Work for benefits?

Graham_Devon

jamespir wrote: »

i dont think anyone should be sat at home doing nothing

but i think they should be paid a fair days pay for a fair days work
and whats they point in forcing them into to work experience if their isnt a job for them to have after

Because if they do find there is a job up the road 2 months after, they have some experience which shows willingness on their CV and, therefore, stand a better chance of being offered the job.

I'm bored.

shortchanged_2

Fella wrote: »

With respect "Corporate Giants etc who already make huge profits" is a nonsense term. It's the politics of envy.

There's a simple way this can be proved, regardless of any political viewpoint: If these "Corporate Giants etc who already make huge profits" actually existed, everyone would invest in them & be rich. There is nothing whatsoever preventing any of us buying shares in any of these apparently endlessly evil & profit-making companies.

However the reality is that "Corporate Giants etc who already make huge profits" is a nonsense expression because no such thing exists. What does exist are Corporate Giants who may make huge profits (let's say HSBC) or who may make losses so huge the Company needs to be effectively bought by the taxpayer just to carry on existing - with the shareholders losing almost everything (let's say RBOS).

Be honest - would you have made much of a distinction between HCBC & RBOS 5 years ago? Or would you have simply thought of both of them as "Corporate Giants etc who already make huge profits"?

Shareholders, whether they be millionaires, pension funds, or joe bloggs, risk a 100% loss of everything they invest, every time they invest. If the company goes on to make huge profits that's GOOD news. Good for them, good for their employees, good for their shareholders which probably includes the pension funds we're all relying on and very good for the taxpayer via a nice big chunk of Corporation Tax into the Govt coffers.

There is a very damaging culture of slagging off big successful companies just now in this country. It was started by Labour & their Union buddies, desparate to point some blame at anyone but themselves & it's gathering momentum mainly due to the fact that lots of people are hurting & most of them are too stupid to understand why.

High time a few people woke up, grew up, and realised that one of the few ways the UK might just haul itself out of the cack is if corporate giants somehow manage to make even huger profits - leading to more employment, higher tax revenues, and bigger pension pots.

Look I have a perfectly good understanding that companies need to make profits in order to survive and thrive.

My point being is why do these big companies feel the need to resort to issues like giving people 'work experience' for little or no pay. I don't buy it for a minute that they are doing it for the good of the nation, it is nothing more than self interest so they can avoid paying someone a half decent wage for a days work.

Also don't forget that these great companies that you obviously feel the need to defend have huge numbers of staff that probably receive quite large state top ups to their wages in order to give them some form of a living wage.

Graham_Devon

A news article on activists trying to destabilise the scheme here.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17150593

The employment minister has claimed a small number of activists are trying to "destabilise" firms involved in a controversial work experience scheme.

The scheme allows unemployed youngsters to do unpaid work for up to two months without losing benefits but has been criticised by some as "slave labour".

Chris Grayling said firms were "jumpy" because of a "false campaign" he blamed on the Socialist Workers' Party.

It's a labour MP who is chairman of the movement. Didn't know that.

Michael Bradley of the Right to Work campaign said he was "proud to be a socialist" but it was a "broad based" campaign backed by six trade unions and chaired by Labour MP John McDonnell.

He told BBC Radio 4's World at One: "Like lots of socialists, people think what the government is doing with the workfare scheme is pretty outrageous - that's why people are going onto the streets and protesting about it."

jamespir

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Because if they do find there is a job up the road 2 months after, they have some experience which shows willingness on their CV and, therefore, stand a better chance of being offered the job.

I'm bored.

no it doesnt they didnt show willingness they were emotionally blackmailed into volunteering

funkyfreddy9k

It seems to me there are two things wrong with this whole scheme:

1. the jobs arent really work experience placements, they're slave labour in that they're completely unskilled positions filled costing the employers next to nothing. The tescos jobs were nightshift shelf stackers I believe?

2. the minimum wage should be respected to encourage people to do it and stick with it.

To me, the obvious solution would be for the government to continue paying the benefits with employers topping up the benefits to bring the total up to minimum wage levels. That way employers can still get their cheap labour doing the unskilled work, and the employees get enough to reward them for getting off their backsides and doing work.

Ideally the employees should be equally eligable to any overtime available as normal workers (with the costs being paid wholey by the employer) - so the employees would then be encouraged to not only work, but work hard.

Carl31

What i dont really get is, if the government can afford to pay out cash in benefits, why cant they pay the cash as minimum wage employment for say 10 hours per week in 'temporary' jobs? I know the gist of this has been mentioned, but it doesnt really make sense, and surely an unemployed person with experience would be of benefit to public services anyway

Whatever the outcome ,as its tax payers money, the tax payer should benefit

Mrs_Bones

Sorry Graham but it's not working like that, it is affecting jobs.

I've worked in retail all my life, most of my social circle is full of people who work in retail in it's various forms. I do know that some people snook their nose at retail jobs, but others including me enjoy retail and it was a wage paying job.

There are people who do shelf stacking jobs, that's how I started out. It's not the most glamorous of jobs I admit and it's definitively not rocket science, anyone can do, there really isn't that much training needed. The people who do it though are normally people for who the money matters, it's not a pin money job anymore. That wage can mean a lot to those earning it and that's a mixture of people from students upwards. Firms who are taking on people to do this work program are cutting back on hours for the normal staff, that is a fact.

You said above it's not affecting temping and seasonal jobs, I'm sorry but it is. Our local Poundland took 16 people on the work schemes over the holiday period, because of that they never took on any seasonal staff like they would have done other years. That is money that is being lost from normal peoples pockets who are just trying to scrap a living.

I'm not against people doing something if they are able on benefits but it should be community projects or charity work. It should not be something that affects real jobs, no matter how menial others may think that job is. Somewhere someone will have been earning a wage to do it but they will not be for long if their employer can get someone to do it for free. The supporters of this scheme are only looking at it as something for those on benefits to do, they seem to not care that it's taking away from those already doing the jobs and trying to make a living from it. I'm looking at it from a retail worker point of view and this is a danger to jobs.

If their are jobs to be done they should be on the open market and paid the going rate so that everyone is treated equally.

Graham_Devon

jamespir wrote: »

no it doesnt they didnt show willingness they were emotionally blackmailed into volunteering

If they completed their time, it shows willingness.

Graham_Devon

Mrs_Bones wrote: »

Sorry Graham but it's not working like that, it is affecting jobs.

I've worked in retail all my life, most of my social circle is full of people who work in retail in it's various forms. I do know that some people snook their nose at retail jobs, but others including me enjoy retail and it was a wage paying job.

There are people who do shelf stacking jobs, that's how I started out. It's not the most glamorous of jobs I admit and it's definitively not rocket science, anyone can do, there really isn't that much training needed. The people who do it though are normally people for who the money matters, it's not a pin money job anymore. That wage can mean a lot to those earning it and that's a mixture of people from students upwards. Firms who are taking on people to do this work program are cutting back on hours for the normal staff, that is a fact.

You said above it's not affecting temping and seasonal jobs, I'm sorry but it is. Our local Poundland took 16 people on the work schemes over the holiday period, because of that they never took on any seasonal staff like they would have done other years. That is money that is being lost from normal peoples pockets who are just trying to scrap a living.

I'm not against people doing something if they are able on benefits but it should be community projects or charity work. It should not be something that affects real jobs, no matter how menial others may think that job is. Somewhere someone will have been earning a wage to do it but they will not be for long if their employer can get someone to do it for free. The supporters of this scheme are only looking at it as something for those on benefits to do, they seem to not care that it's taking away from those already doing the jobs and trying to make a living from it. I'm looking at it from a retail worker point of view and this is a danger to jobs.

If their are jobs to be done they should be on the open market and paid the going rate so that everyone is treated equally.

The companies cannot pay the going rate while the person is on benefits.

I'm also one who believes that having taken a years income, it's above minimum wage to carry out that placement for 2 months.

If that's your experience of poundland I can't argue. All I can say is that I believe the loss of a few temp jobs if that's the case is worthwhile for this cause.

Were currently running the same sort of thing at work, we have someone with learning disabilities working for us 2 and a half days a week. We don't pay her, but she's not taking up a potential job...there was no job to start with, and when she leaves us in a couple of weeks there will be no job to fill.

I don't believe there will be an influx of shelf stacker positions if Tesco pull out of this scheme either.

Shakethedisease

If you believe exploiting people is giving them a chance to get some work experience, maybe get a job at the end of it (46% have), then again, I don't know what to say to you.

Sorry but that's wrong. You should dig a little deeper into that perhaps before just blithely parrotting government figures..

http://fullfact.org/factchecks/benefits_work_experience_scheme_participant_outcomes-3340

The DWP statistics division responsible for the figures used by the Prime Minister has now responded to Full Fact's concerns over the interpretation of the data.
They confirmed that the study into participant outcomes only looked into whether the participants continued to claim working age benefits, and did not contain information on whether or not these particpants had moved into work.

Precedent from other DWP schemes such as the Jobseekers Regime and Flexible New Deal (JRFND) suggests that not all of the particiants who move off benefits actually move into work. In this particular case, the evidence shows that only around 66 per cent of the participants who moved off benefits actually moved into paid work, with some of the others moving into education and others actually setting up a new Jobseekers Allowance claim.