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Arbeit Macht Frei UK: Work for no pay, or benefits to be cut!

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/16/disabled-unpaid-work-benefit-cuts

the true face of so-called "conservatism" shows itself, as many of us warned as the Tories and rest too, are all degenerate traitors selling their nation out to the corporations and megarich elite.
They'd happily lick the Devil's arse crack if they thought they'd find a shilling up there! :rolleyes:

Next up in the Parliament of Scum: involuntary euthansia (to cut costs) and war with Iran (to make more money, divert public attention etc)
You betcha! Dominoes fall...

Disabled people face unlimited unpaid work or cuts in benefit

Mental health groups and charities attack plans drawn up by Department for Work and Pensions


Shiv Malik

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 16 February 2012 19.20 GMT
Article history

Some long-term sick and disabled people face being forced to work unpaid for an unlimited amount of time or have their benefits cut under plans being drawn up by the Department for Work and Pensions.

Mental health professionals and charities have said they fear those deemed fit to undertake limited amounts of work under a controversial assessment process could suffer further harm to their health if the plans go ahead.

The new policy, outlined by DWP officials in meetings with disabilities groups, is due to be announced after legal changes contained in clause 54 of the welfare reform bill have made their way through parliament.

The policy could mean that those on employment and support allowance who have been placed in the work-related activity group (Wrag) could be compelled to undertake work experience for charities, public bodies and high-street retailers. The Wrag group includes those who have been diagnosed with terminal cancer but have more than six months to live; accident and stroke victims; and some of those with mental health issues.

In official notes from a meeting on 1 December last year, DWP advisers revealed they were not intending to put a time limit on the work experience placements.

When asked at the meeting if there was a maximum duration to the placements, the reply was: "There are no plans to introduce a maximum time limit."

Currently there is an eight-week limit on non-disabled jobseekers taking part in the government's work experience programme, and a six-month limit on unpaid work for a new pilot called the community action programme.

When concerns on financial penalties were raised at the meeting, officials said: "Ministers strongly feel there is a link-up to support those moving close to the labour market, and the individual's responsibility to engage with the support. Ministers feel sanctions are an incentive for people to comply with their responsibility."

A DWP presentation on the proposal reads: "This is a supportive measure and claimants will only be asked to do this where it is suitable in their personal circumstances."

The latest figures reveal there are just over 300,000 claimants in the Wrag group a number which is expected to rise as coalition reforms continue and 8,440 of them have already incurred sanctions in the period from September 2010 to August 2011 for offences such as missing interview with advisers "without good cause".

The Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) fears that managers in jobcentres and private companies who specialise in getting people back to work have inadequate health expertise and will push those with mental health issues into inappropriate placements. In a consultation response sent to the DWP, the RCP said one of its key concerns was around "the capacity of relevant members of staff in Jobcentre Plus and work programme providers to make appropriate decisions about what type of work-related activity is suitable for claimants with mental health problems".

The college also said it would prefer the placements to be optional.

Neil Bateman of the National Association of Welfare Rights Advisers said: "This proposal is very worrying. There are completely inadequate legal and medical safeguards bearing in mind that these are people with long-term health problems and disabilities, often serious ones.

"Compulsory, unpaid work may worsen some people's health, with the consequences of the DWP's savings being passed on to the NHS at greater cost.

"If jobs are there to be done, people should get the rate for the job, instead of being part of a growing, publicly funded, unpaid workforce which, apart from being immoral, actually destroys paid jobs."

Neil Coyle, director of policy and campaigns at Disability Rights UK, said: "Sanctions should be applied only in extreme cases, given the likely impact of taking someone's sole income away. And it is questionable whether genuinely disabled people should be under mandatory and often inflexible systems when the focus for many should be on managing health conditions or rehabilitating after an accident or injury."

Coyle also suggested that it was abusive for people to work without pay. He added: "The idea that disabled people should work but receive no financial recognition for contributing is perhaps a level of abuse in and of itself.

"

"When Conservative backbench MP Philip Davies suggested [last year that] disabled people should work for less than the national minimum wage, he was castigated, but it now appears to be government policy."

Vicki Nash, head of policy and campaigns at the mental health charity Mind, said: "Work placements can be a useful bridge for people in the work-related activity group who are taking steps towards employment, but we are very worried about people being pressured into taking unpaid positions before they are ready."

Nash said the work capability assessment process run by French firm Atos remained "deeply flawed".

"Many people have been wrongly assessed and put in Wrag despite evidence to the contrary. If these people are then given a mandatory work placement this could be very damaging to their mental health, pushing them further away from the prospect of paid employment."

The DWP said that although there was nothing in the proposals to prevent terminally ill cancer patients from being financially penalised for refusing work experience placements, it believed it would be "absurd" for jobcentre managers to apply sanctions in such cases.

A DWP spokesperson said: "It is clear that some groups wish to label people with a variety of illnesses and conditions as unable to work. This is not only wrong, it is unfair to those individuals who despite their illness want to keep working.

"Our reforms look at what an individual can do and wants to do. For those claimants for whom work is not a realistic option, there will be unconditional support available."

On whether the placements would be of unlimited duration, the DWP said: "Placements would normally be short-term, but there is currently no set duration and this will generally be agreed between the adviser and claimant."


Parliament is a nest of treacherous scorpions and honourless prostitutes (and i do NOT mean honest "working ladies" at that! :p)
Near 80 years ago, WE fought this scum, and now our leaders have BECOME that scum.

And note, the Scottish government refused to support this vile crap:
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/p...6908-23653897/#sitelife-commentsWidget-bottom


[video=youtube;c8UtojJT8ts]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8UtojJT8ts[/video]


Yeats said:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?


note: I said "so called conservatism"
they are NOT "conservatives" in the now almost defunct meaning of that word, alas
 

Calathea

Senior Member
Messages
1,261
Quite apart from the obvious way in which this is totally horrific, it doesn't even make sense financially. If you're going to force people to work, surely you'd be better off getting them paid by their employers so that you can pay them less in benefits?
 
Messages
15,786
Quite apart from the obvious way in which this is totally horrific, it doesn't even make sense financially. If you're going to force people to work, surely you'd be better off getting them paid by their employers so that you can pay them less in benefits?

It doesn't makes sense because you're assuming that politicians work for the country/government/people. The reality is that they work for their own financial interests, and those of the corporations that reward them.
 

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
It doesn't makes sense because you're assuming that politicians work for the country/government/people. The reality is that they work for their own financial interests, and those of the corporations that reward them.

Exactly!
Cameron's a multi-millionaire, yet he still claimed Disabled Living Allowance for his disabled child (who's now dead, alas, aged six :/ Cameron's scum but I wouldn't wish anyone to lose their kid, sigh)... DLA = same allowance he's going to cut for everyone else.

we've got 3 MILLION Unemployed as is, there is no work, so putting more "out to work" is bloody insane...unless you are evil that is, in that case, it all makes perfect sense, as does the End Game.

220px-Black_Sun.svg.png
 

Marco

Grrrrrrr!
Messages
2,386
Location
Near Cognac, France
As many have previously stated it was the labour party that brought Atos and Unum into the whole welfare process and the currrent government just inherited it. Given the current need to drive down government (i.e. taxpayer funded) spending. I'm not surprised that the current government are not inclined to change things.

You like to throw around Nazi anologies? Perhaps you happened to catch 'Meet the Authors' today on the BBC where the author (incidentally a Guardian columnist) was talking about the 'left's shame' in the 1930's when the doyens of the left including Bertrand Russel, Nye Bevan and Beveridge were all ardent supporters of eugenics (you know, the philosophy whereby it is assumed that the upper class are superior and the lower orders and disabled should be sterilised?).
 

Nielk

Senior Member
Messages
6,970
As many have previously stated it was the labour party that brought Atos and Unum into the whole welfare process and the currrent government just inherited it. Given the current need to drive down government (i.e. taxpayer funded) spending. I'm not surprised that the current government are not inclined to change things.

You like to throw around Nazi anologies? Perhaps you happened to catch 'Meet the Authors' today on the BBC where the author (incidentally a Guardian columnist) was talking about the 'left's shame' in the 1930's when the doyens of the left including Bertrand Russel, Nye Bevan and Beveridge were all ardent supporters of eugenics (you know, the philosophy whereby it is assumed that the upper class are superior and the lower orders and disabled should be sterilised?).

Marco,

I see Silver's analogy to the Nazi regime as an understandable conclusion and I don't take Nazi ism lightly. I lost family members at their hand.

What is happening here, is a government sponsored prejudice towards disabled people. They single them out and give them no choice in the matter but force them to work for free!
This was the aim of the Nazis in the beginning before they decided to exterminate a whole people only because they belonged to a religion. t didn't matter if they were young, old, ill or dying and put them into forced labor. Thus, Silver/s heading - "Arbeit Macht Frei"=Work will set you free. They tried to deceive the innocent, naive enslaved laborers. Not unlike what the U.K. government wants to do. Take disabled people and force them to work for free? It's worse then slavery because they are picking on a group of people who are unable to work and forcing them to do something that will most possibly harm or even kill them.
Do you take this lightly?
 

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
Marco,
some time ago I, me, the Left Wing Doom Goblin you seem to think I am :p, posted about the fact that the 2003, iirc, Labour Party Conference was part funded by UNUM.

Also in my original post up top I said this:
as many of us warned as the Tories and rest too
ie, ALL the major parties are sell outs to the corporations nowadays, but it BEGAN like it or damn well not with the Tories, this stuff stretches back to the 80s, remember, government getting UNUM, Weasels etc all on board to bilk folk like us as one part of the corporate sell out.
If you recall also, many government minsiters at the time promoted agendas that made some corproations richer, and went to work for them afterwards, iirc one who promoted sheep dip spraying ended up with a cushy job with ICI?
And yes, this goes on today and with the so-called "Left", ex Labour Minister Tom Reid, who over saw the start of using corporate security firms for prison transfer for first time in UK and even our first private prison...then went to work for the same corporation afterwards
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Reid,_Baron_Reid_of_Cardowan


As I've also pointed out, you are four times more likely to meet a psychopath in Big Business, than anywhere else in normal life, it's an ideal environment for them, and these sociopathic wahoos actually are terrible for the business in the end (no they don't have someone's liver with a nice cianti :p but they dont' care, don't listen to others and make a mess...see bankers)

You missed out H G Wells in the "eugenics" list amongst MANY others ;)
what, ya think I believe that "my side" is made up only of fairies and hobbits? Pull the other one, it's got bells on! :p
I didn't vote for "New Labour" bar once after seeign what they'd become.
As I keep saying, people in groups, SUCK: right left, politicals, religion, science, don't matter. Put folk together and the average IQ,morality and survival sense of the group drops like the stockmarket after repealling Glass-Steaghal! :Retro Biggrin:
No side is "perfect/right". Like it or not though the "right" does attract sociopaths more than the left, left though has problems with control freaks and the extremes on all sides ALWAYS attract more scumbags. Simplistic, but fair grain of truth.

Tory Party in Westminster are in general ratbags (exceptions definately do exist), the end result of their push is horror, it is inevitable.
merely a quesiton of how far it goes, if the British Public are gutless/stupid enough to go along with it.

NeilK
the UK and Commonwealth, US and Russia, stopped the Nazis in the end.
Alas, we didn't do a thorough enough job of rooting the vermin out, they were left like an infection deep in the root of a tooth, so to speak.
"Those who fight monsters, must beware least they become monsters themselves" :/
 

Marco

Grrrrrrr!
Messages
2,386
Location
Near Cognac, France
Marco,
some time ago I, me, the Left Wing Doom Goblin you seem to think I am :p, posted about the fact that the 2003, iirc, Labour Party Conference was part funded by UNUM.

Also in my original post up top I said this:
as many of us warned as the Tories and rest too
ie, ALL the major parties are sell outs to the corporations nowadays, but it BEGAN like it or damn well not with the Tories, this stuff stretches back to the 80s, remember, government getting UNUM, Weasels etc all on board to bilk folk like us as one part of the corporate sell out.
If you recall also, many government minsiters at the time promoted agendas that made some corproations richer, and went to work for them afterwards, iirc one who promoted sheep dip spraying ended up with a cushy job with ICI?
And yes, this goes on today and with the so-called "Left", ex Labour Minister Tom Reid, who over saw the start of using corporate security firms for prison transfer for first time in UK and even our first private prison...then went to work for the same corporation afterwards
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Reid,_Baron_Reid_of_Cardowan


As I've also pointed out, you are four times more likely to meet a psychopath in Big Business, than anywhere else in normal life, it's an ideal environment for them, and these sociopathic wahoos actually are terrible for the business in the end (no they don't have someone's liver with a nice cianti :p but they dont' care, don't listen to others and make a mess...see bankers)

You missed out H G Wells in the "eugenics" list amongst MANY others ;)
what, ya think I believe that "my side" is made up only of fairies and hobbits? Pull the other one, it's got bells on! :p
I didn't vote for "New Labour" bar once after seeign what they'd become.
As I keep saying, people in groups, SUCK: right left, politicals, religion, science, don't matter. Put folk together and the average IQ,morality and survival sense of the group drops like the stockmarket after repealling Glass-Steaghal! :Retro Biggrin:
No side is "perfect/right". Like it or not though the "right" does attract sociopaths more than the left, left though has problems with control freaks and the extremes on all sides ALWAYS attract more scumbags. Simplistic, but fair grain of truth.

Tory Party in Westminster are in general ratbags (exceptions definately do exist), the end result of their push is horror, it is inevitable.
merely a quesiton of how far it goes, if the British Public are gutless/stupid enough to go along with it.

NeilK
the UK and Commonwealth, US and Russia, stopped the Nazis in the end.
Alas, we didn't do a thorough enough job of rooting the vermin out, they were left like an infection deep in the root of a tooth, so to speak.
"Those who fight monsters, must beware least they become monsters themselves" :/

Silverblade

If you do truly believe that all political parties are equally corrupt you undermine that position when using terms like 'Tory scum' and 'Like it or not though the "right" does attract sociopaths more than the left' (evidence?) and in the process alienate those of us who are not generally left leaning and find such rhetoric objectionable.

I may have actually agreed with your position on this particular policy and I don't have a problem with objecting to policies originating from 'my side' of the political divide when I believe they are wrong.

In this particular case I can see major pros and major cons. Yes, there is the danger that vulnerable people may be placed into inapproriate work placements and you can argue about the ethics of 'unpaid work'. On the other hand we are talking about people placed into the work related activity group. The problem to date with the old incapacity benefit system was that you were either considered able or unable to work and the only way to test your capacity to return to work was to get a job. If a temporary placement with a charity can help an individual test their capability to work without having to 'sign-off' or help to improve the self-confidence of those out of work for a long time then is it necessarily a bad thing and potentially helpful to those with fluctuating conditions?

At the end of the day its likely that this will be a simplistic one size fits all approach that may benefit some and penalise others which is unfortunately often the end result of any bureaucratic system.

I'm also not so naive myself that I really believe that the intention behind this stems from any genuine concern to help people enjoy the 'dignity of work'. But in the current economic context, spare a thought for the Greek's whose minimum working wage has been cut to somewhere in the region of 580 per month - before tax!

It's also all too easy to blame the current economic crisis (and the resulting austerity measures) on corporations and greedy bankers. For the former, as you are well aware you need to create wealth before even beginning to debate how fairly or unfairly it should be distributed. As for the latter, anciendaze has eloquently set out what I believe to be a more accurate assessment that it was more the fact that no-one fully understood the risks involved in global financial transactions rather than 'greed' that led to the crash.

Its also all too easy to blame others rather than acknowledge the part played by individuals running up record levels of personal debt and who were all too happy to buy into the idea that ever rising property prices were a 'good thing'. No bankers forced them to borrow beyond their means and it was politicians, not bankers, who insisted that mortgages were made available to the 'sub-prime' market.

Once again things are just not black and white.

NeilK

If you really believe you can equate doing unpaid work in a charity shop to forced labour, starvation and eventual execution, you must have a strange sense of perspective.
 

Wonko

Senior Member
Messages
1,467
Location
The other side.
You seem to be under the impression that this programme is only to have people work in charity shops, why? This programme is being used, as intended, to provide labour for the UK's biggest corporations, paid for by the tax payer, for indefinate periods. Anyone who thinks this is not going to impact on these corporations hiring practises is dreaming.

In the UK the government is already massively subsidising these companies via working tax credits (the company pays minimium wage and the government tops this up to a living wage), apparently this doesnt allow them to make enough profit so now the government is providing them free labour.

According to various sources in the UK we have somewhere between 2.6 and 6.2 million unemployed and around half a million actual vacancies (of any description, inc part time), and whilst the DWP budget last year was a shade under 200 billion only 40 billion of this actually went to either disability or unemployment benfits (i.e around 5.7 percent of total government spending not the 30 percent claimed by ministers - they convientiently forget to mention that the DWP budget includes things like pensions, working tax credits etc. and is not entirely eaten up by scrounging criminal workshy scum!!!).

http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/year_spending_2011UKbn_11bc1n_4000#ukgs302

This is an idealogically driven witch hunt, nothing else
 

Marco

Grrrrrrr!
Messages
2,386
Location
Near Cognac, France
This is an idealogically driven witch hunt, nothing else


Perhaps but whose idealogy?

Working tax credits were introduced by the Labour Party, presumably to help low paid workers but were soon followed up by the abolition of the 10% tax rate which to me sounds like reduce the burden on employers and heap in onto the workers. A more benign interpretation might be that tax credits allowed employers to employ more workers than they otherwise might have by reducing labour costs while ensuring a 'decent' working wage which was unfortunately somewhat reversed by Labour withdrawing the lower tax rate to cover excess largesse elsewhere.

Either way, they were nothing to do with 'Tory' ideaology.

Plus, if we all agree that paid vacancies are in very short supply, how can they offer them as placements, particuarly as these placements are likely to be short term and as everyone knows it takes time and training for any worker to get fully up to speed.

Of course I don't believe that all the placements will be in 'charity shops' but that example did serve the purpose of highlighting the nonsense of comparing this to genocide.
 

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
Ok here's some points :)

if you MAKE people become "volunteers", or they lose their benefits
they aren't bloody VOLUNTEERS any more!


And for your information,what actually brought the banking system down, or rather, was final straw, was the fact that Mexician/Central American drug cartels withdrew a vast sum of money, fearing increased US money laundering crackdowns AND they knew the banks were close to imploding.
Wasn't "poor black folk buying houses they couldn't afford" as some think. That amount of money they were indebted by, is a complete pittance, a non-entity versus the mega-mess the banks did just by takeovers alone, never mind any other issue (and one reason they did those take overs, was the convulted corruption of bonus payments, each take over got those execs millions, so they went on a buying splurge...see Royal bank of Scotland).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs

On 10 April 2006, a DC-9 jet landed in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, on the Gulf of Mexico, as the sun was setting. Mexican soldiers, waiting to intercept it, found 128 cases packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100m. But something else more important and far-reaching was discovered in the paper trail behind the purchase of the plane by the Sinaloa narco-trafficking cartel.

During a 22-month investigation by agents from the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and others, it emerged that the cocaine smugglers had bought the plane with money they had laundered through one of the biggest banks in the United States: Wachovia, now part of the giant Wells Fargo.

The authorities uncovered billions of dollars in wire transfers, traveller's cheques and cash shipments through Mexican exchanges into Wachovia accounts. Wachovia was put under immediate investigation for failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering programme. Of special significance was that the period concerned began in 2004, which coincided with the first escalation of violence along the US-Mexico border that ignited the current drugs war.

Criminal proceedings were brought against Wachovia, though not against any individual, but the case never came to court. In March 2010, Wachovia settled the biggest action brought under the US bank secrecy act, through the US district court in Miami. Now that the year's "deferred prosecution" has expired, the bank is in effect in the clear. It paid federal authorities $110m in forfeiture, for allowing transactions later proved to be connected to drug smuggling, and incurred a $50m fine for failing to monitor cash used to ship 22 tons of cocaine.

More shocking, and more important, the bank was sanctioned for failing to apply the proper anti-laundering strictures to the transfer of $378.4bn a sum equivalent to one-third of Mexico's gross national product into dollar accounts from so-called casas de cambio (CDCs) in Mexico, currency exchange houses with which the bank did business.

"Wachovia's blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations," said Jeffrey Sloman, the federal prosecutor. Yet the total fine was less than 2% of the bank's $12.3bn profit for 2009. On 24 March 2010, Wells Fargo stock traded at $30.86 up 1% on the week of the court settlement.

http://the-alternative.co.uk/news/features/did-the-cocaine-cartels-start-the-credit-crunch/

$378 BILLION dollars from drug money....ya think the banks didn't know where that came from?
The bankers/execs etc WERE totally, completely at fault for the meltdown, those ratbags fired/retired or destroyed their risk assesment/similar folk who warned them...and paid nice big hefty sums or other gratuities to political systems to end "inconvenient" things like Glass-Steagall which helped lead ot the mess.

yes, it's not simple, but attacking the weak and victimizing the poor has a loooong track record, and so are the consequences.
In the end *WE* will pay for it.
Should be the corporates/bankers in jail, but folk won't learn except the hard way.
Which is usually after a real ugly, evil mess slaps them right in the kisser for being complacent, selfish bungholes.

Ever noticed that no matter how much folk complain about a road traffic "black spot" for example, nothing gets done until a bunch of poor souls get turned into hamburger in a bad accident AND it hits the headlines?
Could all have been avoided easily and been much cheaper ot fix things, but...nope, not gonna happen.
Why?
As I keep saying "If you want to make enemies, try to change something...."

I otherwords, 5, 10, 20 or whatever years from now, when things have got very ugly, and the body count is too high/obviosu, then and only then will folk wake up and admit that um, yeah, it was a BAD IDEA!

And now...back to your regularly scheduled prgramming! :p
 

Marco

Grrrrrrr!
Messages
2,386
Location
Near Cognac, France
Fine.

Blame the central American drug cartels then!

yes, it's not simple, but attacking the weak and victimizing the poor has a loooong track record, and so are the consequences.
In the end *WE* will pay for it.

That we can agree on.

With interest rates being held at historical low to keep the UK's debt repayments down and to prevent mass defaults on the mortages Mr and Mrs UK average took out to keep up with the Joneses, those daft enough to have saved instead of spending are seeing their life savings rapidly eroded by high inflation. The worst hit are pensioners who can't top their savings back up from future earnings.

Another policy being proposed is that health benefits (ICB/ESA and DLA/PIP) will be means tested and anyone with savings will be expected to exhaust their savings before they can expect any help from state benefits that they may have themselves helped fund through taxes for many years.

But then we all know that the Tories are idealogically opposed to savers and comparatively well off pensioners don't we?
 

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17116473


Tesco and Argos express work scheme concerns
Nick Clegg said the scheme would help protect the unemployed from loneliness and depression


Stores including Tesco and Argos have expressed concerns over a government work experience scheme which has been derided by critics as "slave labour".

The "sector-based work academy scheme" lets those on unemployment benefit work for a period without losing payments.

But Argos says it wants assurances that young people who do not take part will keep their benefits and Tesco has offered to pay those on placements.

However, the government insists the scheme is an "excellent" opportunity.

The comments come on a day when the government has launched a separate 126m scheme which gives companies cash incentives to take on and train more teenagers with poor qualifications.

The number of 16 to 24-year-olds who are out of work has risen above one million for the first time, leading to concerns they could become a "lost generation" in employment terms.

'Confidence boost'

The sector-based programme offers the long-term unemployed work experience or training, while providing financial incentives to employers.

If jobseekers choose to take part but then fail to turn up without good reason their benefits could be removed. This has led critics to question whether the placements are really "voluntary".

The scheme has attracted adverse publicity recently, with opponents claiming large companies are using it for cheap Labour.

A Tesco job advert caused outrage
Tesco posted a job advert looking for permanent night-shift workers at its branch in Bury St Edmonds, Suffolk, in exchange for jobseeker's allowance "plus expenses".

However, it removed this from the Jobseekers' Plus website after an outcry. The company said the advert had been placed due to an IT error.

Sainsbury's, and several other firms, have pulled out of the scheme.

And, on Tuesday, Tesco wrote to the Department of Work and Pensions suggesting that, to avoid any misunderstanding about the voluntary nature of the scheme, the risk of losing benefits that currently exists should be removed.

The company has also announced that from now on any young person accepted for work experience will be offered an alternative. Under this they can be paid by Tesco for a four-week placement, with a guaranteed permanent job at the end of it, provided they perform satisfactorily.

'No qualms'

Tesco UK's chief executive Richard Brasher said: "We know it is difficult for young people to give up benefits for a short-term placement with no permanent job at the end of it.

"So this guarantee that a job will be available provided the placement is completed satisfactorily, should be a major confidence boost for young people wanting to enter work on a permanent basis."

In a statement, Argos said: "We are very passionate about giving young people real opportunities to improve their employability and have worked over a number of years with job centres throughout the country on a range of programmes, but always with the objective of creating a meaningful role within Argos.

"We are in discussion with the Department of Work and Pensions to ensure the scheme is voluntary, meeting the work experience needs of the individual, and will keep this dialogue going to ensure no one is disadvantaged by working on this programme."

A Department for Work and Pensions source told the BBC two other large employers had expressed concern over the possible removal of benefits for those who do not take part in the scheme.

But Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said it was "ridiculous" to condemn the government's efforts.

He added: "I think anyone who wants to condemn a scheme that helps people into work at a time of high unemployment really needs to think hard about their priorities. It is not slave labour. It is not compulsory. It is entirely voluntary."

'Good thing'

Mr Clegg added: "It is very simple. We say to employers, 'Please take on these young people. We will pay them, through benefits, but could you please keep them on for a few weeks because it increases their chance of finding work'.

"Fifty per cent of youngsters on the work experience scheme so far have found permanent work. That is something that I celebrate. Other people might choose to condemn it. I don't."

Asked if he had any concerns about young people being asked to work a night shift stacking shelves in a supermarket for free, Mr Clegg said: "I have absolutely no qualms at all about the idea that rather than have a young person sitting at home, feeling cut off, lonely and getting depressed because they don't know what to do with their lives.

"It is better to give them the opportunity for a few weeks to actually work, and of course retain their payment through their benefits."

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said: "We have an excellent scheme that we know is making a real difference to the job prospects of young people.

"Tesco have said that they are continuing to be a part of the government's work experience scheme. What they have also said is that there will be delivering an additional offer to young people that will help more people find permanent employment. That has to be a good thing."

ah huh...
Clegg sounds like a Weasel, don't he? :p
yes, you don't need paid for work, because work is therapy to avoid depression!!
Hell, that should have been in "Catch-22" ;)
 

Marco

Grrrrrrr!
Messages
2,386
Location
Near Cognac, France
Hi Silverblade

I watched the BBC coverage of this story yesterday and some of the young people interviewed seemed to find it quite valuable.

The only people protesting seemed to be a bunch of twenty-somethings going around each employer carrying copies of 'Socialist Worker'.

Which was a little odd as they didn't sound particularly working class and didn't appear to be working?;)

There you go.
 

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
marco
Many moons ago....I was one of Maggie's Millions, I was on a YTS scheme (as per most of 'em round here, con game, hadd nothing to do with getting folks jobs)
So, let me put on my Morris Dancing outfit, and I'll extend my bell-bedecked leg to let you shake it, ok? :p

Old old adage that is so true:
you pay peanuts, you get monkeys

Hey if bankers and CEOs think they deserve mega bonuses just for doing their job, so does everyone else! ;)

and back to the point:
disabled are stuffed, this is the thin edge of the wedge, it just gets worse from here on out
you have been warned, don't say you weren't when the poop hits the wind turbine :p

"Austerity, terrorism, economic collapse!"
...Where's me TARDIS? :D
 

currer

Senior Member
Messages
1,409
Well, Marco, it will be valuable to the young people only if they can receive a wage of some sort.

Working at a menial job without pay or prospects is not likely to boost anyone's confidence.

Tesco can afford it, we know.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/may/31/tesco.supermarkets

"If the profits in Cheshunt Overseas accounts were subject to corporation tax in the UK, Tesco could have been liable for 20m corporation tax. Those accounts state that Cheshunt Overseas paid 4m of foreign taxes, a saving of 16m. Most of this saving comes from one single full year of Cheshunt's existence to February 2007. Cheshunt Overseas accounts for 2008 have not yet been published. Tesco's lawyers told the Guardian: "Tesco rely upon [an] entirely legitimate tax exemption."

The highly sophisticated tax strategies of global companies have recently been coming under close attention. Tesco was previously disclosed to be running a set of schemes involving partnerships and offshore unit trusts, designed to avoid up to 63m stamp duty land tax otherwise payable by the purchaser on property deals."

And this;
http://www.innertemplelibrary.com/category/tax-avoidance/

Adequate remuneration is a major concern for everyone, not only private citizens, but business too, it seems..