New workfare trial for school leavers.

[carernotasaint]

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/workfare-for-school-leavers-work-30-1284204?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

I've never heard of a charity that doesn't pay at least some of its employees

Many many charities don't have employees, only volunteers.

Charities don't exist if there are not beneficiaries, so the need for the job to be done exists whether or not anyone is prepared to pay for that work to be done. Plenty of charities do work that should ideally be provided by the state, but the state can't afford it. So if the state is having to pay people to live because they can't find an employer who is willing to pay for their work, then the state can rightfully expect the people that it has to pay to do some of the work that they can't afford to do.

I can see and understand all the arguements against schemes like this, but I just think it comes back to a simple arguement of what else are unemployed people going to do with their time? There is only so much job hunting one can do, and doing any work, even unpaid, improves a persons chances of getting a paid job. I don't see what the big deal is tbh. Loads of us volunteer for free on top of doing full time work, there is really no reason why someone who doesn't work couldn't be out there doing something useful.

^^ applauds

So which charities don't have any salaried staff?

And how many of them are there as opposed to charities that employ paid staff in key roles?

How do these charities fill admin roles or something like being a social worker at the NSPCC or a full time medical adviser to a health charity or a press officer who would be part of a team required to provide 24 hr coverage on a rota basis?

How do they attract the best people without offering a salary or a career structure to professionals?

What do they do if half their staff decides they want the school holidays off? Can you hold volunteers to things like a notice period if they decide they don't have time any more and you're not paying them?

Do you have children at a state school limited?

If so, I would guess that the schools PTA is a registered charity without any salaried staff.

What about the Samaritans? The national charity has employees, but the individual branches are registered charities in their own right, and they are run and staffed entirely by volunteers.

That's just off the top of my head with charities I'm involved with. I don't see how the rest of your post is relevant.

There are literally hundreds of small charities I could name that have no salaried staff - on our books alone there must be a hundred. Would you like a list? The bigger ones of course have salaried staff, but would almost definitely started up run by volunteers alone.

And there are lots and lots of policies and procedures around recruiting, training and managing volunteers re: holidays, expenses etc. I run courses pertaining to such things - legal issues too.

Just because you can't answer the questions doesn't make them irrelevant.

The Samaritans do have salaried staff, just not everywhere. I'd guess that's the case with all national and international charities. Such organisations need to attract skilled and professional staff which in almost all cases means paying them.

Your example of a PTA isn't relevant to this debate because off the top of my head I suspect that no PTAs are participating in this scheme, though it would be wrong for me to swear that.

It is very difficult if not impossible for small charities to take part even if they could do some good because the admin and other rules involved in getting accepted as a DWP partner.

You can dress it up anyway you like, it's still free labour.

Why employ someone when you can get someone for free.

I did tonnes of the new deal work experience crap back in the day, believe me they do not prepare you for work by any means.

when you are work experience scum, no one but other work experience people talk to you really, you are not worth the bother because you are not proper staff, you get no training, no respect just treated like the dogs body for a few weeks expected to clean floors and make tea and just generally do as your told and then fuck off.

Most long term unemployed are rather depressed and lacking motivation such things don't help, when I got a job I was amazed at the difference, management treat you with some respect, you get taught stuff, co workers are friendly and talk to you etc.

And why would a charity want someone who doesn't want to be there? if you have no passion for the cause you will just be a hindrance rather then a help.

But which of those charities you mention are eligible to participate in this scheme but?

I don't doubt that many of them could give highly valuable experience. Like the museum Cait Reilly volunteered for. Unfortunately for her the museum didn't count as far as the DWP was concerned and they wanted her to work for one of their approved partners Poundland.

She lost her case because she argued that Poundland amounted to slave labour and the judge disagreed.

I don't think it does either but I do find it spiteful and baffling for the DWP to dismiss someone with the initiative to find her own placement in the field she wants to make her career and that she's already taken steps towards through study. Surely, that's all we can ask of young people?

Or like usual you can go for the short answer, which is fine by me

I don't know yet which are eligible as I don't know the exact rules. I don't make the rules either. All I have said is that volunteering is something that should be given freely and willingly, and not forced upon anyone. I would also like to point out that virtually every single person who walks through our doors looking for a voluneering opportunity is not going to end up as 'free labour' but is doing it because they want to. It's 'free labour' yes when big employers , like Poundland are doing it, but to most small charities, their volunteers are a lifeline to them existing and helping others.

The Samaritans example is even less relevant than I first thought.

How can you expect someone aged 18-24 with little experience of life let alone work to do such a sensitive role?

And what reputable organisation with work experience worth sharing wants to share it with people who have never expressed an interest in that field?

I think we agree but. All organisations want people who want to be there. Even if what you really want is a job, any job, most of us accept that we are going to have to make an effort to show interest in the company.

But definitely so when working for a cause.

I know the Samaritans have some salaried employees, I said that. But most of the individual branches don't.

It's not that I can't answer your questions, even though I really can't because I Idont know how every individual charity operates, but if certain charities are willing to participate in this scheme then that's up to them. It's not up to anyone else to tell them they can't, they will know if they are able to overcome any obstacles or not.

The PTA thing isn't relevant to the debate, but it's relevant in response to someone saying there are no charities that don't have employees, and to the question you posed 'Which charities don't have any salaried staff'?

I appreciate that small charities would find it hard to take part, but again, that's up to them, and even if they can't, it doesn't mean bigger charities shouldn't.

As for free labour, I can't see why that phrase is being used as if it's a terrible thing. Millions of people volunteer for free, think of all the schools, children's clubs like scouts/guides, and thats just for starters.

If people can work for the benefit of others, while they are also recieving monetary benefits for doing nothing else, then why is that such a bad thing? I genuinely can't see whats so wrong with it. If a paid job comes up, or they win the lottery, then they can stop.

I think the benefits system for thise that are able to work should be a give and take thing. Why is it ok for people to do nothing and get money when they coudk do something and get money?

There are plenty of university students, aged 18-24, that work for the Samaritans. They have to get through selection and training, but if they are capable, which many of them are, then they can absolutely do the job, and do it well. And if they can't, which some people can't, including thise that are much older and have heaps of life experience, then there are admin roles.

it's disgusting and as a minimum wage earner myself I am absolutely appalled by it. I go in and work so hard that i often fall asleep within the first hour that i get home and they want people to do that for free for these companies and corporations (oh yes they will get their benefits I know, so still stigmatised ffs) It's disgraceful

I wonder whether David Cameron would have been happy with Ivan being looked after people on the workfare scheme as well and whether he would have felt comfortable with that because I know as the mother and carer of a severely disabled child i want my daughter looked after my experienced and paid people/. Not that that happens because my council are HORRENDOUS

I don't know where the wink came from, sorry.

OK, flatpack. I don't know why I'm bothering with this, and I'd like an answer from you at the end of all this to a very simple question:

Are you in favour of absolute free market capitalism with no intervention from the State whatsoever?

You haven't addressed:

The permanent underclass you create when you have a minimum wage;
Please explain to me in simple words how abolishing the NMW is going to prevent those who are only capable of unskilled work from being exploited for the gain of others? I don't see the abolition of the NMW as a way of eliminating extremes of low pay, I just don't. Someone has to do the shit jobs - letting the market decide what the going rate should be will only result in the wages for these jobs being even worse. Greed is a human trait, corporate greed is its economic manifestation. Unless you are happy for the most vulnerable to have no protection whatsoever, I don't see an alternative for the NMW that doesn't involve even more massive state top-ups to enable people to eat, have a roof over their head etc.

The issue of taking money off people who already have high living costs to give it to those with low living costs
Let's face it, we all have high living costs. The young people you feel should live with their parents may 1) not be safely able to do so, and 2) may have parents who are struggling with high living costs themselves, who would welcome a contribution from their children. I see extended families growing in the next decades because home ownership and renting are both becoming unaffordable. I feel very strongly that working households should be properly supported. Of course it is up to parents to ensure that their working children contribute to household costs - I certainly would - but it has to be possible for them to do so. Working costs money - there's transport to begin with, meals while at work - the rate of current benefits would eat that up for most young people on workfare, leaving them with nothing to put towards their household's living costs. People need to feel that working will leave them better off. Again - human greed. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but if we really want to get people off welfare, work has to pay. Under the current plans, it still won't. If my taxes can make young people think that working is worthwhile, that putting in the effort to work their way up is worthwhile, then I think that investment in removing the culture of welfare dependency is well worth it.

My issue with your claim that there's a "going rate" for unskilled labour which the government somehow magically knows.
I'm not saying that the government 'magically' knows the going rate. I'm just saying that I am not at all sure that employers know it either. There isn't an easy answer and I am not saying that there is - but I don't think that removing all economic protection from employees is not an acceptable solution.

^You're incapable of looking at the issue rationally, because all you're interested in is what 'kind of society' you want to live in and applying your rules for 'making things lovely' to the people that live in it.
What you should be doing is looking at the people that live in it and seeing how they live and building the system around them.^
I've bracketed these thing together because this is where we fundamentally disagree - you seem to feel that the world is the way it is and we should not strive to make it better. I'm sorry, but you make Ambose Bierce sound like Pollyanna! For a start - which people should we be looking at? If we look at all of them, a fundamental conflict emerges. Should we be maximising profits and hoping that something will trickle down? History doesn't look good on that one. Should we take the Cuban/USSR path and ensure that almost everyone has nothing and a corrupt few live in luxury? By the way, I wonder why you get the idea that I approve of regimes like that - I emphatically don't. I just happen to believe that it isn't a zero-sum game between dog-eat-dog capitalism and the excesses of communism. Clearly we will always disagree on this. Your preferred method appears to be to embrace absolute market capitalism with no protection for those who for whatever reason can't fight their way to the top. Me - I recognise that there are no easy solutions, but I also believe that giving up on the problem is morally unacceptable.

But true socialists like you aren't interested in the world as it is, you always want to change it to how you think it should be. And that's why socialism always fails and leaves a trail of corpses in its wake.
Bracketing me with the likes of Stalin and Mao is just plain offensive, so after this I am not going to engage with you any more.

My issue with your claim that there's a "going rate" for unskilled labour which the government somehow magically knows

Just skimming but this from flat leapt out.

Labour is a fixed cost. Any employer, or self-employed person, as flat claims to be, should know to a reasonable degree of accuracy.

It does vary, and labour costs are depressed at the moment. But if you don't know it you are going to go under very fast.

I find it extraordinary that the Government doesn't know the cost of labour, skilled or unskilled, but these days nothing would surprise me.

Neither is what people are willing to swallow and regurgitate.

outraged small charities won't just find it hard to take part in this dubious scheme, their way is barred even if they could contribute something.

I find it outrageous that people are being bullied into working for nothing. If there is work to be done, you get paid. That's the deal that people fought for. You argue about the rate according to your skills and experience and the National Minimum Wage on the day.

I'm nearly 50. My mother remembers seeing men scrapping in the street for a day's work at a pitiful rate in the '20s. She can see those times happening again and it makes her despair. To be blunt, it makes her want to die to have lived to see this again in her lifetime when she thought it had been vanquished.

Do you really want to go back there? And do you think charities, which are meant to help the disadvantaged, should be leading the charge?

Contrary to your view JSA is not a 'monetary benefit for doing nothing else'. It is £60-odd a week for which you have paid.

Contributions-based benefit ends after 26 weeks so you get nothing if you are married no matter whether you've previously worked for 20 years or two - did you know that?

For that, you sign a jobseekers' agreement that commits you to making meaningful efforts to find work. Jobcentrepluses require proof and if you don't come up with it, they can and will sanction you which is a euphemism for taking all your money away.

Luckily many Jobcentreplus staff know how bleak the job situation is and are reluctant to sanction or send people who are trying on wild goose chases dreamed up by the kind of spivs who abound on Jobscentre ad sites or read popular newspapers.

and btw I work for a popular newspaper and in my spare time I volunteer helping people not as skilled at me at arguing their case to fend off these bastards.

So you volunteer? You volunteer and you would say that the job you are doing needs to be done right? And you are capable of doing it on top of a full time job?

But who is going to pay for that? Do you think you should be paid for doing what you do? Do you think it's needed enough?

You say that if there is work to be done, you get paid.

But no ones going to pay for it because it doesn't generate money for a company, nor is it seen as essential enough for the government to pay for. Bit it's still a job that needs doing.

I don't see why people who aren't doing anything else, and who are getting money from the government couldn't be doing some of that work.

I don't know about you, but I enjoy doing the voluntary work I do. I get a lot out of it, I learn, and I know it's helped me get the job I have now by looking good on my CV. If someone wanted to pay me the equivalent of JSA for doing it, I'd think all my Christmasses had come at once!

This isn't asking people to cut grass with nail scissors or something, it's worthwhile work that needs to be done. What is so bad about asking people who are doing nothing else to do it?

And outraged if you are involved with the Samaritans how have you managed not to come across people who, since the autumn of 2008, have lost their jobs, their homes, their relationships and are now suffering depression to the point of being suicidal?

That's a serious question because I've met plenty of people like that and I don't even work for the Samaritans. I'm wondering how you do and you've not noticed them.

I have come across people in horrible financial situations. That's nothing to do with my personal opinions on this proposal.

If anything, I think having a purpose could benefit people.

My CV doesn't need polishing. I volunteer because it needs to be done. I'm angry that people are being treated badly just because they are weak. I'm also angry that so many people think people are scrounging just for claiming the meagre benefits to which they are entitled.

What is your reason apart from being able to get yourself a job?

you might have x-posted in the meantime but have you met anyone a bit depressed through the Samaritans yet?