I STILL think Tesco should fucking well PAY THEIR STAFF. Workfare is wrong!!!!

[TapselteerieO]

Still angry, I hope the protests on the 3rd of March all over the country really keep this campaign lit, it makes me furious to think people seem to assume it has been sorted.

I will boycott every company that uses schemes like this until they are ended completely.

RabbitStew, what should replace them. At the moment Grayling is handing The SWP new supporters on a plate.

Every person opposed to this with even the vaguest idea of right wing ideology, every person who doesn't read the small print and everyone directly effected by these policies is now very helpfully being sign posted towards SWP.

Attempt at light-hearted humour clearly went down like a lead balloon.

Sorry.

I think the work experience program is an excellent idea but I can understand the bleating from the sheep if I am honest - my DS reacted the same way when I told him he would have to start doing chores to earn his pocket money.

He couldn't see why I suddenly seemed to "take great pleasure" in having him wash the dishes after dinner, or do the hoovering, or walk the dog as a condition of him getting his full pocket money.

But like I explained to him, I have to work very hard to get the money I was previously giving him for free. Once he got to an age where he could start contributing to our household in a positive way rather than using me as his 'personal bank and meal cooker' I thought it only right that he did.

The funny thing is I was previously paying him £10 a week. He didn't like doing the dishes or the hoovering so he set up a 'car washing business' with his friend, and now at weekends they wash the neighbours' cars for £3 each. Once he realised that money isn't free he chose how he would earn it as he didn't want to wash dishes when he could be admiring sports cars (what boy does?).

This is very similar to the work experience programme. People are finding jobs who previously could not. They are either finding them through the programme itself or finding them because they don't want to actually do the programme at all (someone on here said she found a job working for an adult chatline rather than work for her benefits in a soup factory). So there's a success story right there - she actually found herself a job and came off benefits. That's one down, just a few million to go.

JMO.

The Government seriously needs to drop its stupid NHS bill if it doesn't want a majority in this country baying for its blood. It has shown it has no effective control or oversight over private entities providing public services and that the result is very wealthy businesses and individuals profiting from taxpayers' money for doing a bad job and not keeping any of their promises (and constantly asking to pay less and less tax and get more and more money for their "services"). Why on earth it thinks it should therefore allow yet more private entities into the NHS is the question: the answer cannot possibly be that it thinks it will in the long run save the taxpayer any money - it must be the start of the road to telling everyone that state provision of all healthcare is unaffordable and that a several-tier service will now be provided, instead, with only the destitute benefiting from a few free, charity-run clinics, and the state bowing out altogether. We will end up with a state which exists solely to provide subsidies for private enterprise, and free labour.

Paddysmummy: the bleating from the sheep
Nice.

interesting piece here about the '50% success rate' being widely quoted by supporters of 'workfare'

Paddysmummy the woman you mentioned who found a job with a chatline was me.
There is a glaring oxymoron in your post.
Your son CHOSE to go and wash cars to earn his money. he got to CHOOSE where to go. Cait Reilly was already volunteering in a museum and got forced to do workfare in Poundland instead.
You are obviously a selective reader because in my previous posts i mentioned that before the chatline job Reed/Pelcombe had already put me through workfare for 3 months at a charity shop and the council combined so you really think it was ok for them to carry it on with ANOTHER 3 months in a soup factory.
Well i tell you what then all you women on here who are so keen on these schemes and think that it worked out so well for me, wouldnt have minded then if your DHs and DPs had phoned me for a very explicit chat because it keeps me off the dole yes???!!! And proves that these schemes work so well.

PaddysMummy, of course, would love to do her job at no cost to her employer and at below minimum wage. Perhaps she could cut her hours and salary in half and give them to a Workfare applicant - then she might not think showing the lazy slacker of a welfare applicant what real work is like is such a good idea when there aren't enough jobs to go around. She may think that is an especially bad idea if her residual income is then not sufficient to cover her costs, but is told by the Government that she won't get any help unless she finds further work, up to a minimum number of hours per week, and then realises that there isn't any other work out there for her to do (unless she does it for free via a "Workfare" scheme).

But I suspect that her sort of job isn't the sort to be at risk in that way, or she wouldn't be so complacent about it.

Still, she could always take the risk of setting up her own business, if she can find a bank to lend her some money to get it started.

CarerNotASaint - What on earth are you saying? That people's DP's and DH's call you up for explicit chat because of the workfare scheme?

Don't be so ridiculous. They call you up for explicit chat because that's what turns them on. It has nothing to do with workfare.

Or are you suggesting that if you were allowed to be back on the dole that people's DP's and DH's would suddenly cease to have the urge to talk dirty?

:confused:

Of course not but if they DIDNT phone women on chatlines,then the chatline companies would go bust and then the women working for them would have to go and sign on again especially if they were doing full time nights like i was.
Sorry but youve made yourself look really silly with that last post.
All i meant was if your OH phoned one you obviously woudnt mind.
But of course you would. You would be starting a thread on the Relationships board under a different username so you are not shown up for the hypocrite (NIMBY) that you are.
Its like those blokes that go and see strippers and lap dancers but would go ape shit if their wives or daughters did it.
Not in my backyard eh!

Of course they dont call because of workfare.
Im still astounded that ive had to explain something so simple to you.
That if goods or in this case, a service isnt purchased a company goes bust and the workers end up on the dole.

CarerNotASaint - you said ^Sorry but youve made yourself look really silly with that last post.
All i meant was if your OH phoned one you obviously woudnt mind.
But of course you would. You would be starting a thread on the Relationships board under a different username so you are not shown up for the hypocrite (NIMBY) that you are.^

Well I rather think that I don't need you to tell me if I have made myself look silly or not (you're on the phone telling off a naughty 52 year old schoolboy now dear).

And I'm wise enough to realise that my DH didn't stop having sexual thoughts or fantasies on the day we were married. If he happened to give you a call one night I'd be pleased for the fact he's helping to keep you in a job and give me time alone with the DVD player and my Sopranos box-set.

If you don't like your job you should find another one instead of suggesting we should let you live on benefits to stop our men from cheating. I've never read such a weak excuse in all my life.

Have you guys seen this piece linked in another thread in the Fail? It seems Mumsnet has been infiltrated by left wing extremists posting Workfare threads.

Well I have been called worse in my life

Paddys Mummy i left the chatline job for another more "socially acceptable" job waaaay back in 2003.
I never said that i wanted to live on benefits Nowhere in my post does it say that i wanted to go back on benefits so sorry to disappoint you Ms Hopkins.

I NEVER fuckin suggested that you "let" me live on benefits. Isnt it strange how Child Benefit isnt seen in the same way. I

And by calling me dear and being patronizing you have also proved that you look down on chatline workers as well as benefit claimants. Chatline workers pay taxes too you know. I think you would look down on a working class person no matter whether they were signing on or in a paid job or signing on and on workfare. You just see them all as beneath you which is proved beyond all doubt by your patronizing tone.

I'm a bit fed up of having to repeat this, but I paid tax and NI (at high rates) for 25 years. I barely used the NHS during that time as I had BUPA and, being childless, benefited from few of the public services I was paying for.

The majority of Mumsnetters, however, did benefit from my payments. You are mostly younger than me so, PaddysMummy, your son's education, his health & dental care, your own further education or training if you had them, the police services you have used and your perinatal services were thanks to me and the millions like me.

How dare you now say I shouldn't benefit from your payments and require me to further damage my health by doing some inappropriate job in a warehouse for the pittance you and your contemporaries pay me.

Paddysmummy, really, you expect women to take work in the sex industry? please, views like that went out with ark, as did support for slave labour.

We do have "slave" sex workers in this country, trafficked here and exploited. Exploited by MEN for PROFIT

Are you suggesting we should ignore this as well?

Do you think tax payers money should be spent on subsiding jobs on chat lines just so your hubbie can get off?

carernotasaint - you sure do make a lot of assumptions about people. We've only just begun discussions and already you have me down as a hypocrite NIMBY who would feel threatened if her husband spoke to a sexline worker on a phone enough to make up another username and post about it publicly for advice whilst looking down on all working class people and people on benefits.

Anything else you'd like to diagnose for me? This will save me a fortune in therapy!

It's a shame you didn't see your position as "socially acceptable" - I think you might have some issues. The rest of the world honestly couldn't care as much as you appear to think they do.

garlicbutter - I too use BUPA and my son is privately educated, but I get the gist of what you're saying. But you see, just as you paid into a system that looked after the next generation below you, we too must do the same. If all the money went 'upwards' we'd all be in a right mess when it comes to schooling our kids and providing them with healthcare and housing. Young children don't have savings in the same way that older people do and they need our help financially to get on the housing ladder seeing as our own generation pushed the prices way up high and out of their reach.

Some people seem to be treating the National Insurance scheme as though it were some type of savings club - you pay in for a while and then you're entitled to withdraw the cash back out with interest. It doesn't work that way. That's what savings and investments are for. National Insurance is for free healthcare and provides a safety net for the population. 2 different things.

JMO

Glass houses, have no doubt MrsP that you will be next!

Once you erode the link between work and pay, no ones job is safe.

National Insurance is supposed to provide a safety net, yes. So I fell and need a safety net. Why do you now want to make that conditional on "working" for that bit of net?

I hardly need to point out that, if I could still be working, I would! Living on £90 a week, in a shabby rented house in the middle of nowhere, wasn't my choice by a long way. And even this is being cut.

(poor syntax - tired)

Did you know the insurances stop paying after a while, PaddysMummy? When mine did, I sold my investments - all at once, at a very bad time market-wise, but I was trying to get back on my feet.

You would need literally millions to cushion you through a severe loss of health.
My story isn't that unusual.

Paddys - some benefits are condition on NI payments, so they are related to what you pay in. Contributions-based JSA, for instance. The idea is we all pay in so there's a safety net for those who need it, which might include any of us if we have some bad luck.