Anyone looking forawrd to the slave labour that the government will be making us do?

[flowergirl]

Well, I don't think it's definate yet, put they're trying to push it through.

People who have been unemployed for over a year will have to do 40 hours a week of unpaid community work.

I'm sure there will be no sympathy for the socially anxious and/or depressed who wont be able to deal with it.

*EDIT*

Oh yeah, and I'm sure at these work places a big proportion of the other unemployed people will be young chavs, which will just make things feel even worse, at least for me anyway.

[MichaelAlone]

Originally Posted by Cynic

I'm sure that will be treated by a good strong dose of bullying that RWAs love to give out.

What is this news? Aside from this site i'm completely disconnected from current affairs.

I'm not sure i have enough skills or talent to be a slave though - another failure

[flowergirl]

Originally Posted by Cynic

I'm sure that will be treated by a good strong dose of bullying that RWAs love to give out.

What does RWA stand for?

[Sea]

I was about to voice my opinion to this, but I have decided I am too scared to post it. lol.

[flowergirl]

Originally Posted by Dory

I was about to voice my opinion to this, but I have decided I am too scared to post it. lol.

I'd love to hear it.

I don't think anyone will slate you for it, but if they do, then they're just idiots anyway.

[dave81uk]

If your on jsa such a thing already exists, its called New deal

[redsparrow]

Fortunately I'm supported by family, but I can imagine that it would be quite a dread inducing prospect for those of us on benefits. I'm afraid I'm sketchy on the details so exactly who this will effect I'm not certain.

Anyway I do unpaid work it's called housework and cooking. The unrecognized unpaid work of the ages!

[Sea]

Originally Posted by flowergirl

I'd love to hear it.

Ok, then . I expect my opinion will be unpopular. But what the heck. I guess it’s as valid as anyone else’s.

I think that if people are receiving JSA then having them do some community work until they find employment is a perfectly reasonable idea. Especially for people that are completely capable of working.
Of course I don’t mean people that are genuinely ill and cannot manage it (and I would assume that a GP or similar would determine whether people could cope with this or not). But there is a large variety of community work available, and I would have thought a quiet gardening role would be manageable for a lot of people with SA for example (not everyone, before you all start berating me). But certainly some. I also think that doing something constructive is a good way of keeping apathy and depression at bay, and so is developing a proper routine.
I guess if people are not getting JSA then they won’t be expected to do this anyway.
Right, that’s it.

[meinemonkey]

just my personal opinion but i think its a good thing
for the economy, but also for peoples self esteem. people who are long term unemployed
can find themselves in a rut and get incredibly depressed and fearful of returning to work.
however hard SA is for people, we all have to face our demons at times.

[redsparrow]

I wonder what those who don't work and have their three months of payments or whatever it is docked, and have no other means of supporting themselves, are going to do. I can envisage situations where there are those who are unable to do their community work, maybe due to their anxiety, even when they know they have to.

Actually I broadly agree with Dory that people ought to be doing something, but I can't see how taking away the only lifeline some people have is going to help if they don't.

[MichaelAlone]

Originally Posted by meinemonkey

just my personal opinion but i think its a good thing
for the economy, but also for peoples self esteem. people who are long term unemployed
can find themselves in a rut and get incredibly depressed and fearful of returning to work.
however hard SA is for people, we all have to face our demons at times.

I'm 38 - at 12yrs old i went batshit on a PE teacher for trying to make me play football, i had to be restrained. How would you expect me to respond now?

[SoulSeeker]

40 hrs seems a lot...unpayed too.

If I do a flat week I only do 39hrs in a fully payed job.

[meinemonkey]

Originally Posted by MichaelAlone

I'm 38 - at 12yrs old i went batshit on a PE teacher for trying to make me play football, i had to be restrained. How would you expect me to respond now?

Not sure what you mean??
If you mean how would you react in the same situation now? - like an Adult??

[MichaelAlone]

Originally Posted by meinemonkey

Not sure what you mean??
If you mean how would you react in the same situation now? - like an Adult??

I have the same M.O -' don't force something on me i'm incabable of achieving' or i'll tear your face off. Fight or flight. Like with many SA people i'd imagine.

[Detox]

We'll take three months benefit off you if you don't or can't do this work... so you'll be poor and starve.
Well I hope that three months of benefit can pay for more Police officers and their equipment, because if you put people in that situation they will commit crime.

[meinemonkey]

Originally Posted by MichaelAlone

I have the same M.O -' don't force something on me i'm incabable of achieving' or i'll tear your face off. Fight or flight. Like with many SA people i'd imagine.

dont take this the wrong way but isn't that a very negative mindset ?
what makes you think you can't achieve something?
and are you not able to (as an adult) control your emotions so that even if something is horrendously difficult - to at least control the anger?

hope that doesnt come across personally btw

[MichaelAlone]

Originally Posted by meinemonkey

dont take this the wrong way but isn't that a very negative mindset ?
what makes you think you can't achieve something?
and are you not able to (as an adult) control your emotions so that even if something is horrendously difficult - to at least control the anger?

hope that doesnt come across personally btw

Of course it's a negative mindset - and no i don't take it personally

But, it's why i'm here lol. People imo approach the problems with their anxieties in different ways, my ways tend to be destructive. It isn't anger btw it's panic lol.

[redsparrow]

£65 / 30h = £2.17 / hour

k

[Defiance]

this isn't a Tory idea, i remember hearing about it in 2008 when Labour was still in power. I was on a 13 week course at the time and the staff running the place came and told us the news and nobody partially liked it, especially some of the "veterans" as i liked to call them (people who had been attending those courses years and years because they were always unemployed)

if Labour was in Power this would of still of happened. that I am certain.

[яemus]

Originally Posted by Defiance

this isn't a Tory idea, i remember hearing about it in 2008 when Labour was still in power. I was on a 13 week course at the time and the staff running the place came and told us the news and nobody partially liked it, especially some of the "veterans" as i liked to call them (people who had been attending those courses years and years because they were always unemployed)

if Labour was in Power this would of still of happened. that I am certain.

Must have been some sort of restart course, they were introduced by the tories in the 90's

I don't remember a 'new' labour policy of slave labour for dole money

[AxelFendersson]

Screw that. If I'm going to be required to do menial work full-time, I want a working wage for doing it. If JSA goes up to £237.20 per week, then they would have a case for requiring people to work 40 hours a week. Until then it is totally acceptable.

[Medea]

If JSA receivers are working 40hr a week (or even 30hr a week) when are they going to find time to look for/apply for/attend interviews for a job?

Sounds like slave labour to me. I couldn't do it if I wanted to so I'd soon be on the streets or, more likely, having my pensioner mother support me on her pension.

Shouldn't community work be for punishment (such as community service orders)? Seems to be a punishment for being unemployed if you ask me.

[Mr Ploppy]

No one ever answers the question of where all the jobs will be coming from ?

As for councils and the like taking on JSA claimants as cheap labour, I can just see the reaction of the proper council work teams, they'll be going out on strike.

[pigstar]

It's amazing how thoroughly right-wing individualism has saturated public discourse. That's how stuff like this gets through without causing the riots it deserves to.
Here - well, on the last page really, but anyway - we've got someone* with, presumably, mental health issues which make it extremely difficult to lead a normal life. They're posting on a website for people with mental health issues which make it extremely difficult to lead a normal life, telling someone else with mental health...etc etc, that they'd get better if they only pulled their socks up and got a job. Thatcher'll die happy, cos her work here is done.

I remember some New Labour mutterings about this too, by the way. I'll dig up references if you like.

*With apologies if it feels like I'm singling out one person in particular. It's a pattern. This seems to happen on every thread about benefits.

[dave81uk]

I'm lost as I fail to see the difference between this and the New Deal system they currently have,

Under new deal if your under 25 and on JSA for 6 months you have to go on workplacement for 6 months, 40hrs a week unpaid just to get your benefit, and if you don't go you get a sanction on your JSA, if your over 25 its a year and a half before your put on this.

I remember a row a few years ago as Tesco recruited Christmas staff through this method.

When I was unemployed several years ago I was on the verge of getting sent on this when I went to my doctor and got diagnosed with depression and got put on income support.

So this is not a new thing, the only difference I see is that you will now be working for councils doing work thats not required just to make it look like your doing something constructive with your time.

[pigstar]

New Deal = at least there's some pretense that it's going to help you get skills and find meaningful work, although I know in real life it's an exploitative joke of a scheme. I don't know how they squared it with getting training or doing voluntary work - I think this varies from one area to another? But I do know that it is one hell of a lot harder to get sickness benefits than it used to be.

Incidentally:

Originally Posted by The Morning Star - yeah, I know, but...

Emma Harrison is boss of a company called A4e and lives in a manor on 100 acres of land she describes as a "mini Versailles." Like the original Versailles it is funded by taxes squeezed out of us peasants. A4e was paid £150 million last year by the Department of Work and Pensions to run workfare schemes.

...

It turns out the benefit-busting firms are also benefit cheats. They promise their proactive, no-nonsense private-sector attitude means they are better than the public Jobcentre staff at getting people off the dole. But a recent National Audit Office report shows this to be untrue.

The report covers the Pathways to Work programme, which was launched in 2005 to get incapacity benefit claimants into work. It uses early medical assessments followed by training, coaching and so on.

Contractors deliver 60 per cent of the Pathways programme. The auditors found that "contractors have universally failed by considerable margins to meet their contractual targets for helping claimants who are required to go through Pathways to Work. They have performed worse than Jobcentre Plus areas."

The contractors - A4e and Reed in Partnership - were paid £100m in 2008-9. They were doing so badly that they asked for another £24m in emergency funds. The auditors found the government's unilateral concessions to the contractors on this emergency bailout was "questionable given the large size of some of the organisations involved."

...

The workfare firms have found some people jobs. A4e's slogan is "improving people's lives." One person whose life they have improved is former Labour minister David Blunkett who now earns £30,000 per year as an A4e consultant.

full article here

[diplodocus]

Why don't they use prisoners to do this work as well? That'd be nice working alongside some lovely convicts wouldn't it

[pigstar]

Funny you should mention that...

Prisoners in England and Wales should work a 40-hour week, Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has said.

Although it sounds like, if I read the article right, they'd be getting close to the minimum wage. Not the £1.whatever an hour it works out as for dole scum like us. That's a nice touch. :/

[pigstar]

By the way, joe 88, I hope you don't mind me asking, but when you say "I think it's a good idea", do you mean that you think it's a good idea to force sick people to do council worker's jobs for no money, or that you think it's a good idea that David Blunkett's getting £30,000 per year as an A4e consultant? Only the placement of your post made it kind of ambiguous. Thanks!

[flowergirl]

Originally Posted by JaneM

All that fresh air and exercise will be good for you.

Then why isn't eveyone who is unemployed volunteering to work for nothing already?