BBC show on council housing now - 21:00 4th May

ninky_2

pinkteapot wrote: »

Carrot or stick - make social housing unpleasant so that they start to actually want to leave it (but then what about the people in genuine need of it?), or make the alternative life (work, private housing etc) more attractive so they want it. Any actual suggestions on how to accomplish the latter?

well i think my suggestion to recognisize collective power of labour (e.g. unionization) would go a long way to bringing back the work ethic / pride. it's no coinicidence that the increased inclination not to work among the indigenous population has gone hand in hand with smashing the unions imho.

nomoreboomandbust

ninky wrote: »

seriously though the benefits bill for unbudgetted for kids is the price we must pay for the sort of liberal society we live in. it's the sort of society i actually want to live in. one that allows for fookups and fookwits. the alternative is to introduce in a strict moral code of no sex before / outside marriage and harsh penalties for doing so (e.g. iran).

there is a positive and negative to every choice. the positive of the society we live in is freedom and the negative is mistakes that have to be paid for from somewhere with the means (in this case the taxpayer). personally i think it's worth paying the taxes not to live in an authoritarian regime.

Holland is a slightly more liberal society than we are and they don't seem to have as big a problem with teenage pregnancies as we do , I wonder why .....

Isn't that the point of being liberal, easy to obtain contraception, even the morning after pill, there is no excuse for unwanted/unplanned pregnancies (we obviously have to make exception for cases where there is rape involved).

pinkteapot

Unfortunately unions are no longer what they should be - there to protect workers from dangerous or illegal working conditions/practices.

ninky_2

nomoreboomandbust wrote: »

Holland is a slightly more liberal society than we are and they don't seem to have as big a problem with teenage pregnancies as we do , I wonder why .....

Isn't that the point of being liberal, easy to obtain contraception, even the morning after pill, there is no excuse for unwanted/unplanned pregnancies (we obviously have to make exception for cases where there is rape involved).

holland is not really more liberal. as a society they will tolerate but they have more controls in terms of family structures (which can be just as insidious in many way). the dutch have their own family /parental controls that are not the same in this country. the brits are the biggest generational rebels going.

ninky_2

pinkteapot wrote: »

Unfortunately unions are no longer what they should be - there to protect workers from dangerous or illegal working conditions/practices.

not completely true. the issue is that working practices that should be illegal (working hours opt out clauses and zero hours contracts) aren't.

pinkteapot

Interestingly (but on a tangent) a public sector worker friend of mine has just gone onto a zero hours contract at her own request...

Why should they be illegal? People on such contracts are free to leave and look for another job if they want.

ninky_2

pinkteapot wrote: »

Interestingly (but on a tangent) a public sector worker friend of mine has just gone onto a zero hours contract at her own request...

doesn't she really need to work then?

ILW

ninky wrote: »

well i think my suggestion to recognisize collective power of labour (e.g. unionization) would go a long way to bringing back the work ethic / pride. it's no coinicidence that the increased inclination not to work among the indigenous population has gone hand in hand with smashing the unions imho.

Yea, just like the old days in the print, where dodgy rule by the unions meant that thousands were employed for doing nothing at all due to highly restrictive and ridiculous working practices.

ninky_2

ILW wrote: »

Yea, just like the old days in the print, where dodgy rule by the unions meant that thousands were employed for doing nothing at all due to highly restrictive and ridiculous working practices.

it was a lot better than them being on benefits.

pinkteapot

ninky wrote: »

doesn't she really need to work then?

She was fed up with her job - increasing workload in recent years had led to her working long hours. They agreed to her going onto a zero hours contract and from what she said it gives her as much freedom to say no when they want her to work as it does for them to not give her work on any given day/week. She can also agree hours up front with them when agreeing to work and stick to those hours.

She's going to see how it goes and might look for a new job alongside this in case it doesn't work out, but it's a possible (or at least temporary) solution to her being unhappy with her job.

Her husband works so money will be very tight if she doesn't work much for a while but they'll survive.