Workfare versus Work Experience

[rabbitstew]

How important is prior work experience, normally, to a job as a shelf stacker? I would have thought that anyone taking that on via Workfare who then failed to get or take the job at the end of it would be ringing the death knell to any future employment as they would be assumed to have been too slack to even get that sort of work when offered to them on a plate. And I know that unpaid work experience is more or less compulsory to anyone hoping to get into publishing, for example, but I'm sure that nobody would get to keep their benefits if they got themselves a bit of that sort of work experience.

So, basically, I'm a bit unclear as to whom Workfare is supposed to really benefit, apart from those people who wanted jobs in Tesco in the first place, but who now find they can't access them unless they are on a Workfare scheme?????

I want to know why these 'Work Experience' people are not being paid minimum wage.

Even the Daily Mail pays its WE interns a decent amount of money.

And Labour did legislate on it: here is the Act, passed in Feb (?) 2009

personally i dont give a shit if the green party did it on ccoalition with aliens from mars

it

is

wrong

'Even the Daily Mail pays its WE interns a decent amount of money.'

That is good to hear, and frankly comes as no surprise.
Is that also the case for the BBC and Guardian?

'personally i dont give a shit if the green party did it on ccoalition with aliens from mars'
It wouldn't surprise me if that was the case.

Yes, it is a bad policy. Policies today depend on those of the past and future policies depend on those now. They are stepping stones, which is why it is worth studying history, because it does affect events today.

Proof that Workfare is indeed slavery

eoin-clarke.blogspot.com/2012/02/proof-that-workfare-is-indeed-slavery.html

yes but it doesn't pre-suppose a defined outcome. the tories didn't have to do this becuase it was a scheme thought up by labour.

which is i think what is trying to be put forward as the emergent argument, however subtle.

'green party did it on ccoalition with aliens from mars'

Why do you think they call the Martians 'little green men'

Yes, it is a bad policy. Policies today depend on those of the past and future policies depend on those now. They are stepping stones, which is why it is worth studying history, because it does affect events today.

Bwahaha! If you believed that, claig, you wouldn't masturbate over the Daily Mail, a paper which supported both Hitler and fascism in the UK during the 1930s.

That is, of course, unless you really do support fascism; you do tend to be quite the right-wing populist after all...

'the tories didn't have to do this becuase it was a scheme thought up by labour.'

Depends if you think that they are opponents or both parts of the system, together on the 'one-way street'.

I was actually pointing out what Labour legislated on this to show a reason, other than incompetence, why opposition was slight to non-existent.

I was surprised to find out how much further Labour was planning to go, much worse (especially with regards to permanency) than what is being proposed now.

And I do think that the "nasty" party label should be applied just as much to Labour; excusing Labour for actions one condemns in others is double think/speak; something which makes me uncomfortable as the thing I hope for most is more competence in actions not all attention on discourse management. But I'm coming to understand that that is all the Opposition can offer, given their actual legacy and lack of a current agenda.

No, I don't support fascism. Mussolini was once a communist. I support Margaret Thatcher, who was never a communist.

There is nothing wrong with being a populist. It means you are popular with the people, which is what democracy is all about. It is parties which are unpopular that attack other parties for being popular.

Tony Blair was a populist.

I really don't care whose idea anything was first. Bad ideas are bad ideas.

If the people liked him, then that is democracy.

Yes, but he didn't do us any good - he was too busy trying to sound good and look good to do good.

He did some good things and some bad things. But you are right that some populists are actors rather than doers.

I have looked at Edith's link to Labour's 2009 Welfare Reform Act and there is stuff in there about 'work for your benefits'. Thinking about it, I think the reason that there was much less opposition to it then than now, is because it was a time of not so high unemployment. They started it when times were better, so it didn't register as much with the public. But the Tories have just begun implementing their scheme in a time of high unemployment when people are scared of losing their jobs. That is why the protest has registered with the public and why companies are worried about their public image.

The Coalition is implementing lots of reforms all at the same time, a time of high unemployment, and that is why they are facing more opposition than Labour did.

If work experience is doing for no pay work that you are already capable of doing and have done in the past for money, then what is it called when you get under someone's feet for a few weeks to see what a job that is currently above your capabilities would be like, help out in fairly inconsequential ways, have lots of talks and tours around the firm and further afield, all so that you know whether or not it is something you could aspire to and can have a better idea of how to achieve your aspirations (and can prove on your CV that you are genuinely interested and have had a chance to impress by being seen at the firm)? Is that mentoring? Wasting someone's time? Getting under a busy person's feet? Because when people do that in City law firms, it's called work experience.... How silly is that? And you know what? You actually get paid for it.

Perhaps the English language needs to be expanded, to cope with the various different designations of "work experience." After all, all employed people are doing work experience. Cleaning your own house is work experience.

'Perhaps the English language needs to be expanded, to cope with the various different designations of "work experience."

George Orwell has already been through that. He would have had a field day with New Labour and may have concluded that "experience" was newspeak for "being shafted" and "progressive" was the exact opposite.

And "job snob" was someone who expected to be paid for doing a job.

Whatever team you support is irrelevant really, the match is fixed... unless of course your prepared to think outside of the box, like these resourceful young people many of whom are not the unwashed illiterate job snobs grayling would have us believe.

Grayling is using the language of fear to put down opposition, we are being asked to believe that anyone with even a whiff of socialism about them is an extremist and a trouble maker, in short an enemy of the people. Divide and rule and pretend there are no alternatives to neo-liberalism.

Oh dear, people liked Tony Blair because after years of a right wing government people wanted public services, care for our elderly, an NHS, investment in schools.

Tony stopped short of regulating banks and businesses and stopping the legislation of the Tory Government that was allowing creeping privatisation. Why- because he wasn't a socialist and he wanted to get rich. He is like one of those lizards that change colour.

Well he's certainly rich now.

And I don't think any of his children will be stacking shelves in Tesco for £67 a week post- university.

I am not a job snob, stacking shelves is an honest day's ( night's) work but I would want my children to have an honest day's pay in return for that.

Honestly, it is so annoying turning on the radio and listening to twerps going on about their previous employment stacking shelves, etc. Do they really think they are giving a noble example? I don't know many university students who can't quote back the exact same experience - except in the old days, they expected their employer to pay them for it. Now the same people who used to be paid to do it are being forced to do it for nothing. There is no joy in that, no sense of having been capable and responsible - just a sense you are being punished. Maybe it's slightly less outrageous to do this to people who have no experience whatsoever of the world of work and therefore have no means of proving they can even turn up to their job in the first place, but the whole point is, the schemes are not limited to people like that. People who are perfectly capable of turning up and working hard are being treated like untrustworthy scroungers being done a good turn by a put upon and noble business.