workfare - does anyone have a defence for it?

[nkf]

Or do I really have to start travelling miles to the co-op? I'm sure I do but what is the argument in its favour?

Some people (albeit not many) have got paid employment out of it.

It's the only way some people (small minority) will ever get any work experience. There are lazy people that think most jobs are beneath them, and sometimes paying companies to take them on Is literally the only way they will ever be given an opportunity.

It's better than people on JSA sitting around doing nothing. They will still have plenty of time to job hunt.

It can give people confidence, contact with the outside world, routine, something to write on a CV and a reason to get up in the morning.

I agree with all the above. An 8 week placement for someone long-term unemployed might be a life-saver. Having heard an interview last week on the R4 PM Programme with a man who had been unemployed for several years it was really sad how isolated and depressed he had become. Even though he lived on a High Street full of shops he wasn't trying that hard to find work any more and didn't even leave his flat for days on end. Something like a work placement would get him out of the house & back in a work environment. Might give his self-esteem a boost.

I don't think it's fair to be so hard on the companies that have been in the scheme since Labour set it up several years ago. Yes, they get a free pair of hands but, as anyone knows, the new recruit always needs training up and more supervision.

And should workfare also include terminally ill people? This 'wonderful' govt seems to think so! I'm sure it's all in the name of helping these people!!

Cogito, if everyone who needed training worked free of charge while they were being supervised, noone would get paid for their first job. the training people get on workfare is non existent.

It's not about training as such. It's about proving to a future employer that you could turn up on time, looked vaguely competent and didn't pinch any stock for the duration of your placement. These are all skills which we take for granted but are major headaches for an employer when taking on untried labour.

This workfare policy is being enacted purely because we have such a high minimum wage and such tight regulations about sacking unproductive members of staff. Whilst these policies remain in place, the young, the inexperienced and the long term unemployed will find it difficult convincing an employer to take a punt on them.

Workfare is the symptom, NMW and employment legislation is the disease.

is workfare being used for pnly the longterm unemployed, who is classified as long term unemployed, and does the job centre consider other training requirements, such as english lessons, maths skills etc to increase basic employability?

I think there are lots of problems with it but I do see the point of the message that everyone who can work should work and if you can't find paid work the govt will support you but the requirement to work still exists. I am hugely in support of the welfare state but we have to guard against it creating dependency and learned inabilities to work. Those of us who were brought up in working households by working people can't really imagine what it's like to view all of work as foreign and difficult and not something for people like us.

I would feel happier if the work was not for vast profiteering organisations but I think we can make too much of that point because some of the people on the workfare scheme (the people who really need it, who are not in the habit of work) will need a lot of training and support to make them work-ready so they are not always going to be a cheap replacement for a permanent member of staff.

So yes I can see some arguments for it but it's obviously problematic in lots of ways.

They can easily fix the 'workfare' problem by quite simply starting from the ethos that they are doing a fair days work and that should equal a fair days pay.

I think most supermarket jobs pay above minimum wage so the workfare scheme could pay people the minimum wage recognising that they may have a lower skill set or need more training.

If the government really believe in this and want to subsidise the businesses doing it then instead of JSA they should get minimum wage for the time they're doing it.

Then it will be up to us, the public, to complain that we want the businesses to pay for it instead of us the taxpayers.

I think the danger of the current mob-pressure is that companies/charities/etc will pull out of all these schemes entirely because of the bad PR, there will be no placements available and the net effect will mean that thousands of long-term unemployed have a little less scope for the future than they had previously. Companies will go back to only recruiting and training people with a good track-record of employment and those that have been out of work for a long time will be pushed even further down. The Socialist Worker, or whoever orchestrated the campaign, will have the satisfaction that they have made miserable lives just a bit more hopeless ..... yay them

The scheme itself is a good idea by I feel it would. E better served if people 'worked' for charities and the council, schools, leisure centres, libraries, etc so benefiting the tax player and the community rather than companies who make billions profit and pay minimal tax

I am in favour of this type of scheme as

...for the long term unemployed, it provides experience which may well be needed to get a job in a competitive market
...it can give a reference that you are employable
...it shows that you are willing to work
...You should have to work if there is appropriate employment available to keep your benefits

I am not in favour at all of this being widespread by large companies, which is all I hear. Charities, local companies and good causes would be far better served by this.

I think that only large companies can make it cost-effective to administer the scheme, & make sure that other people (paid employees or other workfare participants) are able to pick up the slack if some participants are useless at the allocated tasks.

Having been involved with small charities, it would be a nightmare to deal with taking someone on for 4 weeks in those contexts, plenty extra admin & hard work with little to gain back.

MrPants how much should the minimum wage be? the london living wage should be £7.50 an hour so that people who work take home enough cash to pay their way without claiming benefits.

cogito, do you think it is okay for the capitalists to use people free of charge? yay to the capitalists. we should be grateful to work for a full week for £67 pounds that we have already paid for in tax. yay to the capitalists.

the boss of tesco's gets £6.7 million a year, for what exactly, does he personally add £6.7m worth of value to tesco?

ragged, large companies that make profits should pay people for their effort. do you really think that people are being given in depth training in a 4 week placement?

all of you selfish smartarses were beginners in jobs once, did you all work for nothing for a couple of months while you learned the ropes or were you paid from day one?

pay people for the work they do.

cretins.

The Tesco boss is responsible for the successful running of a company that pays millions in tax into the Exchequer, buys billions worth of goods from hundreds of UK companies and directly employs upwards of 300,000 people in the UK alone. I think he earns his keep.

People at the top of companies don't do anything, they may have in the past, at the top of companies you sign off other people's work, eat fancy lunches, make political connections. you do not formulate the company's policy, pick suppliers or do anything substantial.

Creighton - I joined a similar scheme when I left university and got a work placement for 3 months. It was vaguely the kind of work I was interested in. I worked for nothing, just benefits. It didn't lead to a job, the organisation concerned didn't have the budget to employ someone, so used it as a way of getting cheap labour.
What I got out of it - a brilliant reference, and experience in a competitive area which helped me get my first paid job.

I agree with the broad principles of the scheme, especially for young people who can't get a job because they haven't got experience.

Phone cut off my last bit

There are obviously huge problems with it, and all the companies pulling out now and expression their 'mock' disgust are are complete joke and on my 'avoid at all costs' list.

This is one of the ways the Labour administration justified it in 2008/2009.

They went much further than the coalition, btw, including how to "develop a strict sanctions regime, including either cuts in benefits or an option of permanent work for their benefits".

It's a pity collective amnesia has struck on Labour's appalling record on this.

"You do not formulate the company's policy, pick suppliers or do anything substantial."

And that's in your experience as CEO of a FTSE 100 company is it? What a load of crap you talk

of course they don't formulate policy and pick suppliers, they have operational managers to do that. when you write a complaint to the CEO of a large company it gets sent to the relevant department to be answered. the CEO does not investigate anything, he doesn't negotiate buying the bricks for the new housing his company is going to build. you clearly know nothing about how large companies are run. the head of a large company is given overviews of what is going on so that he can talk on radio 4 about it. his day to day work is not the basic work of the company. that should be clear to anyone with any common sense.

Fascinating link, EdithWeston.
I think the current policy is wrong and seems to be a continuation of Labour's policy. I can understand the current outcry, but it is interesting that there doesn't seem to have been a similar outcry under Labour - possibly because the plans had not yet been enacted.

It explains also why the Opposition is not actually opposing anything. For on just about everything on which MN howls of "nasty Tories" goes up, it's easy to demonstrate that this was actually a Labour policy - yes, even privatisation in the NHS.

RedBlanket, that was a scheme, not a job. it was in the area that you wanted to work in so you got lots of benefit from it. It doesn't sound as if you were coerced and told that you shouldn't be allowed to lounge around on the tax payers money. this scheme appears to have no substantial training and is leading nowhere for the vast majority of participants who are forced to take part. profit making companies are using people who can't protect themselves as free government sponsored labour.

You're exactly right. There is a sort of establishment groupthink going on where nearly everyone in power seems to be in agreement on it. MN also could see the positive aspects. The system is united.

Ex-Labour minister, Purnell, said

'My main point is a simple one: whenever in future I set out what we will do, you can refer to these three principles ? control, capability and contribution ? to understand why. This is how I think we should understand the modern welfare state.'

He makes it simple so us simple people can undertand it - "control, capability and contribution"

Where is our modern-day George Orwell?