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

I am arguing with someone at work earlier who reckons some permanent jobs are coming out of this slave programme. I told him that's rubbish.

It is rubbish isn't it? They are just using them for the time they are there?

Anyone have a link so I can print it and shove it up his nose show him?

In order to clarify a few wrong ideas about the workfare programs propagated by some news outlets and the coalition, here is a ten point list made by Public Interest Lawyers:

The Government's Workfare Schemes: 10 Facts

PIL acts for a number of individuals, including Cait Reilly, who are challenging the Government?s ?Back to Work? schemes in the High Court. Intensive press coverage and the Government?s attempts to salvage this programme from its current crisis have led to a skewing of the facts. The following may therefore be helpful.

1. Our clients do not object to work or to work experience. Cait Reilly was doing voluntary work experience in a museum when she was sent to Poundland. Our clients, like the vast majority of jobseekers, are desperate to find paid work of any description, including stacking shelves. The term ?job snobs? is therefore a misleading and offensive buzz word being used by the Government to discredit Britain?s 2.6 million unemployed. What our clients say they need is support from the Government to make the most of their skills and plug their skills gaps, in order to ensure that they not only enter the job market, but stay there.

1. The Government is not ?paying them... through benefits? to work, as the Deputy Prime Minister has claimed today. Jobseekers allowance ranges from £53.45 to £67.50 per week. It is paid for one specific (and obvious) purpose ? to support people whilst they seek employment. It is not remuneration for work, and even if it were it would mean that people on Back to Work schemes would be getting paid as little as £1.78 per hour, often whilst working for some of our biggest retailers. Many of those retailers are now realising that such a scenario is unacceptable and have either pulled out of the schemes or demanded that the Government thinks again.

1. People are not being given a choice. Ministers claim that work under these schemes is not forced but voluntary. This is not correct. The Community Action Programme, Work Programme and Mandatory Work Activity Scheme (the clue is in the name) are mandatory, and jobseekers will lose their jobseeker?s allowance if they do not participate. The Government says the sector-based work academy and work experience schemes are voluntarily, but Cait Reilly was told in no uncertain terms that her participation was ?mandatory?.

1. The schemes do not work. Ministers claim the schemes help people into employment. Yet, the international research the Government commissioned before introducing them gave it two very clear answers:

?There is little evidence that workfare increases the likelihood of finding work. It can even reduce employment chances by limiting the time available for job search and by failing to provide the skills and experience valued by employers?; and

?Workfare is least effective in getting people into jobs in weak labour markets where unemployment is high.?

1. The schemes do not target benefits scroungers or ?the something for nothing generation?: the Government?s internal guidance makes clear that such people who are taking advantage of the system are not eligible for the schemes. They must receive the appropriate sanction of removal of their jobseeker?s allowance as they are not ?jobseeking?.

1. These legal challenges are not simply about ?human rights?. What our clients object to is 1) the forced or compulsory nature of the work required, and 2) that Parliament has been by-passed by the Government in creating these schemes. They argue that this breaches basic democratic and legal requirements.

1. The Government schemes do not amount to slave labour, as some campaigners have suggested. The ILO?s Forced Labour Convention of 1930 defines slavery as connoting ?ownership? over an individual. What our clients are arguing is that the Government schemes are ?forced or compulsory? labour. This too is prohibited under UK civil and criminal law.

1. These schemes are not all aimed at the long-term unemployed. For example, the sector-based work academy can apply to any jobseeker, even if he or she has only been unemployed for one day.

1. Press attention has focused on the sector-based work academy, but that is only one of a plethora of complex schemes, many of which are much worse. The sector-based work academy involves 6-8 weeks of unpaid work. Other schemes involve six months, and there appears to be nothing to stop those six-month periods from being renewed. One of our clients was told that his Community Action Programme placement would last six months ?to begin with?.

10. The Government?s sums do not add up. The Employment Minister has stated that ?half? or ?something like half? of those on work experience have received permanent jobs. He has not advanced any evidence to support this, and Tesco has offered only 300 jobs having taken on 1400 unpaid workers.

For more facts, please contact:

Phil Shiner on 07715 485 248

www.publicinterestlawyers.co.uk/news_details.php?id=231Excellent

Anna

I am arguing with someone at work earlier who reckons some permanent jobs are coming out of this slave programme. I told him that's rubbish.

It is rubbish isn't it? They are just using them for the time they are there?

Anyone have a link so I can print it and shove it up his nose show him?

Nobody really knows:

fullfact.org/factchecks/benefits_work_experience_scheme_participant_outcomes-3340

What is clear, is that there is no evidence yet to support the claim that people are getting jobs from this slavery scheme.

Furthermore, even if a small percentage of people did get jobs at the end, this would not justify forced unpaid labour on people claiming JSA.

I sent this e-mail to [email protected], feel free to C&P it to him, with your address so he can reply. Or write your own.

Dear Mr Grayling

I am against the Government's Workfare Scheme I refer to all schemes that penalise people who withdraw from them resulting in the loss of their benefits including ;

The Work Experience programme

Community Activity Programme,

WRAG/ESA,

Mandatory Work Activity,

Sector-based work academies,

The Work Programme.

I do not in principle oppose the unemployed gaining good quality work experience, that does not involve a full working week and gives them time to pursue available jobs. The compulsory schemes offer companies a steady stream of free labour, just at a time when the emphasis should be on creating stable and lasting employment. If as the Government you would like us to believe that "we are all in this together" then companies making huge profits from the custom of ordinary people should do something to help people back into work without profiteering from free labour - taking precious over-time from part-time workers or reducing the number of jobs available to jobseekers.

I will continue to oppose this scheme and boycott every company that participates, until all organisations involved either remove themselves or amend their terms. All that is needed is a fair day's wage for a fair day's work, and not have people forced (or blackmailed by the state) into mandatory Work Experience Schemes which do not offer this basic right.

Whilst I am being slandered by you in the media, being called such astonishing names as left wing, militant and Socialist I would like to make it clear that none of these are correct, I have no political affiliations. I ask that you stop using such misinformed rhetoric. All who oppose back to work schemes that are mandatory and penalise benefit claimants are predominantly ordinary people, and it is offensive to be treated so contemptuously.

I look forward to your response. I think this is what unemployed people need to help them back to work.

1. All schemes should be voluntary

It's right to offer encouragement for jobless individuals to take up work placements, but the moment they are forced onto the scheme their ability to make the most of their experience diminishes.

1. They should take into account the individual's career hopes

Stacking shelves may be useful for someone looking for a career in the retail business, but not if he or she is a car mechanic. If their hopes are unrealistic, careers advice may be more helpful.

1. They should take experience and qualifications seriously

If the individual is significantly over- or under-qualified for the placement, or already has experience in that field, the benefits to them will be significantly reduced.

1. They should offer a learning experience

The placement should be structured so that, at the end, the job seeker should have a clear idea of how they have benefited. Ideally there should be some kind of project, the completion of which could be added to their CV.

1. There should be a time limit

The longer these schemes last, the more it can be claimed that they are replacing real jobs with free labour. They should run for a maximum of four weeks, or less if the learning element ends sooner than this. Companies participating must show that they are actively looking for new employees, and they have jobs available for the majority of those participating.

I look forward to hearing your response.

Kind regards,

The numbered points were lifted from the Guardian's readers ideas (not my own work).

Catkins - I most certainly do make a right wing arguement against workfare.

My right wing, capitalist, free market, attitude is that firms should pay for their workers and my taxes should not. I want public spending down and people off benefits in work. Paying companies to put people on workfare is not capitalism.

It is also an assult on NMW. Not so sly either. Firms have been lobbying for years to get it reduced or scrapped all together and this is the way they are doing it.

Channel 4 news tonight reported on a single branch of Asda in Harrogate which took on 12 unemployed workers over the Christmas period. The work was compulsory, there was no career development or 'shadowing', just normal shelf stacking. They worked for free for 5 weeks to cover the Christmas rush, and didn't get taken on afterwards. The permanent staff didn't get the overtime they could have normally looked forward to over the holiday period as Asda just used the free workers.

MoreBeta, Capitalism can not be reformed as soon as someone steps in the manage the economy it is no longer a free market.

This is correct It is also an assult on NMW. Not so sly either. Firms have been lobbying for years to get it reduced or scrapped all together and this is the way they are doing it.

Why have they been lobbying to reduce pay? Why do workers constantly struggle to maintain fair pay and conditions and what mechanisms are at work to push wages down?

Thank you ttosca

Oh just to say...it's nanna not anna....but you can call me anytime what you want

Tapselteerie:- I just C&P'd and saved that- mind if I use it as the basis of a letter to fire off to various capitalist running dogs and their cringing lackeys?
(I'm thinking that'll be my contribution to Boycott Workfare Day on 3rd March, as I live along way away from any organised protests)

Feel free stubborn, every little helps

Grayling has just torpedoed the entire notion of mandatory work! On C4 news at 19:20 talking about Work Experience he said:

"And the whole benefit of this, you know, employers don't want to take people who are forced labour. We couldn't refer people on a mandatory basis to big companies even if we wanted to, because why would a big company want to take someone who wasn't interested in working for them."

So that's all Mandatory Work Activity completely sunk then!

In what way did he torpedo it?

He just lied, that's all.

So if the work isn't mandatory, why is it called Mandatory Work Activity? I wonder if he's confused and thinks mandatory means something else, something like 'entirely voluntary and really rather good fun'.

Yes, as ttosca said, he out and out lied. What do you expect from a politician

I was watching that Serialkippper, I thought 'hes just pissed on his own bonfire there'

What people need to remember is that they have the first weeks grace to drop out if its not suiting them.

The first week's grace only applies to Work Experience, for 16-24 yr-olds.

Mandatory Work Activity is what is says on the tin, and can be mandated for almost anyone on JSA and many on ESA, no opt out at any point.

So Grayling
a) has lied by saying he can't mandate people to big companies, as he's already doing it
b) claims that forced labour is a pointless exercise!

Oh and I've just noticed that
c) he's just stated that companies only want people who are going to "work" for them, not just shadow them or learn from them, etc.

He was talking about work experience, that is another problem with the whole Workfare debate, getting your head round all the names for all the different mandatory work for your welfare schemes, there are so many of them, for disabled/terminally ill, for the 16-24 age group, for the long term unemployed and I think the one he says is for 16-24 is also used on people with years of work experience of any age. It is very slippery trying to deal with weasely MP's/Workfare apologists when you really want to discuss the unfairness of the whole scheme.

He was indeed talking about Work Experience, but

"employers don't want to take people who are forced labour"
and
"We couldn't refer people on a mandatory basis to big companies even if we wanted to"

are clearly applicable to any forced or mandatory labour for employers or big companies.

Very good point SerialKipper,
How is he going to flog the idea of unwilling sick people and people disabilities to Tesco for 6 months if he thinks he can't get them to take the work exp group.

Fact is though the ONLY group he is prepared to speak about, the work exp group, people are being led to believe it's voluntary right up to the moment they agree to try it. Once they agree that letter is sent out stating that they HAVE to attend or lose benefit.

It's a technicality that Grayling is using all the time to be able to say it's voluntary. Problem is A4e and others are motivated by profit, they are obviously implying it's mandatory or else the job centre is, which implies that no one knows what they are doing and the scheme is in disarray.

The man is a serious numpty, he might be slippery but with each time he is interviewed he just loses more and more credibility.

The Chief Executive of Greggs was on TV last night explaining his belief that someone who comes in on the workfare scheme should not have benefits supended if they subsequently pull out even after a week or more. Greggs seemed to have a good approach with their work experience graduate interns and some seemed to get management jobs. I thought he gave a good account of Greggs policy and in general I support the approach he set out.

Firms seem to be stepping away from the compulsion, coercion, mandatory and punishment elements of this workfare policy. However, I do still think though that it is not enough. If a firm takes someone on work experience or an internship with a serious intent to employ them if it works out then they should still pay NMW during the try out period of say 8 weeks. A firm that runs a series of internships and never pays or recruits anyone is just exploiting people in my view.

Surely NMW is not something a firm should just be able to avoid by rebadging a temporary employment contract as - work experience?

NMW is not a lot of money and the firm will get some useful work from an intern and showing goodwill on both sides in my view is the best way to recruit and retain good staff.

I have seen a couple of comments on Twitter that Boots have pulled out, although they said that they weren't really in the scheme - has anyone seen any reports?

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2108255/Yes-need-country-working-Sadly-Workfare-going-it.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Some honest reporting at last

Thing is though DWP are now saying they have another 200 compananies coming on board and if you look at the DWP press release for the 29th it clearly says "sanctions remain in place"

I think it comes to something when even the Daily Mail is starting to question Workfare! If anything I'd have thought they'd prefer workfare 'volunteers' to be put in bright orange uniforms and chained together whilst they work!