Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be purple with rage over workfare

360 replies

HoneyandHaycorns · 19/02/2012 11:53

Sorry, I know there are loads of related threads on here, but I am getting really, really really upset and angry about the fucking workfare programme. It's an absolute outrage that my taxes are funding slave labour to line the pockets of huge tax-avoiding corporations, while the most vulnerable in our society are having their lifelines snatched away from them one by one.

I want to voice my protest, but apart from writing to my MP (which I have done) what is the best way of fighting this crap?

I simply can't believe that anyone in a civilised society could possibly think this was a good idea. Why on earth would a private company ever create any new jobs if they can have government-funded slave labour for free?

Will someone please come and tell me why the fuck anybody other than the boss of tescos would conceivably think this was a good idea?

And if you can't tell me why it is a good idea, please tell me the best way to protest.

OP posts:
carernotasaint · 19/02/2012 20:49

Nilgiri thats what i was gonna suggest too. And Mingo if cornishsues sons experience isnt the workfare scheme then it is some other equally exploitative scheme.
Does anyone else think the odd person is coming on here and trying to derail these threads on purpose?

mingofmongo · 19/02/2012 20:57

Ahh yes Glitter. I'm wrong. The evil Tories are going to put the dying out to work.

Not ignoring you froggy - just trying to read past all the poison and answer the valid posts.

I've never been in a jobcentre. And after reading Nilgiris post I can see how they could be messing this perfectly good idea up with very bad implementation. If disabled people who arent capable of work are being dragged into it under threat of sanctions then that is just wrong.

Sounds like workfare cornishsue! ICT schemes at least pay the people they bring in. If this is the case then I expect things will change pretty quickly. They are trying to create jobs, not destroy them.

maddening · 19/02/2012 21:00

I think if it were charity/community work then it wouldn't leave such a bad taste in the mouth - but corporations like tescos should not get free labour paid for by the taxpayer nor is it worthwhile activity for the jobseekers - jobs for benefits should be matched to expanding skillsets/using existing skillsets and be putting back into society as opposed to shareholders profits

so yanbu

thefroggy · 19/02/2012 21:01

My posts must not be valid then because you still haven't answered them mingo.

I dont think you live in the real world. You can google and research all you like but until you've experienced it....

FlangelinaBallerina · 19/02/2012 21:11

Mingo I do understand that its hard to believe, especially if you support/ed the Tories. But there is every possibility that people will be spending their last months on workfare. I'll explain. People who have more than 6 months to live can be given a work placement. That's the proposed limit: no workfare if you're predicted less than that, but open season if you're predicted more.

Now, you don't have to be a doctor to know that predicting how long a terminal cancer patient has isn't an exact science. I bet we all know someone who confounded expectations one way or another- I do. So, someone who has been given more than six months to live, and has therefore been given a workfare placement, might easily die a few months sooner than predicted. It may even be that working instead of resting hastens their demise. it happens. If you do support workfare and want it to work, its actually to your advantage to acknowledge and campaign against the more hideous provisions. Because cancer sufferers dying while they're doing nights in Tesco is a total propaganda gift to those of us who oppose it, I assure you.

mingofmongo · 19/02/2012 21:40

Now I think you are just being angry for angrys sake froggy.

FlangelinaBallerina - they aren't going to put the terminally ill out to work. Really they aren't. Its political suicide and remember the Lib Dems are in on this and I don't remember them having a history of eating babies.

If someone with an illness was given the OK then took a terminal turn for the worst, well then they would be categorised as disabled/unable to work and be excluded from workfare. Even if doctors gave a prediction that was larger than 6 months. To think that anyone, even Tory kill-machines, would treat people in any other way is just divorced from reality.

Maybe I'm being blinded by my unwavering desire to destroy the non-rich and helpless, but until I see evidence of this scaremongering being reality, I just cant believe it. Its bullsh1t.

thefroggy · 19/02/2012 21:47

Angry? Confused. ?

Which part of my post was angry?

I'm trying to tell you that what the dwp post on their site isn't necessarily what happens. That is fact, not anger!

Glitterknickaz · 19/02/2012 21:51

Right so who is stating fact based on reading the welfare reform bill and associated documents here and who is spouting about "baby eating tories" "tory killing machines" and saying it won't happen as it's political suicide?

It's in the Welfare Reform Bill. Therefore it is happening.

Tortington · 19/02/2012 22:13

petition

Bag0fsmeggyDicks · 19/02/2012 22:18

Has anybody mentioned Dame Shirley Porter yet?

That is why Tesco haven't pulled out yet, Because they are all in this togetherShock.

Tortington · 19/02/2012 22:22

RATHER dark link about the porter bird

worzelswife · 19/02/2012 22:35

"they aren't going to put the terminally ill out to work. Really they aren't. Its political suicide and remember the Lib Dems are in on this and I don't remember them having a history of eating babies."

Even if they don't end up touching the terminally ill (thanks to opposition and the press making a fuss), they are going to try and make many disbled people take part in workfare. Please, read what people have posted. People put in the group that can be made to do workfare include some very disabled/unwell people. People who won't die, and so won't make news headlines, necessarily, but stand to suffer terribly if forced to work. To be driven to suicide. It isn't as simple as you believe. You have your eyes closed. There are many, many people like myself who don't look disabled but have terrible pain/fatigue and all sorts of other issues and who will suffer as a result of this policy. But we don't add up to a dramatic enough story for the press/general population to care.

Bag0fsmeggyDicks · 19/02/2012 22:48

Dame Shirley Porter is the daughter and heir of Sir Jack Cohen, the founder of Tesco supermarkets, fwiw.

mingofmongo · 19/02/2012 22:55

'Bird' custard?

I hope you cut and pasted that one, else methinks your gender is showing.

Tortington · 19/02/2012 23:01

its custardo

mingofmongo · 19/02/2012 23:10

Sorry custardo. For a minute there I thought you were a sad man pushing his left wing idiocy onto the more impressionable disabled MN posters.

Glad to be proved wrong.

Glitterknickaz · 19/02/2012 23:12

Nothing impressionable about us lot.
Mind you we're not the ones bawling "nonsense" in the face of articles published by HM Govt but there ya go.

Tortington · 19/02/2012 23:15

not sure why a man can't post on mumsnet
not quite sure why my posts are being read purely by the disabled
not sure why the disabled are impressionable by virtue of being so
left wing idiocy is of course subjective.

Tortington · 19/02/2012 23:15

but thanks for the apology

EduStudent · 19/02/2012 23:20

'For a minute there I thought you were a sad man pushing his left wing idiocy onto the more impressionable disabled MN posters'

Hmm So what if Custardo was a man? Why would that make her posts any less valid? I must have missed the memo that said anyone who uses the word 'bird' is by default a man.

You and I have very different definitions of idiocy.

mingofmongo · 19/02/2012 23:26

Men can post on mumsnet, providing they dont pretend to be women.

Fair enough Glitter. Time will tell on this one. If people start dying of cancer as they load tins of beans on to shelves, I'll be the first back here to say I was wrong.

Nilgiri · 19/02/2012 23:30

We'll keep your seat warm, ming...

whydontwehaveasharpknife · 19/02/2012 23:31

Thanks for the petition link, my mum is being bullied by them,she has been schizophrenic from the age of 11 she is now 58, having never been well enough to work (hugely vulnerable and innocent), I've never lived with her bought up by my dad but always had a good relationship with her.

If she is going to be forced back to work, I will move her in with me but makes me sick that then Call me Dave will have the big society idea for-filled but this is life or death, she is not capable of working and never has been but the questionnaire she had to fill out only had one question at the bottom about mental illness, she is now invited to speak in front of a panel of people alone and is not allowed to bring anyone with her.

I am passed purple with rage this government are bloody bullies and I HATE them with a passion.

they don't give a FUCKING FUCK about vulnerable people

whydontwehaveasharpknife · 19/02/2012 23:32

YADDDDNBU