Occupy Mumnset - Mumsnet, i know you are P(p)olitical. Seriously, can't you tell your advertisers to fuck off if they are workfaring?

[Tortington]

i got an e-mail telling me i had % of retailers that are involved in the workfare scheme and it occured to me that Mumsnet is usually on the side of good

oh staff of MN you know me well, whilst i was disappointed that the Maccy D advertising question was even asked, i wasn't arsed tbh. i've always shouted 'its a business not a charity' ...

but this is different - It is very very wrong, and you are perpetuating the wrongness by advertising them.

"This is cheaper and would be great for the brighter children, but it wouldn't increase the number of children who can benefit from that method. There would still be a great swathe of children who don't learn well that way "

Exactly.

"Our industries need top talent in order to compete worldwide. We need the best educated workforce possible or we will decline in prosperity. Schools exist to train people for teh future, not for supermarket shelf stacking jobs"

But if Tesco's is a growing sector! as someone up thread suggested it was, at the moment it is still one of our largest employers-who will stack shelves in Tesco? Oh that's what the Immigrants are for then!

I might also add that just as worfare isn't about real jobs, this government doesn't believe state schools are about real education. State education exists to keep people occupied for a number of years freeing up a workforce of women (who are almost always less well paid)

If we really wanted to improve the life chances of all children we would cut the heart out of the elitism and get rid of private schools.

I agree that Government policy in the 70's was based on left wing progressives ideas. Ideas that haven't served all children well but returning to parroting geography facts will not create analytical thinkers,it will create people capable of mid level skills , unable to question anything.

I agree with Claig. We compete in a worldwide economy. It's an absolute disgrace that in a country as rich as ours that we have perfectly intelligent kids leaving school with qualifications which mean naff all in the real world.

At the same time, asian economies are churning out high quality graduates who have been taught subjects years before our kids learn them. They aspire to study engineering rather than the soft crap subjects we lure our kids into.

Then we wonder why our economy is being overtaken by our competitors.

Dumbing down education is the worst thing any government can do. It may bring them short term benefits in popularity stakes when kids are all getting A*'s but in the longer term we all suffer when we cannot compete.

It's not ghoing to be just JSA c;aimants.

next year, with Universal Credit, the scheme extends HUGELY for aprents where the child is under 5.

A SAHM or one working under 24 hours whose partner works FT but earns under a certain amount (somewhere between 17 and 18 grand) will either find work, go on workfare or lose income from benefits.

A carer whose child is on MR will be in the same position. Even if they have multiple children on MR to care for which is not as rare as some think- they will have to work for 20 hours or lose benefits. All benefits.

And remember DLA seems to be getting harder to claim so some of the kids on HR now won;t be getting exemption: I could well end up on workfare.

Anyone working 16 hours now will be expected to get top up work or take on workfare.

Of course we all know there are jobs everywhere right?

And there are schemes that will expect the terminally ill and disabled to be on workfare permanently too.

What we have now with workfare is scary but it's meant to soften us up for next year's attack, which is basically a removal of tax credits by subtle means.

'I might also add that just as worfare isn't about real jobs, this government doesn't believe state schools are about real education.'

Which governemnt are you talking about? Certainly not this one.

minima, you should listen to teh speech of Rupert Murdoch made to celebrate a Thatcher anniversary. He says that education is one of the most important thing that government can supply for the nation and its employers. He doesn't want a dumbed down workforce, he wants the best educated workforce possible to help his companies and the nation remain competitive. All good employers are the same. It is in not in the interest of any business, apart from sweatshops, to keep people ignorant.

Oh wrt to education

One of the HUGE issues I can find with workfare is that AFAICS (and I have read the papers from the Government) there is no exemption for those studying or in training.

Post redundancy DH has managed to get himself self employed because he was able to retrain: he'd never have managed workfare-exemption hours alongside or workfare (he does do PT work) so could not have made that route workable as a parent with responsibilities.

I've a degree, almost an MA: the plan was always that as soon as I could find a way with the boy's needs I would either teach or do social work. But I can't consider that with UC, as either I use my carer exemption to either get out of it or minimise my hours or I work FT or do workfare.

It actually makes it HARDER for people to remain employable in a changing labour market! That's nonsensical, we need people to be able to retrain to match need, not say 'look I know you did this good skilled job for years but the company moved so now pop off to Maplin and stack shelves there's a love'. (Maplin at forefront of mind as DH is similar field and finding alternative sources for stock, ones that don't use workfare, as we speak).

And I di workfare will they use my MA or degree? like Hell; it';s shelves for all! How does that even make sense? I wouldn't mind a day a week doing something towards actually filling gaps on my CV if I could fit around DH; workfare can't be that flexible though it would seem.

And the big joke?

If I do end up on workfare, as there is no childcare available to us DH will likely have to stop working to manage the boy's needs

Laughable.

Capitalism is competitive. It needs teh best modern machinery and teh best educated brains from top to bottom. It needs teh best educated managers and teh best educated workers in order to make use of the best modern ideas and adapt to the best modern technology. Any business with a poorly educated staff will face great competition from a competitor with a better educated workforce and will eventually decline. Private businesses cannot rely on state subsidies to survive, that is why they need an educated workforce.

The swedish Government is concerned that in the private enterprise schools that profit is being put ahead of education. Many schools that have been privately funded lack books and libraries and kids are being taught in porta-cabins.

So why doesn;t UC count education as a valid reason not to be working Claig, if they value it so much?

Why would completing training mean our entire family were left without access to UC as a result of my choices? Why would it penalise anyone made redundant trying to acquire a new skill set?

Sancti, I'm talking about school education. But I agree they should treat further education just as well. I don't know what they are doing there and why.

minima, I am not too bothered about portacabins. I was educated in them myself for some lessons and I found them good fun, different from teh rest of teh building, with huge windows to look out of etc.. But books are crucial and the private suppliers need to be regulated by the state to ensure that they provide adequate learning materials. If not, they should be penalised, fined and eventually their licence to teach should be revoked. That way tehy will have an incentive not to cut costs.

Workfare will get it's tentacles into lots of homes after UC is brought in.

I am self-employed but planned to retrain once both children are in school. I can manage both quite easily as I work from home.

However I will have to forgo UC because DH earns just under the cut off point or I will have to jiggle the hrs I report to work at NMW . If I do that, I won't be earning enough to justify to them that my work is worthwhile I will be forced to seek a job, I have never in my life claimed JSA and I won't have this or any other government dictate that I do.

The Asian countries niceguy2 talks about churn out a tiny proportion of highly qualified graduates and rely on slave labour for the rest. I don't want to copy that, thanks. Yes, I am intelligent, my dh is intelligent, we have intelligent children who will probably benefit from a return to a more traditional education, but it will be a more traditional education for the production of an elite at the expense of the majority. Just as in the Asian economies, where you can live on a rubbish dump in Jakarta all your life cleaning up after rich people 20 hours a day and virtually starving to death at the same time.

"suppliers need to be regulated by the state"

That answers neatly the need for the state to be involved because private profit driven companies will not act ethically and can not be trusted.

Rabbit makes an excellent point about Asia. Tesco is pulling out of Asia because there are not enough of these highly skilled people and the poor can not afford to shop at Tesco.

You or they may have no choice, rabbit stew. Asia is the emerging big economic power. Many more jobs will require doing or providing what Asian companies want.

The old welfarist European model has gone now.

The state must be involved because the state is using our taxpayer money to pay for the service. It's the same as the state being involved in asking questions about BBC salaries etc.

Well, yes, Abra1d. The world isn't nice enough to behave morally. We don't even know whether the whole of the world's population could be sustained fairly, so that everyone gets a more reasonable share, and don't want to find out. That's why Tony Blair speculated and accumulated while he knew he couldn't lose, because he didn't want to be one of the losers when the inevitable crash came.

Crashes are not inevitable and the planet won't be destroyed. Don't believe the doom and gloom preached from the progressive pulpit of deliberate despair.

Traditionally Public and private have been entirely separate spheres. This is because capitalists hadn't succeeded in impoverishing the labour force through low pay but this has changed because of immigration and rising unemployment (driven by profit by corporations and the interest of investors)

We now see a situation where large monopolising companies can grow but only by taking over areas of "public" business because opportunities in the private sphere have stalled through impoverishment of their traditional consumers.

There are now only two ways in which profit can be driven that is through even lower labour cost which however counter-productive that is, it is being state sponsored through tax credits and workfare.

Or

Through the state sanctioned and state sponsored take over of the public sector.

Don't believe the doom and gloom preached from the progressive pulpit of deliberate despair by people who themselves are millionaires.

But why believe you, claig?

'This is because capitalists hadn't succeeded in impoverishing the labour force through low pay'

But American citizens have a higher income than Cuban citizens. Capitalism enriches a population, which is why wages in China are on the rise.

'But why believe you, claig?'

Because I am not a millionaire and I can't profit from lies, oh no, to me does not apply the famous maxim "cui bono?"

minimoathsmouse

"capitalists hadn't succeeded in impoverishing the labour force through low pay"

No, but socialists usually do a pretty fine job of impoverishing people.

"Through the state sanctioned and state sponsored take over of the public sector."

What on earth do you mean by this load of gibberish?

But Cuban citizens are mainly impoverished because the Capitalist US cut them off from most of the world - ie it picked on them because it could.

"Don't believe the doom and gloom preached from the progressive pulpit of deliberate despair by people who themselves are millionaires."

I am very confused by the idea that people persist in believing that labour is a socialist party. Hasn't been since Tony had a pint in a pub with Brown while Smith was still opposition leader. Tony Blair is a cynical and dangerous man who just opted to take the train, that was due to stop at his destination, nothing more.