Voluntary work or lose benefits

[Marjoriew]

Government intend to cut benefits of claimants on JSA who refuse to do voluntary work of 30 hours a week over a 4-week period.
Benefits could be stopped for up to 3 months if claimants refuse to comply.

Sadly this will be another scheme (like the CSA) that targets the wrong people......instead of setting about the benefit lifers they will start on the easy targets who have just been made redundant, which will not solve the problem at all.

"I firmly believe there are jobs out there for eveyone, but no one wants to do them..."

If that were the case Wobble, why not just say these folk sitting around on their arses 'here's a job, do it or lose your benefits'?

wubblybubbly I agree it has to be carefully designed so that the workfare does not compete with "real" low-end jobs. That is possible - Australia did it.

The actual work done on these month-long placements is going to be minimal. What is important is getting back up to speed with the culture of work. Getting up at the same time, being presentable, just turning up.

Whoever thinks there are jobs 'out there' for everyone needs a bit of maths revision(primary school level!).

People on JSA have to prove that they have been jobhunting every week.

Georgimama where are you?

And I would consider £16k a considerable amount higher than NMW, but then I've struggled on between £8 - £11 k for the past few years.

And to those who suggest moving? I live with my parents, how on earth could I move somewhere to get a job and be better off?

As it is, I came off JSA last week because I thought I had found a job but it didn't work out.

Another thread to hide. I am simply flabbergasted that someone would seriously say that a person undergoing chemotherapy should move away from family support and the hospital they are being treated at in order to find work. That is just wrong, and again I find myself shocked at the callousness disregard adn lack of basic empathy of the more right-wing people on this site.

The fact is that in our society we try not to leave people homeless and starving, we try to help them, we try to house them, we try to give them enough money to eat and heat their homes etc. I understand that is not a society that many of you are comfortable with, if you don't like living somewhere with basic socialist principles may I suggest you go and live somewhere else. The fact that this country looks after its population, in terms of housing, health and basic living expenses is in my view a good thing, and it horrifies me that people (some of you) are so keen to dismantle that basic system.

I agree redflag - this is exploitative.

I was on a YTS when I left school in 1986. £27.50 pw in the first year which rose to £35 pw in the second. I used to work 6 days a week and the work placement paid £11 pw of my payment as their share (they'd even make me work on my college day because they couldn't spare me). They used to moan about having to pay me £11 even though they were getting about 45 hours a week out of me. Tightwads.

All the people saying why should they be paid to sit on their arses do they think they shouldn't be paid at all? If not, and that they should work for their money well surely that means they are employed and so they should be paid a proper bloody wage. What's so hard to understand about that? Either no benefits at all or make them all work and pay them properly.

The 'culture of work' is being paid a fair salary for a fair days work.

This proposal is more like the culture of slavery.

I was doing 42 hrs a week for £40 in 2001 ...

Now lets take a look at the crime figures..
wonder what will happen there in the future.

I've just read four pages of this thread - no time for more so forgive me if I repeat what people have said. Anyone who hasn't already read Takver's comments should go back and read them, imo.

So they are going to pay the (pitiful) wages of JSA claimants, thus providing employers with a free, trained-up work force. Nice.

Nice how they look after their own. This is very like what they did with Buy to Let landlords - which they are now regretting - ie, they paid them to house HB claimants, so they hiked their rents and lived very nicely, thank you, off the state. (Of course now the state doesn't want to pay the rents, they are going to cap HB - thus making thousands homeless - rather than make the landlords lower their rents).

All in this together? Some are more cosy than others, I think.

YTS and university are very different for 2 reason:

• you chose to do it.
• you could reasonably expect an improvement in your situation after completing your training.

• very different to forced labour that is.

Good posts, ISNT.

grannieonabike I doubt employers will find it worth their while to take on these month-long placements, even for the most low-end unskilled work.

Those that do will do it out of a sense of social obligation, not economic consideration. The resources required to make something out of someone who just doesn't want to work are enormous.

LFN: So if the employers don't want them, where will they work?

Some employers will take them, but as I said, out of a sense of social responsibility. Many will work in charity and voluntary organisations.

I do think that paying private and voluntary providers by results, with more payment for difficult cases, will work wonders. They will probably have to run "boot camps" to instil some discipline and pride into the worst offenders.

The idea that employers are going to be impressed by a long-term unemployed candidate who did one months enforced employment otherwise they would have no food is just laughable. My brother does endless voluntary work, but has long periods of unemployment on his CV. The last 50 jobs he's applied for, he hasn't got, and I can't see how doing another month of picking litter will change that fact.

'Boot camps'? 'Worst offenders'? Are we talking about criminals here?

So here we have JSA claimants forced to train up for jobs that don't exist because few employers would accept them anyway. Whatever they do, I suspect. H'mm. Brilliant idea.

Again don't let the facts affect your moral indignation. That poster has clarified that she isn't looking for work anyway, and was talking about her father's situation many years ago, not her fiance now as I thought she meant by DF.

Riven, you aren't actually a long term JSA recipient are you? So not going to be affected by this at all.

Here's an idea. Provide real jobs with real wages for people who really want to work. Could work wonders.

Sorry. Getting a bit sarky now.

Governments can't create jobs - well they can but not real sustainable ones, hence the vast swathes of public sector non jobs now being made redundant because they add no value to anything. All they can do is set the right economic conditions for employment to grow, which this government is trying to do.