to think that applications to work in areas of the sex industry must be increasing.

[carernotasaint]

After reading recent threads on here its got me wondering. Wages are low. Tax credits do make cock ups on claims and benefits can take ages to come through.
Some people dont always qualify to recieve anything and are left with huge gaps of weeks before any money comes in. A couple of years ago there was an article in a magazine called The rise of the dole dancer about this sort of subject.
But when someone has the choice of doing something like this or starving i can certainly see why someone would do it.
Hell i have done it. Ive worked in a sex chatline office.
By sex industry i mean anything from phone lines to escorting.
I suspect applications to work in this industry will rise even more once the changes to benefits and tax credits come into effect.
I worked in the chatline office ten years ago. I started that job after being forced to do workfare by the Job Centre. I did "work for your benefit" in a charity shop and then at my local council offices. It didnt lead to a job. Then they wanted me to work full time at Campbells soup factory for my JSA. Luckily i saw the chatline job advertised in the local paper,applied, interviewed and got it. I believe more people will enter this industry because of the new workfare as well.

done

I suppose we should start with our own MPs? As a disabled person I discovered that the times when I could get free bus travel were going to be limited so I contacted David Blunkett and Anne Begg (disabled MPs) and they wished me well but said they couldn't help as I was not a constituent. I tried contacting my local MP but never got a reply!

Anyway, please post a link on this thread as to where the specific workfare discussion is going to be started.

I also thought workfare was going to be for community projects, possibly along the same lines as community service - a total number of hours to be completed as and when to take account of caring or childcare responsibilities etc NOT TO GIVE FREE LABOUR TO CAPITALIST ORGANISATIONS

AF- just seems whenever I and a few other people from the SN / carers area post in AIBU it becomes an anti benfits thread which totally ignors anything (eg the fact that Dh works) and gets nasty.

I don't steer clear but tbh MN might be better off if I did!

I just want to make it clear I am coming from a position of complete ignorance in this. So all feel free to tell me I am wrong (in fact, I would be very fucking grateful if you did, because I am beyond disgusted if this is all happening in our country)

But fwiw in case anyone thinks I am advocating oney for free- i think employed people should fill paid jobs for tax and social reasons and workfare should be charity / community based.

OOps school run time

Its gravitas isn't it

And that's why I won't be rousing the masses anytime soon

oops, wrong thread already

see how crap I am at this ?

will just repost that in the correct place, back in a mo to answer peachy

ah peachy, I mustn't go near those threads then because I never join in with benefit bashing shit

mandy back in a mo to post the link

Discussion here

Least I can do AF

I get what some of you mean about community service but i have a major problem with this. Community service is used as punishment for committing a CRIME. Being unemployed is not a crime. So in theory you could have a young unemployed person whos done nothing wrong,doing workfare alongside a criminal. People and acquaintances they know could be walking past thinking this unemployed person have committed a crime when they havent.(this unemployed person could be someones son or daughter) I cant really see them making seperate day glo jackets so that people can distingiush between the unemployed person and the criminal!

Another worrying thing i saw on another site (cant remember where) is that Asda were/are making workfare workers do night shifts. There is a MAJOR safety aspect here.
A. In a lot of areas busses dont run late at night.
B. On JSA you are not going to be able to afford taxis.
C. Therefore the only conclusion i can make is that the workfare worker could be walking home through deserted areas in the dark.
If they were attacked or mugged or raped i wonder what would happen to these gagging orders then.
This could be your young daughter or son if they cant find a job. Sorry to scaremonger but it COULD happen. Its bloody horrific to put people at risk like this.
Another point i would like to make is that a lot of these supermarkets/companies sell FAIR TRADE goods. I find that hypocrisy astounding.

oh thanks, WIC, I was just coming back to do that

(doing about 60 things at once here...)

NJC yes, I will

but I shall be stepping aside and let someone else win the Xmas name change comp this year

yanbu

a friends sister just started as a stripper some evenings a week cash in hand at a dodgy club in my town, she says she is only going to do it till xmas so she can afford presents for her dc. :(

i don't blame people tbh although i couldn't do it for many reasons.

carernotasaint you raise some very good points

come on over to the other thread

omg, that has come over as soooo patronising, I forgot this was your original thread, carernotasaint

AnyFucker you dont sound patronising at all. In fact i am extremely touched by the support ive gotten since joining this site.

am completely at that workfare thread.

disgusting. if companies can find jobs for people then they should DAMN WELL pay people the going rate

speechless.

Depends on how you define community service and how you manage it.
For example, I used to recruit volunteers for HomeStart. Becuase we only took aprents and they needed to be available for a training course, most were SAHM and many unemployed.

IMO doing something like that should exempt you from any form of workfare; and then it would act as a way of funnelling people into voluntary work without the 'punishment' bit.

Although if it were me I'd still ahve big problems- firsly if someone works an hour that hour should be paid minimum wage, ther lkabour of someone on JSA is as valuable as any other; also the whole big corps funding issue.

But saying 'look you must go find something to add to your cv- a charity role, study, something' can be very diffrent to punishment.

At the moment we have a weird system where somone trying to study at a tertiary level- maybe to get a vocational qual, or develop literacy skills- is treated as not being available for owrk but really workfare should just be maximising employability.

This si something I try and take on- I am a carer but apart from one eyar with a new baby have always been in study, either FT at University or PT to do a post grad in small stages. It means there are dates on my CV that seem to eb after the War and keeps me sane too.

thanks, carer , your thread has been hijacked somewhat...

should have read whole thread before posting....sorry

don't be daft, MMH

the thread has been hijacked, but it should still carry on

There would be nothing wrong in charities using workfare, they depend on volunteers (free labour) already. But of course the biggest problem with allowing large corporations to use free labour in the form of workfare is that the large corporations will promptly get rid of as many paid workers as possible, so people will end up losing their jobs and then going back to them again but this time for much less than they were earning before.

Another fucking reason to fucking loathe Tesco.

I fucking hate tesco and their fucking over of employees, farmers and the environment.

Now I have to add fucking slavery !!!!!! To their list of cuntishness, their billion fucking dollar cuntishness.