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[Wooster]

I reckon there'll be riots over the plans to force people unemployed for 12 months or more to do unpaid work.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/nov/07/unemployed-unpaid-work-lose-benefits

Given the Government are carrying out plans to fire an extra million onto the dole in the coming year, I reckon they've got a feckin cheek on them when they come out with statements like "habit of worklessness".
Fair enough there are some out there who would have a hairy fit if they were asked to work, but the vast majority of long term unemployed have likely got other underlying issues that stops them working (so they'll never become part of the scheme), or have found themselves only relatively recently on the list due to the economic meltdown.

[Thermalsig]

Wouldn't disability be separate than unemployed?  I would think that most people would want to go back to work if able. I know it's a stick in the craw to be told to do work, but it doesn't seem so unfair to me. We have people here racking excessive time on welfare also, but I would imagine that it's a kick in the ego not to have work for most. I'm asking this out of curiosity, not belief, but do you think most would really react badly to this? Despite all the BS I here from some of the political leaders and their ignorant followers on our side, I don't really believe that socialism as practiced in your country would stand up long if people who do work had to take a considerably lower life style to support those on extended unearned unemployment. The pride of gain by hard work makes it hard to give up more than necessary to support your fellow man if you know they a flaming the system.  I can't bring my self to believe Britain is any different.

[Wooster]

They change the goalposts when it comes to defining who is fit to work and who isn't.
I have an aunt who's half blind and walks with a stick, at 58 years old they told her she was fit to work (she appealed and won).

Don't get me wrong, I agree that there are some out there who need a good kick up the arse, but I think this is the wrong way to go about it, especially when there are estimates of The Treasury losing as £42 Billion in tax avoidance every year.
It's a typical government ploy and as old as the hills: Protect the rich and victimise someone else.
If it isn't the unemployed then it's single mothers, the elderly, the sick, the young etc..
If the jobs aren't there in the first place then how can you be expected to find work?*

We've been through these Tory schemes before btw.
They can't do the same again though (you got an extra tenner on your Giro) since the National Minimum Wage would mean that they'd have to pay out three times more (£179) than Jobseekers Allowance (£60) for the 30 hour week you worked on the old Employment Training Scheme.

There's also the issue of what kind of work they'll be expected to carry out.
If it's litter picking and gardening for instance, does that mean that we can see gardeners and street sweepers being put on the dole because their work is now being done for free?


One thing's for sure, there's going to be a hell of a lot of people who voted Tory in the last election about to reap what they've sown in the coming years.

*p.s. Ian Duncan Smith (Tory Twat) recently told the people of Merthyr Tydfil in Wales to 'get on a bus and look for work'...the arsehole is so out of touch he didn't even know that there are currently 15,000 people chasing 1700 jobs in the area...and most of those are part time.
One Union said of the comment "Duncan Smith has been trying to tread the road to redemption in the nation's eyes, reinventing himself as a caring Conservative.

"Well, it didn't take long for the mask to slip and for him to reveal himself as a Tebbit clone with this disgusting insult that is part of the coalition's attempt to cast vulnerable members of our society as the new deserving and undeserving poor."
...he's right, it's textbook Conservatism.

[keasy]

I was thinking about this today on the road to work and was comparing it to ancient Rome.


Roman slaves were fed well, their masters weren't dumb they knew if they treated their slaves proper that they got better work from them, many were almost the same as the plebeian class without the civic rights.

So in comparison I thought, what with rising fuel costs, foods costs, V.A.T. on the rise etc Roman slaves probably got a better deal than tomorrows slave class these heartless bastard Tories plan to make.  I find it mind boggling that prisoners are afforded better human rights than this proposed piece of shocking regressive shit and I hope some clever dick scrutinises it with a fine tooth comb so that for once the Strasbourg lawyers and judges  actually rule in favour of a deserved cause. Meaning it's deemed unlawful.

[Thermalsig]

I'm severely confused. What's wrong with able bodied people helping out with tasks that aren't being done anyways? You can not pretend that there is not something that needs doing that would not make the world better irregardless of the laborer. If you are able bodied and don't have a job, what is wrong with helping your country be a nicer place to be?  If you can save the govt some money and help lower your tax bill, why the hell not? I would never ask an unfair task of anyone, but if you're here on the pay roll, make it worth the time of the person paying your salary. Me. If you're honest, it won't last for ever. I know it would be temporary for me. I severely oversimplified here, but it does nicely boil down to this. I have a hard time wondering who is complaining the loudest here. Certainly not the non-existent slaves.

[Wooster]

It hasn't come into play yet.

I don't like it in principle, most unemployed have done nothing wrong except be let down by their Government.
The jobs they are planning to get people to do are already filled by people in full time work.
And somebody somewhere will make money out of this scheme.

It's the banks that fucked things up and this government will try every trick in the book to try and draw our attention away from that fact by blaming some poor bastards who had bugger all to do with it.

[corroded]

Woosty, you're going to have to clarify 'most unemployed people being let down by the Government'.

Whilst I admit, the Tories are as usual going about things like a mental... I actually don't see the problem in asking someone on benefits to give something back once a year. £3.3k for 4 weeks work. Except, it's actually really 3, because they are 30 hour weeks.

£3.3k for 3 weeks work tbh, doesn't sound all that bad to me.

Labour should take some responsibility here in fucking things up (which, the have of course totally absolved themselves of). You can't overspend by 20% for 10 years and then go 'nah ah, all their fault'. Sure, banks will always go after making money, that's what they do, but...oooh, maybe Labour should take some responsibility for not regulating them properly.

Oh, and the £42 billion in lost Tax? Labour reduced watching the top 30k earners to the top 5k, and under Labour Ministers, the Inland Revenue told them the new tax computer was broken and has such, fucked up everything (apparently 1:3 could be due a bill or a rebate), but pushed it forward anyway.

It's very easy (especially for a Scot ) to criticise the current situation when the mess is the fault of the previous fucking twats in charge.

[Wooster]

And the twats before, and the twats before that.

It's a governments responsibility to create employment, not destroy it.
How many fucking times have successive UK governments refused to invest in businesses in the UK and watched them go to the wall throwing thousands on the dole?
(While the technology they developed was picked up and run with by other countries?)

The problem wasn't solely caused by the previous government...nearly every government in the world got screwed over by the failings of the banks, so why should they have been any different?
(You're listening to too much Tory spin)

And why is it easy for a Scot to criticise?
Is it because some Scots take a wider view of the situation (having been through this shit many times before) instead of the parochial one you seem to favour?

[keasy]

Therm.

It's paramount to forced labour. 

We pay without option into a National Insurance scheme. This insures us for health and state benefit when we fall out of work.
Essentially we are being told that to receive the money that we have already paid! That we will be forced to work for it, it's labour at such cheap prices it can only be comparable to slave labour as it's forced.

It's nice an idyllic to offer services to your country when you're not working but when it's forced on you it's completely different. This is not volunteering, it's ethically no different to a chain gang being made work against their will, as there is no will involved, you don;t do this work you don't get the money that you paid into the system for, you don't eat. A chain gang would be punished for refusing to work but they would still eat, they would be offered human rights, here it's thrown out the window.

[corroded]

I would agree, it is the governments job to do that. They have seemingly started to halt the employment rise (I saw a few figures suggesting employment had improved recently).

However, if you pump billions into public sector that you can't afford, how can those people keep their jobs?

Actually, I'd argue it was you who had the blinkered view on things Wooster, and yes there are quite a vocal amount of Scots who will constantly moan about anything the Tories propose. Every one of your posts has just hissed vitriol about the Tories, it becomes difficult to actually take you seriously, so much so I knew what this thread would be like and actually thought not just once, but twice, about bothering to post in it.

Labour very nearly bankrupted the country with that overspend, which is generally why we are more fucked than most countries. The Banks were the catalyst, and most of the Western World dropped the ball on Sub Prime. And I didn't listen to spin. I looked at the figures.

I'm yet to see a decent reason why people on benefits can't do some work every now and again? Could always just tape Trisha! [NOTE: THIS IS A JOKE, PLEASE DON'T GET ALL FUNNY]

-note-

Posting as Keasy was writing, I'd imagine. I'm not so sure forced labour really applies here.

[keasy]

If it is not forced labour then what is it ?

It doesn't leave any options.

Options...


1 - Work, get benefit (which isn't benefit it's low wages) have choice to buy food or heat.

2 - Don't work, have no money don't eat or have heat.


So peoples hands are being forced. They have no choice. It's forced labour.


PS.
As a Scot who felt the full blow of Maggie Fuckin Thatcher and that Cameron and Co. are new Thatcherites, can you blame Scotland for being ant-Conservative ? They killed our communities.

For a man who looks a not the spin but the hard facts, look at the facts what the Tories did to Scotland, hard fact and even harder to forgive.

[Wooster]

Almost every other country in the world subsidises their critical industries except this one.
Look at Germany, their unemployment level has gone down since the recession hit while ours has gone through the roof and is set to get far, far worse.

Those dickheads down in Westminster will turf people out of work at the drop of a hat, but when it comes to the banks they have no qualms about getting us up to our eyeballs in tick for the next 30 years.
Imho they're too keen on protecting their own fucking interests over the welfare of the people who gave them their jobs.

[corroded]

True, I do concede that.

I still don't have a problem on a whole with the scheme. I think it's a good thing for people to do a little bit of something after a while.

I know I'd be spending my day to day just learning new stuff to help aid my job changes. A friend of mine was unemployed for about 8 months started to go stir crazy being at home all the time.

Are we sure there isn't a stick here, just for the sake of it. Here, have a job for three weeks?

Is there any more info, is there any kind of recruitment scheme off these jobs... does anyone know these answers?! Some people are very picky over their requirements too... I know that's not the case for all...

I hate the generalisation, but sometimes you do find people pigeon holing themselves. I'm a programmer/warehouse stocker/aquatic engineer... that's all I can be. If I find myself in a situation where I don't have a job, I'll be taking the first thing that comes in that can pay the bills. Even if I have to work two part time.

I know it might not be... quite so simple. I get the impression Keasy was in the boat of not being particularly fussy, and a jobs a job, it pays, yays...

Maybe I am a little naive, though. I was still a youngling when the Tories were last in power, and don't really remember Thatcher... apart from the stories of course, and how deeply she seemed to hate Scotland (they might by gruff on the outside, but their fluffy lovely people really ;p)... still don't mind it though, don't hate me! *runs*

Hey wait, have we found something Labour wouldn't give money too!!! [yes, another sneaky joke there]

[Wooster]

Something else has been bugging me about this.

The current coalition like to employ the tactic of announcing measures that are almost (but not quite) abhorrent to most then take it back a peg before introduction.
(I also looked around when it was announced to see if they burying anything worse on the back of it (an old Labour trick)).
Maybe we'll have to wait and see what the details of the proposal are before we start breaking up the pallets.

[BarrieB]

Councils are cutting back refuse collection, street cleaning etc to save money.

This put workers on unemployment pay, so after they have been unemployed for a year let's make them do their original job for peanuts.

What a great idea, lose jobs & money but feel good because we're all in it together.

Maybe everyone who voted tory should volunteer to be first out of a job.