

 

They will also be expected to look for a ‘proper job’ for when they complete the scheme. Each participant will be expected to spend at least 30 hours a week on their specified ‘work activity placement’.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1327385/WELFARE-REFORMS--1-hour-clear-rubbish--new-IDS-blitz-workshy.html

 

So, not only being forced into manual labour, but the unemployed will have their benefits reduced as well. Anybody else get the feeling that this is really about punishing the poor for being poor?

 

Sensational reporting to sell newspapers. Interesting that the government have not yet decided how much people on community placements will be paid

and yet the article state £1 per hour in the opening paragraph.

What is wrong with manual labour anyhow ?

Scaremongering, speculation and sensationalism.

[harvey19]

Just at a time when super rich Justice Secretary Ken Clarke and the Tories/Lib Dems want to cut prison places, and send less people to prison in order to save money, with their new workfare programme they need to build super large new prisons to contain all of the people who resort to crime to feed themsleves because they can't survive on £30 a week...

Just when I thought we had started to debate the issue sensibly.

[INTERVIEWER]

I don't think INTERVIEWER is reading anything but his own rhetoric, and repeating the fallacious mantra of £2 per hour!

 

I was being a touch optimistic when I stated that the ConDems want the unemployed to work hard for £2 per hour.

 

The real figure is £1 per hour for hard manual labour. This is the going rate set by the Conservatives and their Liberal Democrat puppets, and we should be gratefull that they have decided that the unemployed are to be paid even this tiny amount.

 

Ian Duncan Smith is reported in the Tory press as being 'caring'. I would hate to meet an uncaring Tory!

[rubydazzler]

[instead of receiving their usual £65-a-week Jobseeker’s Allowance for sitting at home doing nothing, they will get substantially less ...

If this is true, I don't agree with it at all. They should at least be able to keep the benefits they already have. Although if they don't make a proper effort to turn up and do the work, and make no real effort to find a 'proper' job they could then have their benefits cut gradually, until they do.

 

I suppose I'm from the old school like harvey19 where we'd be ashamed to be skiving and scrounging around and regarded as workshy. I can't really get into the mindset of people who seem to regard 'signing on' as some sort of occupation

[harvey19]

If this is true, I don't agree with it at all. They should at least be able to keep the benefits they already have. Although if they don't make a proper effort to turn up and do the work, and make no real effort to find a 'proper' job they could then have their benefits cut gradually, until they do.

 

I suppose I'm from the old school like harvey19 where we'd be ashamed to be skiving and scrounging around and regarded as workshy. I can't really get into the mindset of people who seem to regard 'signing on' as some sort of occupation

 

Ruby the newspaper article says the government haven't decided what they will be paid.

[rubydazzler]

I was being a touch optimistic when I stated that the ConDems want the unemployed to work hard for £2 per hour.

 

The real figure is £1 per hour for hard manual labour. This is the going rate set by the Conservatives and their Liberal Democrat puppets, and we should be gratefull that they have decided that the unemployed are to be paid even this tiny amount.

 

Ian Duncan Smith is reported in the Tory press as being 'caring'. I would hate to meet an uncaring Tory!

Are you a bot?

 

Or a clone of either wednesday1 or Titanic99? Whatever, it's rather flogging a dead horse trying to have a meaningful discussion with you.

[Lady Star]

My daughter lives in Stafford and her OH is just on his fourth week of his 4 week stint of "work experience"! So this scheme in some parts of the country is already in place.

 

This scheme has been in place for coming up to 30 years - This is my whole point about it not being a new thing! It's disgusting for the government to pretend otherwise! It's been the same for 20+ years! Nothing has changed in the sense of the work shy doing work experience!

[Mecky]

And how would you improve things ?

 

Forcing people to do things will only cause resentment and civil strife, that's riots to you.

 

It's not down to me, but if it was, I would offer education, whether academic or vocational but it would not, under no circumstances, be made compulsory. So no doubt you will try to pick the meat off the bones I have just thrown down.

[INTERVIEWER]

I suspect that nightly scenes of rioting will return to our big cities because of the immoral, unequal society that the Conservative/Lib Dem government has promised to create...