Morning all, How about a straw poll?

[ISNT]

Strawpoll is about jobs and adverts for jobs and the job centre.

A judge ruled a few years back that job centres have to advertise any job which is legal. Thus they run ads for webcam roles, escorts, phone sex lines etc.

Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?

Um.

I agree that they should advertise any job which is legal.

But I would disagree strongly if people wound up being pushed into applying for those jobs on the threat of having benefits cut.

Interesting...

Keep em coming

I will weigh in with my POV in a bit (my stance on this is bound to be a huge shock to everyone )

But if "legality" isn't to be the arbiter of what jobs a job centre can advertise, then what is? What do you put in place instead? If you leave it up to the discretion of individual centre managers then you could get all sorts of hideous discrimination coming through. And it's not easy to frame a nice straightforward easy-to-apply rule (even "the sex industry" is a relatively nebulous term -- we all know what it is, but if you try defining it it gets trickier).

Prostitution is legal. So is masturbating for a webcam. Should these roles be advertised as "govt approved" normal roles for eg school leavers?

proflayton you say that these roles should not be subject to the normal rules in the jobcentre re stopping benefits etc. using your own argument, how are you going to decide which of the jobs have this exemption?

I do think that if it is legal the Job Centre should advertise it
But personally I'm not happy with the idea,and I did wonder whether people can then be told they must apply for this type of work or lose benefits.Because in theory I feel you should be going for any work you can do....but I would rather my DD was unemployed forever than work as an escort...

But then if you are going to say people do not have to apply for particular types of work because they disagree with it,where do you stop?

I think that these types of roles should not be advertised in the job centre.

The job centre is a govt institution and thus the jobs that they advertise are seen as "approved".

There are plenty of other avenues that if you want to work in teh sex industy, you can see job adverts.

It bothers me that young unskilled people (almost always girls/women) will have these roles come up as they (I assume) do not normally require formal qualifications. And many of them pay well (ie it's a "lure"). And they are in the jobcentre so they must be OK.

The counterarguments are that it's legal and some people work there by choice. That 16yo are perfectly well able to make decisions like this, they are adults and if they don't know what they're doing that's their problem. That these roles are "normal", no different to any other job. There is no reason for them to be treated differently. And that if you are on benefits you shouldn't be choosy. Also that while at the moment, there is no compulsion to take this work, in say 10 years time the rules might have changed, and then that's the way it will be. That this is how society is, and you can't change it. These are the arguments that upset me.

That should read that these jobs will usually come up for girls/women, not that girls/women are usually the ones who are unskilled.

I'm sure there is a demand for boys/men to do these roles, but not as much as for girls/women. I would have the same issues for boys/men being presented with webcam type opportunities. However I suspect that men would be more confident in turning down the position, rather than girls/women who have been groomed by society all their lives that a sex industry or porn role is a good career choice.

I have visions of young naive unqualified girls going in and being presented with a list of jobs in the sex industry. According to my collegaues this is not a problem. it's just jobs, like any others.

At the moment, as you say, there isn't a compulsion to take the work. And TBH quite apart from the sex industry stuff that's how I'd like to see it stay. So I don't need to worry about how to phrase an exemption to a compulsion-to-work rule.

You see, I think it's the fact that they have to advertise any legal job that stops (or should stop) their being seen as a stamp of "approval". The moment you start excluding some legal jobs, then you get the consequence that anything they do advertise is seen as "approved".

How are you going to decide what jobs to exclude, and who is going to do it? I'm not opposed at all in principle (in fact would support it) if I thought that in practice there was a coherent and consistent framework that could be applied to exclude these legal jobs but not to exclude other legal jobs that I would be upset/annoyed to see excluded.

there is a compulsion to take work, or lose benefits, at the moment. Sex industry roles are currently exempt from that compulsion.

So it is the case that there are already exemption criteria in place. But you tihnk these should be removed? And the sex industry roles treated like all the other roles - anything goes as long as it's legal?

it occured to me that prostitution fits well with the needs of a mother with children at school. You can work from home, in school hours or after the children have gone to bed, you are your own boss, hours are flexible. it is legal. So should mothers on benefits be encouraged to start their own businesses in this area? If not, why not? It is legal, it is flexible, it pays, and if sex work is the same as any other work, then why not?

Hang on, where did I say that existing exemption criteria should be removed?

I said that I didn't think that there was a serious compulsion to take work at the moment. Apparently I was wrong. Given that, I certainly didn't know that there were exemption criteria to the rules-I-didn't-know-about. And given that, I certainly wasn't saying that the exemption-criteria-I-didn't-know-about to the rules-I-didn't-know-about should be removed.

Given that I've said "I would disagree strongly if people wound up being pushed into applying for those jobs on the threat of having benefits cut" and that I'd like there not to be a compulsion to take work in general (i.e. that there shouldn't be a compulsion to take work and if there were there shouldn't be a compulsion to take sex industry work) I have no idea at all how you concluded "there are already exemption criteria in place. But you think these should be removed?"

I think perhaps you are confusing my position (I repeat what I said before, "I'm not opposed at all in principle (in fact would support it) if I thought that in practice there was a coherent and consistent framework that could be applied to exclude these legal jobs but not to exclude other legal jobs that I would be upset/annoyed to see excluded") with those of the other people you were arguing with in RL.

So how are these current exemption criteria defined, and is it in statute or statutory instrument or informal guidelines or what? If they have come up with a workable framework for excluding sex industry jobs then I would support its being used to exclude them from being advertised in job centres as well as from compulsion-to-work rules. But I think it needs to be centralised and formalised and clear, and not something that an individual centre could use to exclude other jobs that they happen not to approve of.

"I have visions of young naive unqualified girls going in and being presented with a list of jobs in the sex industry. According to my collegaues this is not a problem. it's just jobs, like any others"

This whole scenario appalls me...Would you colleagues really be happy to have their own children facing this as a choice at 16?(and if this relates to the other thread I'm not surprised it threw you...)This could be my daughter,now...

I don't think the exemption should be removed

Sex work isn't the same as other work IMO..but I don't know how you would define this,playing devils advocate here,because the objections are moral,aren't they? Either you disagree because it is "immoral",or because it is exploitative/dangerous.
But other dangerous jobs exist,are the risks people face acceptable in some situations but not others?

I have no idea how they are defined at the moment. Sorry for misunderstanding you proflayton, I took your points the wrong way. I think that some jobs are defined as "over18" at the moment (although in the conversation I had that upset me we were talking about theoretical 16yo) - maybe that is where the line is drawn?

I guess there must be laws defining certain types of sex work and applying a min age to them? Otherwise there would be 15yo working as lapdancers and I'm sure that's illegal. If that is the case (and it must be), then you can easily exclude jobs which have a min age criteria applied to to being in the sex industry.

Well,if you'd like me to come and rant at your colleagues about that situation and actual 16 year olds,ISNT,I'd be happy to oblige...(could be equally ranty about 18 year olds actually)

I can see the Daily Mail headline now...

"Forced into the Sex Industry by the Government"

what a minefield.

i don't think that jobs involving actually taking your clothes off, touching people sexually or 'escorting' should be advertised in job centres.. but then i know somebody who went for an IT job and discovere after interview that it was tech support for a late-night porn cable channel! I'm not sure about these 'support roles' being advertised.

i am VERY uncomfortable with anybody being compelled to take a job in any capacity in the sex industry (even tech support roles)...

but maybe this is idealistic as i don't think that a strict vegetarian should be compelled to work in an abattoir or a strict muslim in a pub or nightclub so maybe i'm just too soft in general on compelling people to work??

How does working in the sex industry fit in with sex discrimination? If you are advertising jobs for porn performers, are you obliged to ensure that you give male and female applicants the same consideration, despite the fact that you require applicants for lap dancing, pole dancing, web cam performers and prostitutes to be female? Are sex industry jobs allowed exemption from laws on sex discrimination in the way that women who work in refuges are?

The Liberal Democrats want the age at which a young person can legally appear in a pornographic film to be lowered from 18 to 16. As almost all women in the porn industry enter it before 21, maybe we should be campaigning to have the age raised to 21 for the sex industry. That would offer some protection to the many women who go from childhood abuse into the sex industry. They would at least have a period of time to deal with their past, look at other options and make choices about the sex industry when they are in a less vulnerable position.

'Under the Lib Dems, the legal age for viewing or appearing in adult movies will be cut from 18 to 16.

But the policy - overwhelmingly passed at the party?s conference in 2004 - has now been savaged on the internet by women who claim it is ?essentially legalisation of child porn?.

One mum, called crystal123, fumed: ?Many young people aged 12 appear 16 or 17 and could easily end up in explicit pornography.

Parenting websites like MumsNet and NetMums are seen as vital election battlegrounds.

A Lib Dem spokesman said: ?Our manifesto sets out what we will do in government. This policy is not in our manifesto.? '

Here is a link to a 2004 article, when they created the policy:

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/let-16yearolds-visit-sex-shops-and-see-explicit-porn-say-lib- dems-567128.html