Iain Duncan Smith really is an arse isn't he?

[MaryMotherOfCheeses]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21490542

"The next time somebody goes in - those smart people who say there's something wrong with this - they go into their supermarket, ask themselves this simple question, when they can't find the food they want on the shelves, who is more important - them, the geologist, or the person who stacked the shelves?"




There is so much wrong with this that I can't even begin. [cross]

[AScorpionPitForMimes]

There were a lot of reports in the media about people not being able to find part-time work over Christmas to supplement their incomes because those jobs were being filled by workfare placements. Wrong in so many ways.

And like MoreBeta I don't want my taxes subsidising the likes of Tesco, PoundLand etc. - they should be paying minimum wage. Cait Reilly was working in a voluntary placement which was relevant to her career field - that's what graduates do to get work experience, and in doing so she was providing the museum with a valuable staff member they could not have afforded to pay. People who volunteer in museums, charities and so on should not be hounded to work for big corporations for nothing - after all, isn't volunteering what the Big Society is all about? Seems to be that IDS believes volunteering is only for those who are minted.

[ttosca]

Well if my graduate son (I haven't quite got one yet) was on the dole, with no clear idea of how to get a job, I would be biting the hand off of a scheme like this, that at least gave him the experience of turning up on time, clean and properly dressed, and doing a good day's work. It's something to put on a CV where some people have nothing, and something that mght give him an edge over the next candidate when a paying job does come up.

Your graduate son is perfectly able to seek voluntary work on his own.

People did and still do plenty of voluntary work outside of the Mandatory Work Programme, you know?

All those things you mention - something to put on his CV, experience, a reference, etc. he can do by volunteering himself. It is really not difficult finding a volunteer placement.

[limitedperiodonly]

Iain Duncan Smith is a nasty, thin-skinned hypocrite. It's a crowded field in the Conservative Party but he edges it.

People who champion his Work Programme are either economically illiterate or spoiling for a fight. Or perhaps both.

[Zavi]

I'm in 2 minds about this.

On one hand, I don't think that people who already have a a long-standing history of paid employment should be forced to take any job, paid or unpaid, if they hit a lull in their employment.

but I do think that those without a paid employment history, such as school leavers or new graduates, should be forced to make some kind of useful contribution in exchange for receiving some kind of welfare benefit.

And that's because I can not think of a single reason why anyone should be given something without giving something back in return.

I reckon one should only be able to take out of a pot if they have put in to it.

Generally speaking, I suppose I'm supportive of IDS's approach, as I understand it

[domesticgodless]

Agree actually moondog (and it's the only thing we will ever agree on I am sure) that the way education is now 'sold' to young people does produce a bit of a sense of entitlement etc. (This comes from teaching experience btw....)

However, Cait Reilly, who brought the case against workfare was not one of these people. It is NOT a sign of a sense of entitlement to want to work for free in a museum rather than Poundland.

She now works in Morrison's part time for PAY (imagine that!!) and to suggest that she needed to sweep floors in Poundland to get that job is ludicrous. In fact if you read about her case she already had retail work experience. Her whole point in getting the museum work experience was to try to advance her career. She is the type of graduate 'striver' the government should be supporting. Instead they kick her out of her well chosen voluntary placement and make her sweep floors for free thus putting another jobseeker out of work.

Disgusting.

[domesticgodless]

If graduates should be doing work experience, zavi, then they should be doing it in a field they want to establish a career in. There are so many sectors which need volunteers.

Hell, they'd be better off doing community work than stacking shelves in bloody Poundland. But they also need time to train and seek work in their field so no work placement should be full time either.

[Knowsabitabouteducation]

Exactly, one hand.

Also, if I were central government looking for companies to give young people jobs, I would approach large companies with fairly unskilled roles.

To all the naysayers, what is the alternative? Free money with nothing in return? They didn't like job creation from nothing, eg YOP, YTS. What is the answer from all you people of superior intellect? You like to whinge about the current system but don't seem to have any pallative alternatives.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

I think IDS's statement probably resonates with a lot of working class voters who, unlike some, think 'idleness' is still one of the Great Evils.

[domesticgodless]

Rhiannon, axing tax credits and top up HB would make many of the strivers of this country homeless. You know, the ones who work full time at minimum wage. But let's forget that eh? It's a subject for another thread altogether anyway....

As to family support- pah. What bloody nonsense. A lot of people don't have families at all, even you must realise that. And with youth unemployment so high, what you are actually arguing for is extended dependence on a huge scale. The results of that in Italy and Spain are clear. A generation which cannot leave home. (No doubt you would put that down to innate 'laziness' though :D)

[ttosca]

I suspect a lot of working class voters believe in a fair days pay for a fair days work.

[domesticgodless]

Duh, knowsabitabouteducation (and you clearly don't).

The point of work experience is not to provide government cronies and poverty pimps (look up A4E, you'll be enlightened.. I doubt you know who they are or what they do) with state cash. It is to train people for careers.

It may be that we cannot provide our graduates long term with anything better than a job in Poundland. However, shunting them straight into that unpaid while kicking someone who needs a paid job out of it is not the way to encourage young people to aspire to something better, is it?

[domesticgodless]

I think you're right about that Ttosca. The whole premise of unpaid work is getting the goat even of former right wingers and Tory voters. It is such clear and wasteful nonsense. Only those utterly obsessed with the idea that all graduates and poor people must be forced off their lazy arses into slave labour even if it puts someone else out of a job and wastes public money in the process are backing this.

[chibi]

i am working class

when i had min wage jobs i would have been simultaneously fucked off and afraid that my employer was not only able but encouraged to hire people to work without having to pay them

i would have been quite able to make the connection with my own precarious employment

i would have wondered when i would be doing my own job for £53 a week or whatever

i would not have been thinking well at least they aren't idle

[VerlaineChasedRimbauds]

I'm really glad to see this thread. I ranted at my computer screen when I saw this on the BBC news site.

It's nothing to do with (or not much to do with) people not wanting to stack shelves. It's the utter, utter idiocy of tax payers money being used to provide FREE labour for big business. This is a nonsense. If someone is going to have work experience (and receive no money FROM THE COMPANY for doing it) then that work experience should be for the work experience person's benefit. It should be something that helps them move forward in their chosen career/job ambition. If the person is stacking shelves that need stacking for a supermarket and that job would normally paid - then the company should PAY for that work. If they don't then it other smaller companies are being undercut by using tax payers' money to subsidise this labour. If the government want to force people to turn up on time and do something in return for benefits then this should not be to do jobs that people should be PAID to do. It should be for a charity, or (as genuine work experience) for the sort of business the person looking for work wants EXPERIENCE in - like, ooh, I don't know, say a museum for a geology graduate. If that geology graduate wants to earn some money and can't get a job in a geology-related post then they will probably need to get a job doing something else. A job. That pays money. That might be in a supermarket for example - as in this example of this geology graduate.

Grrrrrr!

Otherwise, what is the tax payer's money doing? Subsidising big business and depriving another shelf stacker of a job. It's horrible nonsense and yes IDS is an arse.

[noddyholder]

He was on the AM show today and said he is 'jolly well' fed up with people attacking workfare as from his experience young people really LOVE it

[plonko]

Knowsabit, do you not think that the current crises of unemployment is tied up in far too many other things for there just be a single solution? If not surely someone would have already come up with it.

I think some people need to wake up to the fact that many graduates do indeed have work experience before they graduate! I know more people who worked than didn't during their studies - it's lack if jobs, not experience, that is the problem for graduates. Inflated expectations? I'd be incredibly worried about my prospects if I was still at uni.

[OneHandFlapping]

It's pity that the girl in the news was actually doing voluntary work, and that the pen-pushers adminstering this scheme were unable to take that into account.

But one bad anecdote doesn't make a scheme like this a bad idea.

[domesticgodless]

Thanks for clarifying that chibi... I should think that the only people who like this scheme are bitter, prejudiced, probably mostly middle and upper class people who like the idea of punishing people for not having jobs and being poor, young, disabled, etc.

[noddyholder]

I am seriously worried about ds generation just about to go to university (some) and they already have the idea they won't find a job easily and know many graduates working in supermarkets/costas etc with every intention of staying there as it is better than nothing

[Narked]

IDS. Choice of the Tory party members.

[domesticgodless]

Onehand, they 'weren't able' to take her voluntary work into account because they make money from shoving people into unpaid 'work' for places like Poundland.

There's no money for poverty pimps in people doing actual useful work in museums which might help their careers, is there?

Gah.. when will people start to a. actually read about what's going on b. join the flipping dots...

[domesticgodless]

My students at the moment seem a bit cut off from reality (probably due to the crap fed to them by mainstream media) and not entirely aware of the horrors facing them in the employment market- but they are extremely anxious to get 'firsts' etc which of course most of them are not capable of, in order to be 'ahead of the game' as they are aware there is 'a recession' on. But not much else, tbh.

[ivykaty44]

So why take a person away from a volunteer job that is giving her experience to then work for free stacking shelves, how does it help and who does it help?

The company or the ex volunteer?