To think these stewards at the pageant should have been treated better

[enimmead]

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jun/04/jubilee-pageant-unemployed

"A group of long-term unemployed jobseekers were bussed into London to work as unpaid stewards during the diamond jubilee celebrations and told to sleep under London Bridge before working on the river pageant.

Up to 30 jobseekers and another 50 people on apprentice wages were taken to London by coach from Bristol, Bath and Plymouth as part of the government's Work Programme.

Two jobseekers, who did not want to be identified in case they lost their benefits, said they had to camp under London Bridge the night before the pageant. They told the Guardian they had to change into security gear in public, had no access to toilets for 24 hours, and were taken to a swampy campsite outside London after working a 14-hour shift in the pouring rain on the banks of the Thames on Sunday."

Ok - so it's the Guardian but it seems these people were bussed in as part of the new deal programme to get work experience, had to camp out.

"Close Protection UK confirmed that it was using up to 30 unpaid staff and 50 apprentices, who were paid £2.80 an hour, for the three-day event in London. A spokesman said the unpaid work was a trial for paid roles at the Olympics, which it had also won a contract to staff. Unpaid staff were expected to work two days out of the three-day holiday.

The firm said it had spent considerable resources on training and equipment that stewards could keep and that the experience was voluntary and did not affect jobseekers keeping their benefits.

The woman said that people were picked up at Bristol at 11pm on Saturday and arrived in London at 3am on Sunday. "We all got off the coach and we were stranded on the side of the road for 20 minutes until they came back and told us all to follow them," she said. "We followed them under London Bridge and that's where they told us to camp out for the night ? It was raining and freezing."

A 30-year-old steward told the Guardian that the conditions under the bridge were "cold and wet and we were told to get our head down [to sleep]". He said that it was impossible to pitch a tent because of the concrete floor."

Maybe they had to wait under the bridge after the long coach trip but it does not sound very good.

It used to be that temp contracts paid more. Now, the businesses still pay more, but the agencies pocket all the extra. Hence why there are/were so many of them.

"I don't believe people get paid £10/hour for this kind of work at all.

Trained chefs get less than that."

I'ld agree that that is a rate I'ld associate with TRAINED temps, some trained nurses are on £10/hr for weekday temp jobs

It's been around 24 hours since josephine, flatpack, poulay, nancy66. whatme, clytemaestra and PandaWatch championed Wokfare.

What? Are you lot all busy working hard to keep the economy going on a Friday or do you feel a bit foolish?

I had a day off. I went out for lunch with my DD and my mum, did a bit of tidying while DD napped, went to a friend's house and have now got round to logging on while I watch a bit of TV. So sorry to keep you waiting.

Don't feel even slightly foolish and think the situation was presented by the Guardian in a totally misleading and biased way. Don't have a problem with working unpaid to gain experience - in fact I'm doing it myself as I try to career change and working a few evenings a week unpaid (and quite a few of an evenings run up to 2-3AM, then I have to go to work at my paying job for 8:30AM the next morning) to build experience for a CV in my new field. I maintain my part time job which I dont like in order to fund this, don't expect anyone else should fund it for me.

I'd also add as an aside that I am invovled in hiring for warehouse pickers (so relatively unskilled labour) in my current job. We get a lot of CVs. If it came down to two people who had previously been long term unemployed, and one had 6 weeks working somewhere on a placement and had a reference which said they turned up and worked hard and the other hadn't, we'd hire the one with the reference as they are less of a risk. And that's why I don't dismiss "workfare" out of hand, I think it has a purpose.

Hope this helps explain and do accept my deepest apologies for not coming back sooner to continue a silly argument on the internet, but I'm quite busy and actually have a life.

Who championed Workfare?

I don't really know anything about it.

I don't even know that this was Workfare, I mean I know people who've done unpaid trials for jobs, working 10 hard hours for nothing, nothing to do with workfare, at all.

Now apparently we are being told that, by Commie Channel 4 News that the CEO of the firm has a 'criminal conviction' (note, not a criminal record, the conviction is spent), among other things.

I am not really sure where this is going, but it strikes me as rather bizarre that claims by two people that they slept under a bridge for an hour before the start of their work, which they did voluntarily, can form the basis for so much ranting and raving.

Lots of claims that don/'t read true also, e.g., 'They did a 16-hour shift'.
I don't believe that at all.

'One woman said there was no access to usable toilets for 24 hours'

I was in London, there were portaloos everywhere.

As I keep saying, if there is a job to be done it should be paid. If the person doing it isn't experienced then you pay them less than an experienced person but you pay everyone something unless they are doing charity work.

Not paying someone for their labour apart from the vague promise that they might get a job out of it is exploitation.

I was going to ask people who support Workfare to explain how they thought it helped the economy because I think it costs the country money, though I'm willing to be persuaded.

But seeing as someone is saying they don't know anything about it despite commenting about it repeatedly I'm going to have to let one go.

Molly, or Mary Prince, as she's sometimes known does have a criminal conviction - a 12 month suspended sentence for perverting the course of justice. It doesn't matter whether it's spent or not (I'm not sure it is btw) because she boasted about it in a book - Bouncers and Bodyguards, Tales from a Twilight World (classy, eh?).

Does anyone think it's a good idea for someone with a conviction for a serious offence, and who's unrepentent enough to brag about it, to have a licence to operate a security company? A company which also appears to be trading insolvently. She was also a director of a number of other companies that were struck off by Companies House for failing to file accounts.

What on earth possessed people making decisions about security for the Jubilee and the Olympics, with the high risk of crowd accidents or terrorist attack, to award a contract to someone who chooses inexperienced staff she can get for nothing rather than paying people who know what they're doing.

limitedperiodonly

It's been around 24 hours since josephine, flatpack, poulay, nancy66. whatme, clytemaestra and PandaWatch championed Wokfare.

What? Are you lot all busy working hard to keep the economy going on a Friday or do you feel a bit foolish?

Got a job, got a family, got friends visiting this weekend. Not all of us have very important and senior jobs that are so important and senior we can slope off on a Friday.

The reason why the Guardian prints more corrections and clarifications than other papers is because it has a strict policy that it will do so. It is run by a charitiable trust, not owned by a billionaire proprietor, and takes ethics in journalism seriously. They often print corrections and apologies without being forced to if they discover they have been in error, You can't compare them to other papers because most of them do not do this.
It is not perfect but it tries harder than most newspapers to be accurate and fair in its reporting. For example the ghastly Molly Prince was given the chance to respond to the original Guardian story in her own words. She asserted a lot but did not offer a detailed defence, presumably because she couldn't.

Glad to hear you're a hard worker flatpack and so glad that you're back.

So (1) how do you think workfare benefits the economy, because I don't but I'm always open to the well-thought out ideas of top economists; and

(2) do you think terrorism and crowd control magnets such as the Jubilee and Olympics are good places for a training opportunity?

In your own time...

Flatpack - on workfare, you may be interested to read the report of the government's own advisory committee on the issue. ssac.independent.gov.uk/pdf/MWA_report.pdf

If you are short of time, the committee's conclusion starts on page 11.

Point 6.5 is particularly relevant to this website.

I worked as a steward when I was 16, I had never done a day's work in my life, it was just a case of pointing people at the relevant field to park their cars in.

I saw the stewards on Sunday, they were doing things like that, showing people where to go, exit this way, enter that way.

Anyone who would hire 7000 highly experienced staff for such work would be burning public money, quite frankly.

There were police everywhere, and the suggestion that directing people to the portaloos, or whatever, is somehow a security risk, just shows how desperate those driving this whole story have been, to make something out of nothing.

FACT: thousands of people, many quite wealthy and middle class, have volunteered to do similar work, for no pay, during the Olympics. No doubt most would also have done it for the Jubilee, after all it's a public event in honour of our monarch, and in many ways a more deserving cause than the Olympics. Yet because two or three of those who volunteered to do this work have complained to the newspapers, this is all some sort of conspiracy to oppress the poor, by the Tories, or some such nonsense.

Besides which, according to The Guardian, only a tiny number of people were not paid a normal wage, so it's nonsense to suggest that this event was staffed by these people, when they comprised under 1% of the workforce.

Not all of us have very important and senior jobs that are so important and senior we can slope off on a Friday.

flatpack I've been thinking about it and that's really quite bitter thing to say. Do you feel resentful of others and worried about your job? Join the club.

Who is it you think can 'slope off' on a Friday? Millions of us are just like you: working hard at ordinary jobs and worrying about redundancy.

Or do you imagine there are millions of fat cats on one side, millions of lazy scroungers on the other and little old you in the middle supporting them all?

The reality is that Workfare allows such as Tesco, WH Smith, Argos, Asda, BHS, Greggs, Superdrug, Carillion, Pizza Hut, Royal Mail and many more huge companies providing 'ordinary' jobs to reduce or replace paid staff with free labour heavily subsidised by you and me through our taxes.

I'd save my anger for the govt and the directors of these companies who are very well paid and will be in a position to slope off on a Friday afternoon.

Poulay. I live in the area so was about every day and took part in the festivities on Saturday (boat parade) and Tuesday (fly past).

Police officers were spread very thinly on the Saturday and mostly concentrated at the ends of the bridges stopping and searching people and restricting access.

That made sense. The Queen and 1000 other boats were passing directly under the bridges and were vulnerable to terrorist attack or just publicity stunts like the one that interrupted the Oxford and Cambridge boat and would have been a disaster on Saturday.

On the Tuesday I saw them patrolling the back of the Palace and later on TV saw them concentrated in and around the Mall and Horse Guards. That again made sense: there were enormous crowds and the Queen was there.

That left the considerable area of the periphery to be controlled by Close Protection UK and another private events firm, Showsec. It was a shambles.

At least the people working for CP were just generally incompetent but there were some moments, mostly because they failed to evenly spread the crowd or were afraid to confront idiots or had no authority when they tried.

Where I was on Saturday, Millbank Tower was nice and roomy because CP workers were stopping people joining it without explanation and were vaguely waving people 'down there'. According to a neighbour the area one bridge eastwards (or 'down there') became dangerously and uncomfortably crowded.

I think this was because the CP staff didn't know the area and didn't appear to be in radio contact.

There was a lone police officer at Pimlico station who held back crowds trying to get into the subway. He took over from CP staff who were intimidated by wet, cold and frustrated people and gave up.

Showsec staff were overwhelmingly belligerent. I later learned they are used to working at music festivals where I imagine they can get away with treating people badly.

Their behaviour was a disgrace and I saw quite a few flashes of rage from ordinary families not used to being treated like that.

This was a prestigious and overwhelmingly family event that should have been in the hands of skilled staff. I'm not talking about the SAS: just experienced people with an authoritative, calm and friendly manner. If CPUK and Showsec couldn?t have found anyone like that they shouldn?t have got the contract.

Poulay, the Jubilee was hardly about pointing people towards a car park, was it?

edam, I saw quite a lot of stewards, and was walking along Chelsea Embankment, they was one saying 'entrance this way', and another checking bags, which seemed to me a little futile as I'd previously gone in the other entrance, past a policeman, without any such search, but anyway.

I don't see that you need ten years of experience to say 'entrance this way', or to point people towards Battersea Park or the nearest toilets.

I do agree btw that security staff tend to be utter cunts, and my experience of music festival security is that they are. So not surprised to hear about Showsec.

My interaction with the CP lady was very pleasant, she said 'Can I check your bag', I opened it, there was a a camera inside, and she said 'Oh a camera bag', and smiled and that was it.

I still think they should have been paid for that Poulay. What if there had been a bomb or a violent terrorist?

Particularly on a 14 hour shift, or 20 hours if you count the time since they started taking direction from Close Protection when they got on the bus.

How many redundant people could have got paid work doing the security rather than a company profiteering from free labour?

Will those in support of this be happy when pretty much any 'menial' work is done for free? When there is huge unemployment because paid workers have been replaced?

Ive been unemployed, in my youth and I would be mortified to be treated like this. I would be devastatedc if my own daughter was treated like this.

I am more angry and how the government has just flipped this off as if it were nothing, along with being happy at Hunt, being happy at the Murdoch muddle, being happy at Baroness Vasri, being OK with the ONE OFF that was Tescos using free labour, the ONE OFF that was abuse in Winterbourne View Care home, the ONE OFF rogue reporter that Andy Coulson seemed to gullibly believe.

The breath taking arrogance required for the deceptions perpetrated by rich companies and MPs shows utter contempt for ordinary people that sickens me.

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jun/09/work-programme-welfare-jobs-private-sector

The link ive just posted lists some of the companies involved in workfare and what the contracts are worth.

I still think they should have been paid for that Poulay. What if there had been a bomb or a violent terrorist?

They probably were being paid. There were 7000 staff, 6970 of them were paid.

That appears to b e the gist of the reporting anyway. A tiny number of those employed were on a £2.80/hr apprenticeship scheme, and a smaller number were on an unpaid trial.

And I don't believe that they had a 14 hour shift.

BTW, do you know that the Olympic volunteers are not only not being paid, they will also have to pay for their transport to London, if they live outside zone 6. No coach for them.

I'm sure some will complain about their experience, when the time comes. Just depends on how the media want to twist the story whether anything is said of it.

Why do you say you don't believe they had a 14 hour shift? What makes you dispute that? They were shoved under London Bridge at 3.30am, to start work at 5am, I think - so a 14 hour shift would have taken them to 7pm. Doesn't seem unlikely at all.

My understanding is that there is a 13-hour maximum under the Working Time Regulations, and anyway it doesn't seem likely that they would in fact engage people to work from 5am to 7pm, it seems to me manifestly excessive.

Working time regs aren't law. My work place doesn't stick to them at all. Anyway chances are they're only there for paid employees?