to wonder why the papers haven't got this on the front page?

[LittleHouseOnTheShelf]

www.thecanary.co/2016/04/29/cameron-rocked-by-major-defeat-just-days-before-election-time/

Workfare refers to all of the programmes which are mandatory, long term and paid less than minimum wage. The Government’s Work Experience Programme, Sector Based Work Academies, Community Action Programme, Mandatory Work Activity scheme and The Work Programme all fall into this category. Under these Workfare programmes, unemployed people have been forced in long term, full time work for no more than the benefits to which they are entitled as citizens.

Workfare was ruled illegal in 2013. But instead of complying with the orders of the court, the government has continued to appeal the decision – suffering defeat after defeat. And now, the highest court in the land has told Cameron’s government that its workfare schemes are illegal, and they must pay back benefit claimants who were forced into these unlawful programmes.

[caroldecker]

Adara I think you re putting words into my mouth. No where did I say 'I;m all right' and sod anyone else.
I said 'Why should anyone be able to choose to sit around and do nothing' This is not about those unable to work due to disability, this is about those who are perfectly able but don't work.
Why do they not have a duty to contribute to society, like those who pay taxes?

[LilacSpunkMonkey]

Oh dear Carol you need to try a) reading previous posts and b) engaging your thinking skills.

If you do both you'll see that I previously posted that I was working when the Job Centre tried to send me on Workfare. I wasn't sitting around doing nothing. I'm still working now. I have paid plenty of taxes thank you very much.

But there's no shifting some people from their 'all benefits claimants are sitting around watching Jeremy Kyle with no intention to work' mindset is there?

Bless you. You're David Cameron's dream voter.

[caroldecker]

Lilac If you were working, then my post is not aimed at you. Why people think that my support for some people who choose not to work to be made to work is also support for the entire Conservative party manifesto, or an attack on all benefits claimants I don't know.
Read my posts and, if you disagree with what they say, rather than what you want to rant against, then please let me know.

[LilacSpunkMonkey]

Not aimed at me?

You replied directly to me!

You're making yourself look ignorant, ill-informed and like a frothing Tory wet dream.

No ranting here. I'm embarrassed for you.

[LilacSpunkMonkey]

LilacWhat is so wrong with working for a charity? Why should you be able to choose to sit around and do nothing, when you are taking money from your working neighbours?

Carol there's your reply to my post. Just in case you don't know how to scroll back through a thread and see what you've written.

And yes, I am being rude to you. Because it's people like you who end up with people like me having my benefits sanctioned because the Job Centre schedule appointments during my contracted working hours then sanction me when I can't go. Or when they sanction me for being offered casual hours at the last minute, despite me Co tactics them to say I'd been offered work and re-scheduling my appointment. People like you are the ones who believe we're all workshy scroungers and push the government to 'punish' us, which they do by sanctioning the wrong people, the ones who are doing their best to get work and stay in work.

[limitedperiodonly]

I once scrawled on the outside of an envelope from the British Heart Foundation: 'Return to sender: stop sending me begging letters British Heart Foundation and only think about it again when you stop participating in Workfare, you fucking heartless bastards'.

I may have been drinking. However, it did the trick and they have taken me off their mailing list.

I agree with Lilac that Workfare is wrong on a moral and economic basis and there is something particularly scummy about charities getting involved in it.

[ArrestedDevelopment]

The Salvation Army is a charity which has done a deal with the jobcentre which seems unethical and underhand
Claimants are told they have to attend a workfare program at the charity shop or be sanctioned. On arrival at the shop the forms they fill in state 'volunteer' and there is no workfare forms that you normally have to fill in to prove you have attended a workfare placement.

A claimant challenged this saying where are the usual workfare forms and was told to ring the jobcentre panicking thinking the charity shop had got it wrong and they would be sanctioned if the right paperwork hadn't been filled in.
The jobcentre told them to sign the volunteer form or be sanctioned and got shirty with claimant. The claimant didn't want to sign as it wasn't a voluntary placement at all.

It seems the Salvation Army doesn't want to be associated with workfare any longer but is still getting claimants through the jobcentre under the pretence of being a volunteer without the proper paperwork to say it is a workfare placement.

[HelenaDove]

So THATS how they have got around it. A lot of the public think the SA have left the "scheme"

[caroldecker]

Lilac Yes I responded to you but you did not say you were working at the time. If you were working, then it was wrong. It may be administered badly, but is not wrong in principle. I have never said everyone on JSA is a workshy scrounger.

[ArrestedDevelopment]

helena this happened at a Salvation Army shop near where I live. The claimant had had enough of being treated like dirt and the final straw was being made to be a ' volunteer ' under the threat of sanction but then find out it is not an official workfare placement.
People protested outside the charity shop but how many other people are threatened with sanctions to be ' volunteers' and the charity shops can say ' oh we don't do workfare' to avoid backlash when secretly they are getting people anyway.

[Alfieisnoisy]

Oh look...It's Carol "Iain Duncan Smith is my wet dream" Decker. Yeah we all know how judgemental YOU are so save the bother of posting your vile opinions.

The Govt have been defeated and rightly so.
I have seen toi many people sanctioned for doing nothing wrong and I will NEVER vote for the hateful bastards. I now judge totally anyone who is stupid enoughto do so.

[HelenaDove]

Carol Lilac DID say she was working in her first post on the thread You are seeing what you want to see as well as gaslighting her.


The definition of charity seems to have changed beyond all recognition A lot of them behave like corporates like the RSPCA and quite a few of the housing associations.

[HelenaDove]

THIS is from Lilacs first post on the thread.





The Job Centre tried to send me on Workfare a couple of years back, despite the fact that I was actually working! They wanted me to give up my paid hours and go and do labour somewhere, full time, for £70 a week. It's disgusting that this was ever legal

[LilacSpunkMonkey]

Carol, I refer you back to my post on reading properly and engaging thinking skills. You clearly have done neither because my first post stated that I was working (as Helena quoted) and your first reply to me was asking me why I should get to 'sit around and do nothing while my neighbours go to work'.

Would my neighbours be the heroine addict across the way? Or perhaps the family living downstairs where the parents have never done a days work between them and the adult son had no less than 4 restraining orders handed to him in court recently? While I, a single parent of 3 children, found myself work (with no help from the Job Centre) and then got sanctioned over and over for making work my priority (as the Job Centre had told me I MUST do)?

You need to take a look at why you feel the need to put the boot in to those less fortunate than you.

[OnceThereWasThisGirlWho]

Adarajames Don't give up yet. I understand the feeling of wanting a back up plan, but please keep going - remember every day you do is a kick in the teeth for IDS et al.

limited I once scrawled on the outside of an envelope from the British Heart Foundation...


carol Why are you so convinced that people on benefits do nothing all day? All the unemployed people I've known (some of them longetem unemployed) have been busy - studying, volunteering, following interests that then lead to self-employment or related jobs, and a load of stuff you could call "unofficial social work" like looking after mentally ill friends who'ce had their care cut due to government cuts .
And someone has to be unemployed right now. They're doing the employed a service really.

[caroldecker]

I never said all people on benefits did nothing all day, but as Lilac says, some do and I do not see why they should be allowed to choose not to work.
Alfie Can you show me where I have been judgemental?

[LilacSpunkMonkey]

Love it.

Take my post and make it suit your agenda!

No apology then for telling me I should have to work in a charity shop full-time for £70 a week rather than 'sit at home doing nothing while my neighbours work'?

Thought not.

Your feelings are quite plain Carol.

[HelenaDove]

Carol is concrete proof that brains and common sense are two different things.

[HelenaDove]

Its called gaslighting Lilac

[LilacSpunkMonkey]

Oh, I know she's trying to gaslight me Helena but you can't really do that when it's all there on the thread can you?

Maybe she should change her name to Carol Thatcher. More appropriate.

[HelenaDove]

YY Lilac Gaslighting is not achievable when the written word is involved.