Return of the Workhouse. It's now Official

Generali

amcluesent wrote: »

#All day long they work so hard
Till the sun is goin' down
Working on the highways and byways
And wearing, wearing a frown
You hear them moanin' their lives away
Then you hear somebody sa-ay

That's the sound of the men working on the chain ga-a-ang
That's the sound of the men working on the chain gang#

There's quite a difference between a chain gang and expecting people to work for a living.

ceridwen

MYGAWD! - I've just seen some further details about this here:

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

My first thought was "Only £1 per hour extra" and then read on that the proposal is that they be paid only £1 per hour and that would be INSTEAD of JSA_pale__pale_:eek:

That CANNOT be so - errr ...could it?

(Makes mental note to self that if anyone ever thought I was going to try to manage on that money and/or work flatout at a manual job - then I'd darn soon find out what illnesses qualified as meaning "Dont have to do this/cant be forced").

annie123

Am I the only one who has a problem with the implication that manual labour is a somehow something so nasty that it will flush out benefit cheats...."forced to do gardening and street cleaning"....that is insulting to the people who do it now and to anyone who does a manual job of any kind.

Once one has run out of contribution based jsa I have no problem with doing say 10 hours work @ NMW for you age up to the amount of income based benefit received £60 pw or whatever the single over 25 rate is etc, possibly in the line of work one was in, keeps the CV and skills up to date.

Gardening and street cleaning are 2 areas where councils will cut back due to reduced budgets, so the people doing those jobs now could find themselves unemployed and doing the same job for free in 6 months.

Charities dont want conscript volunteers, they often work with the most vulnerable people in our society.

This is going down the wrong road, education and training should be the way forward.

1984ReturnsForReal_2

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Well I'll be opening a corresponding book on how long it takes the private sector to 'suddenly' discover lots of 'voluntary' posts... 10,000's of them in fact.

That would take all of about minus a month of when it is enforced.

But obviously in that month they will just be getting prepared not actually hiring anyone for nothing.

ceridwen

That is true too - ie the implied insult to people doing those jobs now (ie gardening and street cleaning). Almost makes it look like "Take your pick time - prison or manual work...":cool:

It definitely would concern me that workers could be thrown out of a job one minute - only to see unemployed people being forcibly made to do that exact same work the next... I could well understand if they got rather upset/angry if they could see that happening.

Anyways - this has been what I've been pondering about whilst just doing the washing-up. Still wondering what I personally would do if I got thrown into that situation....

First thoughts:
- well - they've obviously chosen the figure of £1 per hour because they couldnt simply pay the unemployed nothing at all to do these tasks (ie either a wage or JSA) - as the unemployed would understandably turn round and go "Well if I get nothing for working at these tasks or nothing for being unemployed - either way that would be my income level for 3 months. In that case I'll get nothing for nothing then." Hence any figure at all being proposed.

- personally = I would guesstimate that very roughly the difference between JSA and £30 per week is about £450 for 13 weeks worth. By the time I took into account that I wouldnt have the time to do all the "use time to save on money" things like shopping round/looking up cheapest possible recipes/etc then I figure I would be about £350-£400 worse off by saying "Blow you Government - I'll just lose the 3 months JSA totally and stay at home".

So what would I personally actually do in that position?

PLAN A - Demonstrate all the evidence to the DWP that I am well able to do/used to doing a job (eg CV listing the jobs I have done over the years and emphasising that I had never done manual work and reminding them how old I am now - ie not "young enough and fit enough" to do so now). Make it quite clear that I am fully into a work mode already - from all those years spent working and how I had managed to make myself do a job all those years (even though none of them were ever by choice......) = so I was very far from "workshy".

PLAN B - If that didnt work - check out the list of qualifying illnesses for not being able to be forced to do this.

BACK-UP PLAN if that didnt work - refuse to do the "workfare" and resign myself to the Government dipping into my savings to the tune of £450 approx that I would have to take out to live on for the missing 3 months.

If I had to follow the back-up plan then I would spend a lot of that time working on publicity against this Scheme (go to local media/go to national media/make up a blog specially about it/etc).

***************************

End result of pondering = so just who IS this Scheme aimed at anyway? (as people like myself would make sure we didnt get "caught" by it and do our best to have the Scheme closed down if we were forced onto it somehows anyway...).

kabayiri

Will this scheme work? For some yes, for others no. The level of success we can only guess at.

But what is the alternative? We can't leave people as long term unemployed ad infinitum.

To make it meaningful, some of the participants should see their hard work turn into more meaningful work at the end. There has to be light at the end of the tunnel.

Also, as others have pointed out here, with national schemes like this you always learn of profiteering taking place. Any system can and will be worked I guess.

amcluesent

PLAN C - Day one on workfare, have an 'anxiety attack' and be taken to hospital with chest pains, dizziness, shortness of breath etc. and get signed off on IB

ceridwen

PLAN D - resign oneself to 3 months without benefit and get some "work on the side" to make up the difference.

PLAN E - have 3 months without benefit and turn to crime to make up the difference (NOT one I would advocate doing......)

Generali

annie123 wrote: »

Am I the only one who has a problem with the implication that manual labour is a somehow something so nasty that it will flush out benefit cheats...."forced to do gardening and street cleaning"....that is insulting to the people who do it now and to anyone who does a manual job of any kind.

It's not that the work is manual, it's that it's unskilled.

I wouldn't want someone unskilled taking out one of my kidneys or teaching my kids. I'm happy with them sweeping the High Street though.

Asheron

Slave camps

Debt Camps