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.

Mattahata

His mum was a cleaner, his dad was a security guard, his sisters are cleaners in the local hospital.

He was lucky but has given up his job as a lecturer at a London University to go home and teach at a local school.

He has said so many times 'Things have changed so much'.

I shall let him take over now he is back from the loo.

"I get sworn at by the kids, then by the parents - their is nothing I can do to help or deter bad behaviour, education means nothing to these children - I get fifteen kids in the class who want to learn and are eager to learn. They get left behind because I am sorting out fights between the ones who do not care"

Which one would you employ if you had a business?

not sure why you have aimed this post at me, my comment is that not everyone on benifits is working class, so really irrelevant what your friends parents are, sorry I really do not see your point?

oh and teacher and you cant even spell there! not a good start....

benefits!!!- sp

I will bow out now - there is no answer to this question and Martin has gone home

And no, not all schools have after-school clubs or breakfast clubs.

Sun cottage, mahhatta said "quick point, not just working class on benefits any more, lots of us have professional parents, have been to Uni and have even had good jobs ourselves..."

Agree that they are cutting public sector jobs and replacing with unpaid forced labour. These politicians have got their priorities all wrong.

How can we remind them?

remember remember the 5th of november wubbly :o

I claimed benefit for a short while after university when I couldn't find work. I worked as a volunteer in an environmental charity. It was fab, it gave me useful office experience and I felt like I was doing something.

But voluntary work is voluntary, if you have to do it it's forced labour. So they should call it that.

However, giving people work experience is a good idea.

The school 3 minutes from my house reaches the dizzy heights of 34% A- c GCSE but there are huge numbers of jobs which don't need qualifications. There is loads of litter to clearn and graffiti all over the place. You just need a supervisor paid a little more than the rest to make the workfare people get on with it in teams.

Then there's feeding the elderly at home and in hospital or just chatting to them and holding their hand.
Again you could have some sensible person in charge and 20 of the workfarers in the home or ward. If they really are too difficult to have any human contact then there are lots of other jobs which don't require it.

It is not punishmnt to work for what money tax payers give you. Tax payers work very hard. Plenty of us ahve had to find child care including over night for business trips. We've left breastfeeding babies. We've work all night after working all day. This is how many workers work. Those on benefits rely on very little money and mostkly have a nasty time but they certainly can be made to work for benefits.

I love you Xenia.

So what happens to the peoples jobs that get paid to pick up litter and clean graffiti? these jobs are mostly done by agency workers now anyway..sack them ? why pay them a wage if the work farer has to do them...some people have no idea really ..

giving people jobs is a good idea.

I love xenia too. Her crazy sense of entitlement always makes me laugh.

There may well be a correction of that kind just as for new graduates who work for nothing as interns the paid jobs they replace have gone but the overall aim is good and will result in helping pick up the economy given the other changes so more better private sectors jobs will be created as the economy picks up.

Also I think we pick up about 10% of the litter there is to pick up. The other 90% of litter and graffiti doesn't really get done ever so there is a massive unmet need. Also being out in the open air and moving all day helps with conditions like depression etc so some of those who may be are indoors watching TV (I haven't really watched TV at all for 15 years) might find they feel happier for being out in the open.

For those who cannot get out of chairs there is plenty of envelope stuffing. As I say I do it myself as well a host of other dull jobs (and interesting ones too). Then there are door drops too - leaflets etc and just absolutely masses of things we could get people to do. It's a great idea.

The problem to date is you just have tio toddle along to the job centre (massive effor that that is) and pretend you are looking for work. If it were get job or you're on litter picking rota or whatever the task is then people might well do what I and plenty of others have done whic is move to where work is.

You have no idea that there is any intention to replace people currently doing litter picking and the like with JSA recipients. That is pure assumption on your part. I would imagine that the intention is to get people to do things that aren't being done at the moment because councils lack the resources to pay staff to do them.

My dp works for an agency that supplies agency staff to the council..nearly all of them have been laid off ..funny that

Not funny really when you consider the size of the national deficit.

Not funny for the agency workers either

Why are we saying all the voluntary work will be litter picking??

There must be lots of other things people can do voluntarily!

I used to be a special constable......entirely voluntary, but by doing that I found many doors opened to me. It really did/does make me more employable.

The government need to put more thought into it for better results.

I have nothing to add to usualsuspect 's post at Sun 07-Nov-10 09:30:57 on page 1.
Astute, insightful and spot on.

There will be more people on the streets, organised crime will boom.

Because when wee Jordan doesn't wake in time for litter picking duties due to alcohol/drug binge and has his benefits stopped he knows he can make more money more quickly drug dealing or putting some girlfriends on the streets.

And he won't go anywhere to get a job because he has never been out of his scheme.

I would be decriminalising drugs and putting them under government control, introducing minimum pricing for alcohol and proving treatment for people. Then voluntary work might seem like a good idea.

Why wouldn't employers get rid of their staff in unskilled jobs that they are currently paying the employees between £11,500 - £16K PA for if they can replace them with someone they don't have to pay anything to (as the government is 'paying' the workfarers their JSA?). Surely if you were an employer, you would see the business sense in having a ready supply of free workers, albeit ones that change every 4 weeks, but that's not a problem in an unskilled environment. Why would you pay someone £12K-ish of your profits if you could get it done for free?

So how can anyone say that it won't affect low-paid workers?

Xenia - thee are already people doing the jobs you talk of, such as looking after the elderly (low-paid care worker) and picking up litter (low-paid street cleaner). If you give those jobs to people on 'workfare' what will happen to the people that are currently doing those jobs? They're not going to be kept in employment and paid £12-£16K pa if their bosses can save money by hiring free workfare people. And would you be paying the supervisors an amount just above JSA levels or just above what minimum wage? Because I sure as hell wouldn't take a suervisory level job for a 'little bit more than' £65 a week.

Do you realise, Xenia, that in my area, to rent a ROOM in a houseshare is £75-£80 a week. SO if you paid the supervisor a 'little bit more' than JSA levels, they wouldn't even be able to rent a room?

Xenia - Do you actually have any concept of what it's like to try to live off the earnings of a minimum wage job, because I really don't think that you do. You were most obviosly born into a family that had money, and have never had to wonder what it's really like for those of us that weren't. And you expect us poor people to bow and scrape before you because you obviously work soooooo much harder than us, because if we only earn £16K, we obviously don't do very much or we'd be paid more. . And low wage earners are only fit to lick your shoes clean of dog muck.

I believe that everyone especially those who are claiming benefits should do some volunteering. It will benefit them vastly, they can get work experience and training that will be more valuable than anything that the job centre can provide. There are so many charities out there looking for volunteers, we should all be doing our bit to better the community we live in.

Am generally in favour - I've done the full range of jobs, cleaning toilets, 'heavy' filing when v v pregnant (ie moving huge boxes of files/papers), lowest level shop, bar and office work. It's not demeaning - the only people who could think that are those who fundamentally have no respect for people who do these essential but yes, dull and poorly paid jobs.

I currently work for far less than the minimum wage - interesting job largely, but paid as self-employed, (though it isn't really - I work for 1 company - but this way they can avoid paying me minimum wage/NI, pensions etc). But as we are entitled to no benefits at all, I do it anyway - I don't have the luxury of choice, of just deciding not tro do it that the unemployed do.

I've also suffered from depression and can vouch for the fact that the best thing in that sort of situation is to need to go somewhere, do something, esp something physical in the open air.

It's interesting reading this thread that virtually all those who've actually done this sort of scheme say how good it was and how much it helped them get a job. Those objecting violently seem to be people with no experience of such schemes. The other main group of people are those who do (or whose DP's do) lowly paid unskilled work currently and are worried that the schemes will effectively put them out of a job, by allowing those on these schemes to undercut them. I think that IS more of a worry, and will have to be dealt with sensitively. But litter picking sounds fine - don't know where any of you live, in which magic island, but where I live, the streets are v far from clean, graffiti is far from invisible, and generally there is room for an awful lot more general maintenance work before anyone needs to be put out of a job.

Would also really,really like to second the poster above who pointed out that the unemployed are NOT being asked to do this forless than the minimum wage - they are also entitled to claim free housing, CT etc costs - that can add hundreds of pounds to their weekly entitlement. Lots of working families struggle on with no more than £65/person for disposable income after THEY have paid the rent/mortgage, bills etc.

I'd actually like to see the scheme vastly increased - to bring back some form of National Service (community service) as exists in most other countries, as we used to have, and as David Cameron vaguely mooted before the election, but now appears to have been kicked into the long grass.

That would take away the stigma, ensure posh people got to mix with ordinary people, and give the less ambitious some aspiration, the less well-connected some connections. For EVERYONE for a couple of months say, after leaving school.

PS loudlass, if you post another post about how poor you are, with your OH only earning 16K I think I'm going to scream! You take home on combined benefits without working as much as we do, and we both work v long hours and my OH is a higher-rate taxpayer! And as soon as your new baby is born will take home considerably more! Give it a break - by all means moan about your health situation, but not about how poor you are. It makes it impossible for me to take any other points you make seriously.

granted, you've suffered from depression and that makes you an expert on the treatment of everyone else who might have a similar diagnosis.

Wow.

I wonder if I'll be allowed to carry out mastectomys from now on...