to think its no wonder people stay on benefits?

[ruledbyheart]

My DP has started a new job getting the only job he has been offered after 1yr of trying, its only part time but we thought its better than nothing and at least he is willing to work.

He is working for a well known pizza franchise doing delivery and took the job on the basis he got a full 24hrs a week yet he is on week two and has only been given 16 so far.

He signed off job seekers to be told he won't receive anything other than the money leading up to sign off so we will have to survive for an entire month on my CTC and somehow live and pay billswith this.

He is eligible for WTC providing he gets the 24 hrs if not we aren't entitled to anything, without this we still have to pay extra on our rent and council tax out of his barely worth it wages.

However if we stayed on benefits we could afford to live no problems.

If his work doesn't give him the hours promised we will barely scrap by yet he couldn't leave and sign on again as he would be told he made himself unemployed.

So pissed off that we are worse off working.

There is no work locally and he struggled to get this.

I can't work at the moment as I'm pregnant and have 3dcs under 5yrs.

Aibu to think this is shit and we should have just saved the hassle and stayed on benefits?
No wonder people dont want to work.

You know it is always always the way on this bloody website (and in society generally). If someone falls on hard times the first instinct of nearly everybody is to pick over the details of their life and crow about where they have gone wrong. It is shameful and cruel. Not to mention totally hypocritical.

Zero hours contracts need abolished.

Zero hours contracts are not totally crap, they can work really well for people who are happy to pick up work on an irregular and unplanned basis.

I work in HR and we have a few ZH contract staff who step in to cover work when people are on leave, off sick or when we have big events.

However, I make it very clear at interview that there is no guarantee of work (equally, the employee does not have to accept the work even when I offer it) and that this job can absolutely not be relied on as a steady stand alone income.

For that reason, my ZH contract staff are retired people, local students, people claiming benefits or the families 2nd income.

The OP's DH should absolutely not take a ZH contract, even if he is verbally promised work. He needs to find a job with regular contracted hours and remain on benefits until he does.

So I organised to go away for the weekend. Apparently they needed me at 7.30 that night (they rang my mum). I wasn't there, so they sacked me.

Thats disgusting that they still let employers get away with it, im gonna be more vigilant, in my jobsearch, no way am i settling for zero hours on a contract, i want atleast 16.

As Gaelicsheep has said better than I can there seem to have been a number of this type of thread lately which have all been prompted by the dreadful current employment situation for many and the (constantly changing) benefit rules which are often inhumane, illogical and seemingly designed (it often seems to me so far as I can understand it) to be more about reducing "figures" in various ways rather than actually helping people in need. On each and every one I've read there are always a small minority (thank goodness) who come on and presumably take some righteous pleasure by twisting the knife into people who are already at their wits' end and desperate.

Whether or not the OP (in this case) had 10 children and was expecting triplets isn't really the point is it ? The point(s) highlighted by stories like these and the stuff any decent compassionate person should be getting on their high horse about are issues like exploitative and restrictive zero hour contracts, like the 'trap' many low paid workers find themselves in by actually working when they move off benefits, like the fact the near impossible demands being made of many benefit claimants don't make sense and take little or no account of justifiable individual circumstances, like the fact that huge swathes of people are under so much stress and pressure just trying to survive that many are finding both their mental and physical health is being severely compromised - which in turn is going to cost the NHS dear and make it even harder for those affected to find and retain work.

It's the bloody inhumanity of it all which disgusts me and unless you are very very comfortable and are confident you could independently survive long periods out of work should you be made redundant or fall ill, this is something everyone should care about as many of us are a whisker away from being in the OP's position. Heck, scrub that, everyone, regardless of their own personal safety net should bloody well care because we are supposed to be a civilised society which means people in need are helped to maintain a basic standard of living when they can't, with the best will in the world, manage that themselves.

They don't work when the employer expects the individual to be available 24/7 for any shift.

They are a way to wriggle out of employment rights and gaelic is spot on.

The political situation has put people in this impossible position. This govt want to destroy the Welfare State and return to the 30's

Try not to let it get to you -loads of people are in your position

I think the worry of a lot of people (or at least my worry) is that the new system of sanctions could be applied if people refuse to take work that happens to be on a zero hours contract. It's off topic for this thread I know, but in the case of finding school hours work LOADS of that is zero hours and it just will not work for so many people. I hope it doesn't happen already, but in the future what if people lose their benefits or get forced into Workfare because they refuse to take work that cannot earn them a living?

NEWSFLASH

The Resolution Foundation is doing research into the effects of zero hours contracts, and needs first hand accounts. Contact vidhya.alakeson (at) resolutionfoundation.org

This looks like a really good opportunity to get our voices heard (including positive experiences, though I didn't notice many of those...)

[Disclaimer: I'm not in any way associated with this think tank; I was looking for info to help OP and came across a call for evidence. The Resolution Foundation is a think tank that works to improve the lives of people on low to middle incomes. ]

I think that is a real possibility gaelicsheep

As I understand it, once people are passed over to these companies like A4e, they can be sanctioned for not applying for jobs or turning work down. The likes of A4e must love the zero hr contracts because it is a way of getting people off their books and picking up the lolly. Which leads me to think that whilst people are technically employed earning zilch and they are unable to claim JSA or other benefits because of the rule on hrs and under UC possible conditionality over NMW earnings threshold?????.......this means that there is simply a displacement of wealth. This might not even save the government money....it simply moves money from the poor who need it to the shareholders of these companies.

X-post with ParsingFancy excellent find

Mini, this is exactly what will happen under UC.

What worries me most is the change in societal attitudes. At one time most people would sympathise with the OP and offer help. Yes there was the odd judgmental person.
Now the judgmental type is increasing being reminiscent of bygone eras where families and children in particular suffered. It is such a shame that we seem to be going back to these times and society will either welcome this (the judgemental) or be able to do nothing about it (the sympathisers).
I pray that families are going to be able to stay together. I think many of the judgemental have forgotten that less than 50 years ago families were broken due to lack of a good welfare system. We are those children now and it still hurts many mothers.

morethanpotatoprints yy, I am reading a very good book atm A Brief History of Neoliberalism by Harvey. What is happening isn't just economic and about free markets, its about changing the way people think. For the wealthy to be able to consolidate their wealth and class power they need either our agreement or our ignorance.

Whilst there is diminished personal resources derived from the job market under neo-liberalism, there is pressure to transfer all responsibility back onto the individual. So whilst we in theory should have greater choices we don't and have is a situation where any failure is seen as a fault within the individual rather than owing to the economic situation.

Agreed, Mini. And zero hours contracts are the epitome of transferring responsibility (in this case, financial risk) onto the individual. Typically the low paid individual, who is least able to absorb it.

Mini.

I go cold just thinking about it, its just so awful. Up until recently I thought the past was horrible and couldn't be repeated. I'm hopeful it won't but the judgmental in our society need to remember that it was people with their attitude that encouraged families to be split prior to the mid 1970's.
I have interviewed some of the mothers through past study, but it was so personal to me I had to abandon my research. I would be very interested to find any recent research done into this.

"What worries me most is the change in societal attitudes."

It's a return to the Victorian idea of the deserving and undeserving poor, and also a return to the true values of the Tory party - Clement Atlee was right about them.

I used to work with Nuns many years ago and they spoke about having to join the convent because there was no work and no men to marry in northern ireland, couple that with no abortion rights and huge levels of poverty and you have a situation where children end up in care, families end up split up or/& as economic migrants. These women went into the convent because they came from big families and the choice was to keep them or keep their younger siblings in the family. Its often women & children that suffer the most.

I would look into being self-employed, OP Is there any business you or DP could start? Cleaning? Typing? Proofreadin? Anything you can realistically do in your own time?

You start the business, you tell the Tax Credits people, and declare as many hours as you work. The important thing the key thing is that you get the Tax Credits even if the hours you're putting in are unpaid. It's the working that counts, not the income.

So if you spend 24 hours a week setting up your business - writing flyers, making calls, drawing up a business plan -- all this makes you eligible for Tax Credits even if you aren't being paid by anyone for the time you put in.

I work for myself and in the past couple of years I've had times when the business wasn't paying me anything. But I'm still entitled to Tax Credits.

I have been a mumsnetter for years, a while ago I left for a while as I was sick and tired of every thread getting dragged to pieces. I came back hoping to gain the support that at one time offered but some of the posts here are shamefull. Had this lady came on here and said I am sitting on my backside on benefits cos its financially better than working she would have been ripped to bits, but she comes on looking for support As her family is worse off working and gets ripped to bits. It's shamefull being a mumsnetter now, no longer are many posts designed to support but are written by lucky people on their high horses who haven't got a clue. Hope the those lucky few

Sorry ran out of space

Hope those lucky few never fall off

Except you want to take a look at what UC has to say about self employment. I'll find a link later, I can't recall the details, but times are changing there too. I think you get a year to establish and then things will get tough.