Should you be forced to work for no pay if you are terminally ill...

[MayaAngelCool]

...mentally ill, or disabled?

here

I am very tired so perhaps I am reading this incorrectly. But this seems to be horrendously cruel!

It's one thing if working is a personal choice for people in these groups. But this almost seems to have an Arbeit Macht Frei philosophy behind it - we will make the most vulnerable in our society work for nothing, because work is GOOD for you!

Vile.

It might be worth while bearing in mind that some of these companies may never have actually signed up to workfare.

I have just contacted the Mr Gleam cleaning company from that list and it would seem that they were added to the DWP list of participating companies and they have never agreed to be part of it,

Joseph Mason 17:15:12
A mistake from the DWP through Avanta which is being dealt with as a matter of urgency. The DWP have taken us off the list as a result as we have never been involved in the workfare scheme.

Mini 17:17:06
So somewhere along the line someone is trying to make it look as though there is more support for this scheme than there is?
Joseph Mason 17:18:13
If you wish to speak about this matter please feel free to contact myself via a telephone.

Living close to a social security office I am torn on this one

I regularly see the local wasters, pissed & boasting about swinging the lead & conning the SS officer they've just had an interview with & as someone who worked all my life, it does make my blood boil - these people SHOULD be made to work for benefits - I don't claim even though entitled because our local SS office is full of these people - not all of course, but too many for my liking & its embarrassing to be counted among them

BUT as far as the genuinely ill goes & lets face it they are the ones who wont be lying through their teeth & conning the system, its very very scary - I have a health condition, that means if I'm busy, I get very ill - bed ridden - if I keep activity to the bare minimum I can cope & can appear well - therefore I would be front line for being forced back to work, but it would massively affect my quality of life & would also badly affect the care I could give DD - I'd love to work more, but not some scabby free work placement, with my professional background I can't think of anything more demoralising & therefore doubly detrimental to my health - & I know MANY like me

Wish I knew what the answer was, do they take a persons work history into account - I doubt it, but that could work - never worked - made to work - worked a lot, accepted as ill - but it will no doubt be ticking boxes & keeping figures up, so its very scary :(

Some of the smaller companies on these lists. Is it possible that Grayling and the DWP are making it look as though more businesses support this idea. If so why?

I think it's a very silly move to piss off somebody who is dying and has nothing to lose, could tip somebody over the edge, I see a Tesco's or job centre massacre before too long I really do.

The government seem to think disabled people can't vote.

I have a disability. I do have a job, but I can imagine a situation where I might be too ill to work.

Personally speaking, if I was made to do something like this, such as do a placement that effectively deprived someone of the NMW and a 'real' job and acting as cheap labour for a commercial organisation, I can see myself being as useless as possible. They can make you turn up at a certain time and be civil, but they can't make you be competent.

And from experience in my youth, I know only too well that working for practically nothing rarely leads to a proper job. I worked for a clothing chain for £1 an hour helping to set up a new branch once, on the grounds that they promised me a properly paid Saturday job in return as soon as one came up. Surprise, surprise, as soon as they finished setting up the shop and had done with my practically free labour, I was dispensed with sharpish in favour of a young relative of the manageress, and the manageress couldn't be arsed to give me a reference either. I learned absolutely nothing from the placement and after my 10-12 hour days fell into bed exhausted. Whole thing was a total racket. Like workfare.

I'm worried for my brother. He has schizophrenia and can seem quite "normal" but is completely unable to work in any reliably capacity. If he had his financial support cut off, there's no telling what kind of relapse he could have. It has taken years for him to reach the stage where he can function reasonably normally :(. I can't bear to think of him falling back to where he was.

I sympathise ariel, my brother is undiagnosed as he won't speak to doctors, or anyone else. He is provided for by my parents as we could never let him loose in this cruel system. I dread to think what will happen when my parents are no longer here. He was recently refused again for disability benefits. He has a massive chunk of brain missing, half head covered in scar, won't speak to anyone apart from 3 people, paranoid thoughts

Heswall, I agree. I would not like to assure anyone that my brother would behave rationally if put under extreme pressure, which for him would be any kind of social situation. It will lead to tragedies. Sadly many will go unnoticed as people have quiet breakdowns at home

My bro was in a similar state before he was sectioned and admitted, Merci. It's dreadful feeling so helpless isn't it? I hope your brother gets the help he needs and improves soon x

My DD disabled, makes me sick - she would like to work with children but has no chance because of her disability. Has had numerous surgeries since childhood, she needs 24/7 care otherwise if she takes ill she could die simple as - all of this nonsense in the papers is scaring her silly, stressing her out and making her ill - nice result people - Mr Cameron makes me sick to my stomach over this one - he has been through the disabled child thing and more but he seems to have no connection to the real world out there - what is wrong with people - we've got them around our streets too - they have no intention of working but can afford to smoke and drink when they want - my daughter didn't ask to be the way she is - get the benefits off those who refuse out right to work and the government know it.

I'm so sorry, I misread your post about your parents providing for him.

Such a worry for siblings to think of the future isn't it? :(

It is ariel, it is. And it's v frustrating that people with mental health problems are most likely to fall through the gaps in the system as they are least likely to be able to cope with all the bureaucracy. I can't imagine my brother ever signing on. He used to work but has gone downhill a lot in the last few years. If he could just get housing benefit we could get him some 'safe' independence. Lucky my parents can afford to pay his food etc at least. Was your brother diagnosed when sectioned?

No, it took years. Sorry. He was in and out of crappy institutions and slipping through the net all the time before they finally "caught" him. And he was rock bottom and resisting for a very long time, not admitting he was ill and refusing treatment. The change in him, from the clever, popular, good looking brother I used to have, was utterly heartbreaking. But he was too much of a nightmare to keep in contact with. Before he was sectioned he used to come round my house and break stuff, and threaten DH (no kids thank goodness). I had the police round a few times.

Now I am happy to say he is much, much better. But he won't ever be able to hold down a normal job.

Thread hijack. Sorry everyone else.

My mother, I'm distressed to say, is of the opinion that people like your brothers would be better off dead She's a product of the 1930s, when eugenics was widely espoused throughout Europe and America (the Nazis aren't the only ones who practised it.)

I've asked her whether she thinks I should be - er, put down. She cries No, because I'm Going To Get Better! This is not my prognosis - I'm to stumble along for some time yet, then die early of some opportunistic infection. So quite a bit of NIMBY eugenics there

A lot of people do think what she has the nerve to say - in private, anyway - so I do suspect that collateral damage from this govt's policies is not only expected but to be welcomed. I sometimes wonder whether David Cameron secretly hoped young Ivan would die.

I know this is an upsetting post, but someone has to say it and I'd ask you to remember that I would qualify for my own mother's euthanasia programme. So it's pretty distressing for me, too.

Tell your mother that my brother has 4 A levels, a degree and a daughter. He's just ill.

It makes you so fucking angry doesn't it? And it must be awful having attitudes like that in your own family.

I've got to say it's probably my family's dysfunction that makes the discussion possible. I've seen and heard a rising tide of the same sentiment over the past year or so.

I don't know whether I'm more terrified or angry.

So which EMPLOYER is going to be willing to employ someone who will take, on average, 52 days off sick minimum every year? AND pay them at least NMW? When, if they just hold out, they'll get the SAME worker at no cost to them?

.

It wouldn't be good business sense, would it? And it certainly would be idiotic if every other business was using free labour...

And that's a case of epilepsy that no longer qualifies for disability benefits AT ALL!

You only qualify for the support group of ESA if you have 700+ seizures a year. You qualify for the WRAG group of ESA if you have 365+ seizures a year.

You qualify for bugger all help now if you have anything less than one seizure A DAY. It used to be one seizure a WEEK.

This is MY situation, I have been medically retired from TWO different employers, yet according to the DWP, I am too WELL for disability benefits such as ESA, and too DISABLED for in-work benefits such as JSA - so when DS3 turns 5yo, I'm SCREWED. I won;t qualify for ANYTHING.

That is unbelievable. For fuck's sake.

And seizures are so physically knackering too

So you can give up work when you marry, and spend your entire life keeping house for your husband, and then you get a pension to live off from the age of 60 until you pop your clogs, plus freedom pass and winter fuel allowance. A life changing head injury/neurological/MH condition and you're on your own.

A lot of disabilities and mental health problems (or both) are complex. Who is going to unpick the capacity of somebody who appears physically capable of working but who has severe difficulties in their mental capacity to work. Who, in the local job centre or benefits office, is qualified to do that?

Is David Cameron really Victorian Dad?

nothing really to do with the thread BUt i saw a documentary about eugenics garlic and it was invented by the brittish 2 doctors and highbrow people who wanted to breed out the the lower classes EEEKKK and they had a conference which a german doctor attended and took it back to germany ! it was scary that people thought like this , some still do ,

Good Morning Comrades

Chris Grayling has desperately and cynically called all opposition to "workfare" a small group of "socialist worker party supporters"
Radio 4 this morning.

A friend of mine who is from the landed gentry (don't throw anything at me) had a theory about class and intelligence. He said that the upper classes had in the past often consigned their brightest to the priest hood. This left the pool of genes depleted and meant that over generations they had lost their advantage. [looks at Scameron as proof of this]