Gonna have to work for your dole?
Simplify - Gonna have to work. Get paid for it. Minimum wage for the hours allotted.
The thing that really sickens me about all of these schemes is that that are just blatant headline vote grabbing. It doesn't matter of it's labour or conservative, they both enjoy the same lack of vision when it comes to unemployment.
Last time I was out of work for any length of time, my jobcentre had just about cancelled any training courses available that people might have improved themselves with - even if it was only to show an employer that you'd been doing something with your time.
I couldn't volunteer to teach IT skills (despite using computers every day at work for more than a decade) to some of the other guys on our welfare to work rota (private subsidised company on behalf of the job centre), because some other private company with a government subsidy to turn out sub-par training had dibbs on all the pies.
That was loss of an asset - my skills and time to give others a better chance of employment, as part of my own 'welfare to work'.
Every advisor I spoke to about this said it was a great idea. Their management never bothered to even talk to me and a few others about this.
In the end I went to work for the pdsa for the next 3 months -the other choice was caterpillar. Catapillar got rid of a load of fulltime staff, then replaced them with jobcentre placements, with the promise of a fulltime job. Rinse and repeat with cheap renewable labour and get paid a subsidy from the government - the system works
The scenario and attitude I have just outlined is endemic within the benefits system in the UK. A total and utter failure to take advantage of the time and abilities of the people involved.
The way I see it, anything to do with the jobcentre, workfare, training, community action etc etc is nothing less than a con. Mostly because the whole system is geared as a punitive exercise in statistics management, with the unfortunate sods who have to rely on it being grubby counters for the likes of whatever party politics is gunning for election.
I don't have any problem with getting people into work, even if that work is effectively digging holes one week and filling them in the next. But you have to pay these people properly in order to be at least half way credible in your sincerity to help people into work. Because if you don't, the only thing anyone is going to walk away with from such a scheme is the sense that they've just been ****** over. There's no pride to be found in that... none at all.
Simplify - Gonna have to work. Get paid for it. Minimum wage for the hours allotted.
The thing that really sickens me about all of these schemes is that that are just blatant headline vote grabbing. It doesn't matter of it's labour or conservative, they both enjoy the same lack of vision when it comes to unemployment.
Last time I was out of work for any length of time, my jobcentre had just about cancelled any training courses available that people might have improved themselves with - even if it was only to show an employer that you'd been doing something with your time.
I couldn't volunteer to teach IT skills (despite using computers every day at work for more than a decade) to some of the other guys on our welfare to work rota (private subsidised company on behalf of the job centre), because some other private company with a government subsidy to turn out sub-par training had dibbs on all the pies.
That was loss of an asset - my skills and time to give others a better chance of employment, as part of my own 'welfare to work'.
Every advisor I spoke to about this said it was a great idea. Their management never bothered to even talk to me and a few others about this.
In the end I went to work for the pdsa for the next 3 months -the other choice was caterpillar. Catapillar got rid of a load of fulltime staff, then replaced them with jobcentre placements, with the promise of a fulltime job. Rinse and repeat with cheap renewable labour and get paid a subsidy from the government - the system works
The scenario and attitude I have just outlined is endemic within the benefits system in the UK. A total and utter failure to take advantage of the time and abilities of the people involved.
The way I see it, anything to do with the jobcentre, workfare, training, community action etc etc is nothing less than a con. Mostly because the whole system is geared as a punitive exercise in statistics management, with the unfortunate sods who have to rely on it being grubby counters for the likes of whatever party politics is gunning for election.
I don't have any problem with getting people into work, even if that work is effectively digging holes one week and filling them in the next. But you have to pay these people properly in order to be at least half way credible in your sincerity to help people into work. Because if you don't, the only thing anyone is going to walk away with from such a scheme is the sense that they've just been ****** over. There's no pride to be found in that... none at all.
