Tories order Police to halt workfare demos

[minimathsmouse]

In the mail on Sunday it is reported that IDS has ordered the police to step in and stop ANY demonstration against workfare.

I think this seems to be an attack on freedom of speech, I wondered if other people think the same or do you believe that even in a democracy the state should have the power to stop "some" opposition.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2106601/Tories-order-police-halt-workfare-demos-MP-makes-formal-protest-BBC-bias-favour-hard-Left-militants.html?ITO=1490

niceguy, there were already various schemes for people to get genuine experience, like work trials (that's another DWP one, but I can't find current links so it may have been superseded).

In fact Sainsbury's put out a statement explaining they've doing their own work experience/trial schemes not the DWP stuff, despite hassle from A4e which got the DWP contract.

Sainsbury scheme (developed with genuine charities):
"The work trials are always voluntary, never longer than three weeks and for a maximum of 16 hours and always attached to a real job if the trial is successful. In the last year alone, we have employed 4,300 people through this scheme."

cf Tesco, which used Work Experience and employed 300 out of 1400 people (or more than 1400, as figures may be over different periods), having used them in store for up to 8 weeks. And may have used many more people under other DWP schemes.

Despite what you would like to tell yourselves, the latest opinion poll shows the majority of UK people (61%) are in favour of mandatory work experience. ukpollingreport.co.uk/

Mumsnet, on the whole, is far to the left of general public opinion.

Tapsel, like you say they can afford to employ people because they generate such huge profits.

They can't employ every person that is currently unemployed but greater levels of employment create greater demand and therefore more employment but only in a balanced economy which we don't have.

I also think that there is a deliberate shying away from the facts around shareholders.

CEO of Tesco, he earns £3.6million and we are told that the shareholders approve this, so therefore share holders cap senior management salaries.

Who are these shareholders? those shareholders who actually make the CEO accountable are not small fry, these people are the super wealthy elite who have 5-10-15-25% shares in a lot of the top performing companies and this is where the heart of the problem lies.

Where they don't hold 5-10% they have formed syndicates, it is these people that put profit above creating employment.

Bradbourne, as I said earlier, if people are fed crap and lies they are not capable of forming educated opinions that is why the freedom of the press is squashed and any decent is met with threats of police involvement.

I didn't start this thread to discuss whether workfare was good or bad (I changed my name) I questioned whether the popular press was being allowed to report on workfare.

Where is your information from then, if not from the press/other media outlets?

I specifically gave the statistics approving of mandatory work experience. 61% in favour. (Earlier someone said the approval statistics were high because "people" thought the schemes were voluntary).

What about the intimidatory tactics used by SWP and "Right to Work"? Are they not hindering the press's reporting on the "workfare" schemes? They have the right to peaceful protest like any other lawful political group. They do not have the right to occupy shops and businesses and force them to close (as they have done). Many people here erroneously believe that public opinion is in line with the SWP agenda - I have shown that it isn't. Yet, to read many press reports about Tesco pulling out of the scheme (and so on), I can see where people have got this idea from.

I have read a lot of scare-mongering and supposition about this topic - a lot less in the way of substantiated facts.

bradbourne, my sources are the DWP's own website and reports written for it, the govt's Business Link website, and Parliament's website.

You have to pick through the happy-happy guff to find the real deal, and ask what it really means.

Except where that's already been done: House of Lords committee shreds Grayling over implementation of Mandatory Work Activity, April 2011.

Bradbourne don't be lazy, Have you actually read any of the consultation papers, the bill or the DWP guidelines to prime contractors? Have you read the guidllines on mandation and the DWP examples of actions worthy of sanctioning non payment of benefits. Have you also looked at the stats on workfare in the states where children from families on worfare have a 30% greater chance of hospital admission, 50% chance of starving from food rationing and 49% chance of long term malnutrition.

NO I didn't think so.

The SWP or any person who opposes this is being portrayed in the press as dangerous, work shy, work snobs, ill-educated, dope smoking trotskyists, far left extremists and socialists intent on the destruction of society and the economy. Is that not a case of the press reporting being skewed.

Most people on MN are being tarred with that brush simply because they voice outrage at exploiting the poor. 1 in 4 children in the most developed country in the world (USA) is suffering from hunger and the estimate that upto 1.6 million kids are homeless, I personally don't want to see the UK inherit any ideas from the states because I don't see evidence to suggest that punishing the poor actually alleviates their poverty.

Here's the DWP document saying people on ESA will be mandated to be on the Work Programme.

The Lords committee above discussed how Mandatory Work Activity can be extended to the disabled (presumably as part of the Work Programme) and how they expect this to go pear-shaped as JobCentre bods have no access to medical records (and wouldn't know what to do with them if they had).

I'll go dig out one more set of links to minutes of the govt meeting about unlimited workfare for the disabled.

Sorry, I'm behind the times. This DWP document disabled people are already being forced to do Mandatory Work Activity (§33), and are actually disproportionately likely to be forced to do it.

It's hard to keep up with the changing definitions of "disabled" used by this govt, but anyway, this document is about "disabled people" who are on JSA because they're not sick or disabled enough for eligible for ESA (under the new harsher criteria).

And this is the link promised above. It's to the Guardian article which has links to the actual govt docs from the meeting.

SK you are so patient.

I just can't keep banging my head, I never thought it possible that people with such low empathy even existed outside the tory party. Bradbourne you are quite a revelation.

But I don't actually expect bradbourne and the like to read any of the above, because it might interfere with their comfortable ignorance.

Much pleasanter to throw your hands in the air and say, "Well we don't know any of this, it's just supposition." Means you don't have to confront something difficult.

Funilly enough, I have read through (most) of the DWP stuff and that's how I reached the conclusion a lot of scaremongering was going on.

"Have you also looked at the stats on workfare in the states where children from families on workfare have a 30% greater chance of hospital admission, 50% chance of starving from food rationing and 49% chance of long term malnutrition." I haven't looked at those stats. The "30% greater chance" etc... 30% greater than what? Than the general populace - or unemployed people not on workfare? (Remember also that correlation is not the same as causation).

Anyway, got to go now. Cheerio! Be back later (must be a glutton for punishment!)

Had to dig deep for that last bit of patience, Goerge! And when I got down there, in the sand, the shovel clunked against a head...

I know SK but I feel really sad today, really not able to keep this up when met with such a lack of empathy.

All I can see is a shrinking economy where employers are disincentivised
to emply and those that are, unemployed, the sick, disabled, elderly and poor punished at every opportunity.

I guess some people really don't see the homeless under their feet or the kids that have less than their own kids.

I know, Goerge. Been having a bit of a break here today. Being a human being, not a Disabled Rights Activist. (How? when? did I become this? Why am I spending my energy fighting to be treated with basic humanity when I should be spending it trying to actually live the husk that my life now is.)

SK, we have to keep trying to convince people and make people see what this policy will do to people with disabilities and others that will be effected.
(oh and I'm Mini, changed my name for the day, thought GoergeOsbourne sounded less left wing militant loon ) Don't like it much though because it sounds to snooty.

No one seems able to explain why these people shouldn't be paid minimum wage.

Is it because they don't deserve it? Because they are unemployed?

Surely the best thing to do is pay someone on work experience a decent amount of money, more than benefits, and if they do well, give them a job at the end. Otherwise the message is that by being unemployed you are not even worth minimum wage to this company.

To me it seems very clear - you do a days work, you get paid for it....am I missing something?

Is the Goerge not George deliberate...?

(I'm toying with a name change to 'mummyluvsbubs' or something do that I can go y'know deeper under cover and infiltrate nethuns)

I was thinking of dropping the first e because I think George had been eating too many pudding & pies

God i so know what you mean. The biggest group of people being forced on to these schemes IS the over 25s. It is that and the fact that disabled people are already being mandated onto this that this Gov. are desperately trying to avoid getting into the press.
The tesco offer of a paid 4 week placement is not a lot of good either.You have to have a MINIMUM of FIVE weeks work to claim tax credits. Same for HB run on and CTB run on.
Realistically the Gov and tesco et al know this and so they know people will still have to choose to do the placement for their benefits.
It makes me so ANGRY that the over 25 element is being covered up.

You could even make a right wing argument against workfare - that the taxpayer is currently subsidising certain favoured private businesses, giving them an unfair advantage in the free market.

How can a small employer compete when Tescos can can get workers for free? Workfare companies can pay their permanent staff less as they need them to work fewer hours, and can employ fewer paid staff. If workers - many of whom are on zero hours contracts - aren't getting overtime, or even a full week's work, they are going to be more reliant on in-work benefits. Our taxes are keeping private sector costs down and their profits up, and losses have been socialised through benefits. A sly assault on the minimum wage is actually impoverishing people already in work.

People can see that workfare is very different to useful opportunities such as apprenticeships. What Cameron and Grayling forget is that most normal people (ie not them!) have done McJobs in their time as teenagers or students, or when starting out in their careers and know the score. If you were a Saturday girl at Tescos when you were 15 you know that shelf-stacking is something which takes a couple of hours to learn and that your work thereafter commanded a wage. It's not something a 'trainee stock replenisher' (hem hem) needs an unpaid two month apprenticeship to pick up.

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