Unemployed used as unpaid staff at Jubilee event and expected to sleep outside

[HRHEightiesChick]

This story about unpaid workers doing the security at the flotilla event yesterday is bad. They were misled about not being paid, and had to sleep out in tents or actually outside 'under London bridge' was suggested to them. This is Workfare in action again, I believe.

this was the original source of the story, I believe.
The link also contains a film and a link to other people on workfare made to work with little training and no regard to health safety, its awful.

you're quite right carer- what a fucking world- we're heading back to the century before WWII, when the 'undeserving poor' could be sentenced to slavery for the crime of poverty.

Prezza has called for an inquiry into this. I really hope the Tories are held to account over this abomination of a policy. It's not creating jobs, people are being forced to do unskilled work so their 'experience' is pretty worthless and doesn't provide them with the experience needed to find employment plus it keeps people living in poverty.

Britons never, ever, ever shall be slaves .

In Cameron's Britain all poor people are undeserving...

Just check out the WORKING tax credit changes.

Josephine we could always grind them up for fertiliser.

Alternatively, if there are jobs available, they could go to people with relevant experience. There are a lot of them out there.

Why does the Government have to be involved? Actually, why would a Conservative govt even want to be involved in something that smacks of social engineering and State regulation?

There have always been reputable employment agencies or direct recruitment by firms. The only thing the Govt has to bother with is drafting employment law to ensure that people are employed fairly.

Is it because these companies A4E, Parent Gym, Maximus, Avanta etc have seen an opportunity to scoop up contracts worth millions of pounds aimed more at removing people from the unemployment figures rather than getting them into work and doing any meaningful work themselves?

Could it also be that some of these companies are headed by people who have friends in government?

That is really worrying what you experienced limited. Something as high profile as this weekend - it is chilling to think what would have happened in a bomb scare for instance.

This kind of thing is absolutely sickening.

Josephine there are lots of policies for dealing with the long term unemployed. Long term unemployment has lots of causes but the most predominant one seems to be structural (there's a mismatch between the vacancies and the unemployed) so providing education and training as well as relevant, meaningful work experience will help to reduce unemployment. Workfare is just free labour for firms and they treat it as such. Workfare 'employees' are used for the most basic, unskilled tasks they're not getting any meaningful work experience out of it. These are jobs you wouldn't need any experience to get. Their labour is being exploited so firms can make bigger profits.

The biggest cause of unemployment at the moment is down to a lack of demand in the economy. If the government increased the level of demand in the economy the demand for labour would rise and employment would rise with it. The government's economic policies are cutting jobs and reducing incomes. If they wanted to solve the problem of unemployment they could generate employment (probably in the public sector to begin with) which would cause what economists call a multiplier effect.

Does anyone else think that they're actually increasing unemployment in order to justify doing away with the NMW?

Oh, was out today to see yet another private company in action at the last day of the Jubiliee.

Name escapes me atm but it was something ending in -sec. It will come back to me but I don't want to guess and libel a blameless event management company.

Seriously crap. They were stopping people wanting to cross from south to St James's Park to watch the carriage parade from Westminster Hall and fly-past at the Palace.

Fair enough. There were matrix signs warning people that that park and the Mall were full. However the signs were giving Hyde Park as an alternative. It was a long way round and the planes didn't go over there. A lot of people would have got cold, wet, miserable and lost.

We watched it from the doorway of a Pret a Manger behind the Palace. There were lots of people in that road (Grosvenor). I'm assuming they had some local knowledge. It's disgraceful that people attracted to an international event were treated so badly.

Did I mention that the directions were non-existent? The stewards were churlish and clueless and relied on shouting 'move along'.

It made me really grateful for the police and London Underground staff who knew what they were doing. There just weren't enough of them.

Only the hideous weather has prevented a serious accident this weekend. It has shamed the Diamond Jubilee.

Still, I guess loads of private companies are counting their money tonight. Roll on the Olympics. And I truly never thought I'd say that.

ps for once I don't blame Queenie

Does anyone else think that they're actually increasing unemployment in order to justify doing away with the NMW?

mamma yes I do.

I wonder who would sign a contract that said "we'll provide unskilled, inexperienced and incompetent workers at a cost of £x per head per hour"

Or maybe it didn't say that?

Did the taxpayer get a cheap rate, or is the contractor making a fat profit on the back of slave cheap labour?

There was a budget of £1.5m from the Gov

I bet it was sub contracted and sub contracted.

As long as the lead contractor is able to favourably report (no matter how they fudge it) its KPIs nobody will give a fuck how the contract is completed or by whom.

here we are www.close-protectionuk.co.uk/html/services_stewarding.htm

look quick because it might disappear soon

"Our staff are all screened and vetted to BS 7858, CPUK also holds the BSI kite mark for event stewarding (ISO 9001-2000).

Our event stewarding team is led by industry professionals with over 15 years experience within the security sector. We personally meet with all new clients and regularly liaise with all customers to ensure the best service delivery is provided."

uh-huh.

And www.close-protectionuk.co.uk/html/services_eventstaff.htm

"Here at CPUK we pride ourselves on our reputation within the industry and therefore only provide the best and most competent event staff. All of our staff are trained to NVQ Level 2 in spectator safety (supervisors trained to Level 3) and all are SIA licensed in door supervision. Event organisers have the opportunity to deploy staff into licensable activities at a moment's notice demonstrating CPUKs reliability and versatility"

Oh look, The CEO of Tomorrow's People is...www.parliament.uk/biographies/deborah-stedman-scott/87571

How can this company be allowed anywhere near the Olympics?

I'm sure I clicked the box..

www.parliament.uk/biographies/deborah-stedman-scott/87571

Capitalism at its finest!
Not minimum wage....not living wage....Nothing!

I said fair enough about the warning signs but it truly wasn't. It was dangerous and shameful.

GovernmentContract-Sec were covering their arses because they seemed to have no experience of crowd management.

A close look at Close Protection UK's website would appear to show they have no testimonials. Probably just an oversight for a company that's been going since 2005 and one that's soon to be amended just as soon as they get the work experience people in for nothing.

On the day of the boat pageant when I finally got down to Millbank Tower there was plenty of room. It was packed in the same spot on Millennium Eve but it felt safe. The Police, London Ambulance and London Fire were in charge.

On the pageant day, the private stewards failed to tell some teenage boys to get down from a tree overlooking the river. I can only guess because the boys looked a bit bolshy.

It was dangerous. I was prepared for them to crash down and break their necks and damage people below but that's not really the spirit.

The few police around were volunteers.

About today: St James's Park and the surrounding roads are large. There's always plenty of room for the end of the London Marathon and I've never had any problem finding a room for events from the VE Day commemorations in 1995 and onwards.

The difference was that this weekend it was a private company in charge.

On the whole the police don't let you do risky things and if they do, they get slaughtered.

Another first for me. Never thought I'd stick up for the Met. Oh, TfL bus staff were good with help too.

Theres nothing like a job to give you your dignity back er?.

No wonder there are people who never want to get a job if all they have ever known is being treated like shit on workfare/by JCP and paid nothing/a piddling amount under the guise of training, an NVQ Level 2 is nothing, you can get an NVQ2 sitting in a room for two weeks doing basic course work in something, my Art and design level 1 cause at college was an NVQ5 and all that involved was painting of nudes (very disappointing, never did get a male model).

Total bullshit but not at all surprising, the unemployed are only there to be exploited, no one has ever been serious about getting people into work, it's always about greed and exploitation.

Thanks black. I'll add Deborah Stedman to my mailing list.

Yes,thank you for that link Black,.

Don't thank me, thank twitter

Argos are at it again, using unpaid labour. In case anyone should want to picket their face book page

It appears that the security company awarded the contract only have £1,300 in the bank and the company is worth - £1845,00

Why is that the government do not look beyond the cover price of the contract and actually ask the question, How can you provide these services so cheaply? Would that be because the DWP et al, don't give a shit and are happy for companies to privatise tax payers money whilst exploiting slave labour and breaking employment laws. Sickening. Makes you wonder why we pay our taxes, I certainly object to mine being syphoned into the back pockets of greedy bastards. I suspect that that the company is in debt (am off to look into it) and I suspect that huge sums is syphoned off to just a few shareholders.

at this. Look forward to hearing some bullshit from the Tories to justify it. Thank you PigletJohn for those descriptions, yeah right!

Tomorrow's People is a charity