Essential reading for anyone who cares about this country and has any sense of morality.

[breadandbutterfly]

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jun/08/jubilee-stewards-unpaid-labour-growing?newsfeed=true

Warning - have a stiff drink with you. You'll need it. This country is really going to the dogs.

Unless this is ended soon I fear emigration or revolution will be the only two sane options.

This is not just about the Jubilee example but the bigger picture - the scale of the figures really shocked me. So for example, did you know that

"565,000 people had been referred to the scheme [the work programme - under which people can be made to work unpaid for up to 6 months] over the six months to January 2012"

That's over half a million people working for nothing in 6 months, or over a million per year!! No wonder there are no jobs - no need to employ anyone in wonderful new Tory Britain when the govt will send you fresh slaves every six months to do the jobs instead.

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jun/09/work-programme-welfare-jobs-private-sector

Good article. If you don't get a job after your workfare experience and you are still unemployed, do you have to do another workfare again?

Reading accounts on all the suffering those victims underwent, I have no questions why these particular people become unemployed.

Furthermore, as a vicious migrant, who apparently "stole" jobs of these hard-working individuals, I am going to join Cons the day after my naturalisation to shut "I'm signing on tomorrow," she said" tale up.

Really, you know why every one of the 565,000 people who were put on the slave labour work schemes over that 6 month period became unemployed, do you?

Pray tell. Can't wait for your insights.

I read somewhere that these firms were getting up to 14K to place jobseekers in jobs that lasted longer than a certain minimum period.

Which curiously, is more or less exactly what it would cost to pay one of these people a full year's wage on NMW for a standard working week (incl NI contributions etc). That individual would then get a real job on their CV, with real experience, and pride and work ethic etc, plus they would both pay tax on their earnings and spend them in the real economy. Plus we, the taxpayers, would get the benefit of their labour, if they were put to working on important and socially useful infrastructure projects, eg building lots of new and much-needed houses might be a good start.

Instead, for reasons best known to the govt's cronies running these companies, we are supposed to believe that paying the same amount of money to a few companies, who promptly deposit the loot in tax havens or spoend it abroad will have the same positive effect on either the unemployed or the country.

Clearly it's bobbins. And the unemployed are just the latest big moneyspinner for Tory donors/cronies - along with the NHS, education etc.

This country is going to the dogs and we are letting it happen.

Wow, if that is the case, you are right, it would be better to pay it to the people doing the work. I can't see how passing an unemployed person over to a workfare company is worth £14K of taxpayer money.

I think that's the maximum they can make, if person stays in a job for a reasonable length of time - not every unemployed person will make the companies 14K. But obviously we have to factor in the cost of the benefits we're paying as well as the loss of tax back, loss of REAL work experience, loss of pride and resultant work ethic - with knock-on effects not only on the unemployed individual but possibly also on their family/friends who then see work as impossible to get/nasty/not worth it. So with big loss of future earnings potential for them and big cost in benefit payments and lost taxes for us.

Thanks for making that clearer

This is worth listening to: Wasted youth (Analysis)

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01jqhly/Analysis_Wasted_Youth/

I read somewhere that these firms were getting up to 14K to place jobseekers in jobs that lasted longer than a certain minimum period. Which curiously, is more or less exactly what it would cost to pay one of these people a full year's wage on NMW for a standard working week (incl NI contributions etc). That individual would then get a real job on their CV, with real experience, and pride and work ethic etc
What exactly would you pay them to do? Would these artificially created jobs be looked upon as "real jobs" by employers? Already, many public sector jobs are disregarded on CVs in favour of people that have experience in the private sector.

Labour spent god knows how many billions of pounds creating public sector jobs. It didn't work. Nor does leaving people to rot on benefits for years. It's time to give people the kick up the arse they need to get them on their own two feet again, and I think private sector firms are far more likely to do this than the jobcentre.

Bread, I intentionally said "these particular people", pity that you did not pay attention. However, looking and all that thousands of sympathetic comments on Guardian website, one can clearly see that the childish and irresponsible whiner in the article represents a modern unemployed pretty well.

And hell yes, it is about sense of morality. Expectations to be spoon-fed and baby-sit both at work and at job search - this is what drives people like in the article in their unemployment. Not only you will need to pay them NMW if you want to engage them into work, you'll have to pay to an army of nose-wipers who will have to take care of them at workplace, because they have loads of expectations about "nice experience".

So MsAverage, would you be happy to work for nothing, having had no sleep (except what you could grab on a coach/under a bridge in the rain), get changed into your work uniform in public, then work for 12-14 hours with very little food and no toilet breaks, and then sleep in a swamp? Or be happy for your child to do this?

No, I'd think they were taking the mick.

If it was paid, it would be a shitty horroble job, but at least you could count the pennies.

Why should people be expected to do the nastiest jobs for no money?

And in case you argue that this (notorious) example was a one off, or these people were benefitting from 'training'... What about the other half a million people doing unpaid menial shop or cleaning or office work...? It's hardly as though stacking shelves in Poundland or Argos gives one valuable 'training' - these are all entirely unskilled jobs. When I left school, I got similar jobs in shops, basic office work etc with NO training or experience - it wasn't needed, because the jobs were unskilled. Anything I needed to 'learn' could be taught to be in 5 minutes. I did the jobs and I got paid - and from being paid, learnt a valuable work ethic - that my work was valuable and deserving of a wage - even if my contribution was small and lowly, it was still rewarded with a salary (albeit a small and lowly one too).

Why do you think young people today should give their labour away for free?

Being made to work for no pay = slavery. Pure and simple.

josephine - why do you think 'private sector firms are far more likely to do this than the jobcentre' - there is no eveidence for this at all. In fact, all the evidence actually shows that Jobcentre staff are actually much better at this than the private sector firms have been.

The fact that Jobcentre staff are not paid performance bonuses avoids the temptation for fraud that has clearly undermined the private sector schemes. Plus they have lots of exoerience, needless to say in this area.

Evidence please, for your claim that private sector is better in this regard? (NB you wont find any, as the evidence all clearly points the other way.)

We all know that ideologically you prefer the private sector. But the evidence is clear - as in utilities, as in public transporrt, as in the NHS etc etc - the private sector is actually far less efficient than the public sector.

The only people who claim the private sector is better re those who stand to gain large salaries working in privatised bits of the public sector (or have friends who do who will reqard you handsomely for the contracts put their way), idiots who believe everything written in the Daily mail and those who have never worked in the public sector.

I have worked in both public and private sector and the idea that public = bad and private = efficient bears absolutely no relationship to the reality on the ground.

I run my own business, by the way, but would never be daft enough to claim that I am more 'efficient' when doing this than when I work for a public sector organisation - I'm the same person giving it 100% in both.