Be Excellent To Each Other

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11706545

Whilst I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of forcing career-scroungers into working for their dole, surely forcing people to work 30 hours a week for £65 is borderline totalitarian. I mean, there are more than a few very good arguments for this idea, but seriously - you're going to be forced to work 30 hours a week for around 30% of minimum wage? You'd earn more working a Saturday in the newsagents up the road. Which, presumably is the idea. Hmm. This is a tough one.



NB: Apologies if this has came up in Bits and Bobs or something - I've only just paid attention to the news story myself, so I've missed the discussion. Merge away if so!

As soon as the government can actually provide enough viable full time jobs for everyone in the country, this move would actually have some merit.

As we live in an increasingly overpopulated, increasingly automated society, this is not only impossible, but becomes more absurdly so with every passing year.

But hey, it'll get the jealous middle england types happy, knowing that the handful of dickholes taking the piss (who will be the first to just find a new loophole anyway) will have a harder time. Huzzah, etc.

Yay another idea taken from America.

Suing people with ads on the TV, armed police, tough immigration laws and now working for welfare.

So, these jobs these people would be doing, basically for free... where do they come from, exactly? Because I don't know about you, but given the choice between paying someone a salary and having some poor unemployed sod in and work for pittance, I'm pretty sure I can guess what most places would choose.

It's a crude method to deflate the labour market; in effect, creating a new pool of desperate, even cheaper, labour for local governments and (no doubt overwhelmingly) private sector organisations to replace existing low-paid workers with. I suspect that this scheme will lead to many businesses no longer bothering to create those entry-level minimum wage jobs in future, knowing that they can get the "workers" for even cheaper from government-funded schemes. Therefore, a feedback loop creating even deeper unemployment.

I don't understand how society is meant to function any more.

You have homes so incredibly expensive unless you live in a crime-ridden hovel. You have all your manufacturing and more and more service industries moving overseas. You cut back on all varietys of civil servants.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE PEOPLE MEANT TO DO FOR A LIVING ANY MORE? We can't all work in a fucking shop for minimum wage, as if you work in a fucking shop just making minimum wage, you can't fucking afford to shop there.

There was a piece on The Grauniad about how the number of graduates working in call centres is rocketing. I suffered this indignity, over a decade ago. I hate to think what it's like now, when nearly half of all young people are now attending university.

They want to force people into working 30 hours a week for a month sweeping leaves and cleaning the streets.

If they don't comply they'll lose their benefits for three months, and, likely starve. Or just turn to crime like in the USA.

They're doing it to make people want to work even when there aren't any jobs. I mean, I can't see it working too well in areas like Moss Side and Toxteth.

It didn't really work in the USA either. In Ohio (which was fucking dirt poor and why I couldn't find a job) people did it, got the state benefits out of it and then went to the docs, lied, got loads of prescription painkillers and then sold them.

It's just a way for rich people to look down their nose at people who are less fortunate. The same as in the USA. See, over there the divide is fucking huge. You either have a really nice brand new house in a development with a white fence and a brand new car in the drive (all on strap, mind) and full health benefits or you have absolutely fuck all .

And by fuck all I mean seriously, absolutely fuck all .

The people in the town I lived in in Ohio had less teeth than me. One guy I knew (and went fishing with) used to pull his out with pliers because he had no dental plan.

Nothing is more depressing than contemplating that the Tories genuinely think the United States to be some kind of free-market utopia one that must be imitated with ideological fervour.

I wonder how much organising and maintaining this scheme would cost.

Also, I agree with Anonymous X, it's basically a way of getting around the otherwise legally enforced minimum wage.

Edit: They clearly just want to push an underclass further down, whilst making it look like they are doing something about unemployment.

And if people haven't got the money to shop, no new ones will open and existing ones will begin to close down.

It's all very confusing, this whole economy thing. I'm reasonably comfortable, but I don't think it'd take too much for things to go completely tits-up and that worries me. It seems the divide is growing really quickly, and falling through to the wrong side might not be something that could be recovered from.

I suppose it doesn't help that most people seem to be conditioned just to want expensive consumer items, even if they can't really afford them (and sometimes I find myself doing this, wanting a bigger faster car despite having something that is OK, etc).

It's a silly idea, because of lots of reasons I'm well versed in but can't be arsed to explain. Just take my word for it.

Does this mean MaliA will be sent to some kind of work camp?

That's exactly what they are doing mush.

They don't want to accept the problem and deal with it (because that would cost money, you know? investing into it) so they'll just make the divide even bigger.

A few miles from where I grew up there was this really brutally rough council estate. No one there had a pot to piss in. Most of them originated from soldiers returning home from WW2 only to find they had lost everything. And over the years it just got worse. All of the shops there had to shut down because no one had any actual money to actually buy anything so they just robbed them blind. Burglaries were a nightly routine and in the end they simply got boarded up.

Making people sweep the fuckin streets isn't going to fix that. What they would be better off doing is actually putting some jobs there by way of investing into it, but if there's nothing there for them to make a profit from then they won't bother.

It's like all these ex mining towns. They simply pretend they don't exist instead of actually investing into those areas and putting jobs there for people to do.

If I go further up the valley it gets worse and worse. I remember (I've told this tale before), not long after we moved to Caerphilly, my parents came to visit so we all got in the car and I drove straight up the main road that runs up the valley from bottom to top, terminating at the Brecon Beacons. As we passed through Bargoed, my mother asked why all the shops were closed, shutters down, on a Saturday (note: almost everything in Caerphilly still closes on Sundays). We just kept schtum, we didn't really want to say they're also closed Sunday - Friday as well.

As part of work I've travelled around the neighbouring valleys and it's absolutely horrific in some places. Absolutely hopeless. And then at work I get to see what hopeless people do to try and entertain themselves, via CCTV.

Fucking shame really

Rich bastards went in, fucked the poor until the places were bled dry and then fucked off and left them to rot

What they need to do is accept that unemployment is inevitable, normal and healthy, and stop treating it like some kind of disease. There will always be people out of work, and the only thing that's going to change about that is that the number will, in the long term, only ever rise.

We need to actually acknowledge this instead of acting like there will always be a job for everyone forever, and start finding something constructive for people to do.

Reducing the working week and encouraging viable part time / job shares wouldn't hurt, either. Either way, treating the unemployed like criminals is about the most counterproductive thing we could be doing.

Thing is if there were jobs everywhere and every one had one and was doing OK the rich people would have less.

I mean, let's face it, rich people only become rich by fucking some one else out of a buck.

I don't know where it came from but in Paul Hardcastle's 'Just for money' song at the end it says (something along the lines of) -

If all of the rich people in the world divided their money amongst themselves, there wouldn't be enough to go around

Yup. Not just the rich, either, which is exactly where most of the hatred of the 'dole scrounger' comes from - simple jealousy from people who are never going to be happy with their lot unless someone else is having a miserable time. They see one person out of a thousand getting a few hundred quid they don't deserve, and they go fucking mental because it didn't go to them instead.

But at the same time, they won't create any more positions in their business to give someone like that an honest job.

Like I said, what the hell are people meant to do?

I saw this on the news, but basically it is already in effect, brought in by the Labour party.

Long term unemployed already have to work 30 days for nothing as it is mandatory, I've already been forced to apply for about 12 positions - its called work placement, and guess what, they couldnt even find me a place even working for free. Just shows how little employment is out there.

And I have GCSE's, A levels, Btecs, ECDL and various other qualifications.

The only difference with this, is they'll just get me picking up leaves and burger wrappers that the kids drops for 30 days and quietly sack all the people who were employed to do this job by the councils around the country. This is what they get criminals to do for minor punishments, community service it is called, they'll just attempt to get 1 million people to pick up litter.

I'd like the millionaire Cameron and the millionaire Osborne to work a month for free, it wouldnt affect their standard of living one iota, but apparently we are all in this together. Yeah right.

They know about as much about how the average person lives in this country as I do about the mating rituals of the Platypus.

Welcome to the new regime Britain, we are stuck with them for the next 4.5 years - this is just the start and the poor are truly fucked.

Steal from the rich. Nothing changes there then

Cobra..

I was forced onto New Deal many years ago. It was similar, only the rich cunts got to get some one skilled to work for minimum wage.

Basically they said I had to go on it as I had been on the dole for 6 months. I said fine, sounds good to me. They then spent the next six months trying to find me a position and dishing out threats such as If you don't accept this position we will be forced to stop your benefits

Yeah yeah, blah blah fucking blah.

In the end I got so fucked off with it that I got out a Yellow Pages and phoned every single computer company listed there. Found a position, got it tied to New Deal (nice to do their job for them then ) and started my six months.

I got minimum wage. For four of the six months I worked all day with no lunchbreak only to find out that for an hour and a half a day I wasn't being paid because you know? that was my breaks. It took me a while to realise that even though I was working nine hour days that I was only getting paid for 45 hours (six days a week).

So I decided to leave the store for an hour for lunch. Which got him whining on the phone to them saying that he may have to let me go.

Luckily after about eight months I got to the point where I was hard to replace, quit and then made him re-employ me on my terms getting paid what I wanted which tbh wasn't all that much (£250 a week IIRC).

And going back a bit further how can we forget the YTS? £25 a week to bust your ass as an apprentice on a building site. Sometimes I wonder how the fuck my brother did that.

YTS was brought in by the Conservatives if memory serves, I'm old enough to remember it although not old enough to have had to do it.

I understand about New Deal, but put it this way if I was a manager of a company and I could get a never ending supply of free labour at a month at time, if you have no morals, you'd accept it.

McDonalds are all over this as you can imagine, but as the Job Broker lady told me, they arent even enough vacancies for her to meet her targets. She left recently I think she hated the job she had.

Anyway, I've had my details forwarded to another 2 free 'placements' (although I prefer the term forced labour) this week so lets see.

For anyone who has a safe job on this board reading this (and with 25% cuts across the public sectors I dont think there are any safe jobs any more), you dont want to go through this hell.

But we'll see, obviously there will be jobs for "forced labour supervisors" coming up on the jobpoints inevitably .....

One last point I'd like to make is - the money isnt gone, money doesnt just "disappear" its just been pissed away on stupid project, overpaying CEO's, paid into the huge Europe budget and god knows what other shit like paying for the Olympics.

It'd make me angry but I'm on beta blockers these days, so I just remain bemused with a steady heartbeat.

You know what else McDonalds are all over? Apparently (my friend is a manager there), they're already making preparations for mandatory education's age rise from 16 to 18. Because they'll no longer be able to employ 16 year olds full time for next to nothing (because 16 year olds will have to take A Levels or equivalent), they're creating a "McDonald's School" where instead of going to Sixth Form, you work in McDonalds for 30 hours, and do 10 hours of "A Levels or equivalent" in stuff like food hygiene or business studies or whatever. That's how desperate they are to save money employing people who are 16 rather than 18.

Wow, that makes me feel optimistic for the future of kids who will be priced out of traditional academic education.

Yarp.
Strikes a chord with me, that, as someone who gets DLA. Most people don't understand that DLA's not the dole, but cash to pay for your personal care in lieu of NHS-style system. The clueless go ape believing you get wads of government money. When in reality, it's often too little to be useful, and not really anything more to be "ashamed of" than using the NHS or having a state education, really, I mean those are also paid for (collectively) by public money. I'd rather not be life-damangingly chronic as to need the support, myself, but it's better to have something, anything, than end up dead because of neglect.

I'd like to thank the boards sympathy for people in the situation I find myself. It's easy for some to label people on £65 a week dole scroungers, but its very hard to live on that. Obviously Caveman hasnt posted yet.

If this thread has legs, I'll update it with my leaf picking up adventures when the full details are announced this week.


With any luck, I'll get a paid job before its fully implemented.

That sounds utterly horrible.

Edit: Re: McD stuff.

Well I just pray we don't lose the NHS. I really truly do.

In the U.S they pulled the most cunty fucking tricks you can imagine. See, in order to be eligable for health benefits (through your employer at 'discounted rates' IE they pay some of it) you had to work 40 hours a week. So, what they would do is hire people for 35 but hire more of them. That way they get the same work output without having to offer any one benefits. Meaning you worked your ass off and had no health plan at all.

But that was fine, because who fucking cares if the poor get sick? just simply chew them up and spit them out and watch them die.

That was the law in New Jersey. Also in New Jersey you didn't have to pay some one who works on commission the minimum wage. You could pay them $4 an hour then wave a carrot in front of the donkey to make them work their fucking asses off in order to bring the wages up to minimum wage. Infact, so fucked up was it that my ex boss (who I called a cunt and told to go fuck herself before smashing up two booths) moved from California to open call centers in New Jersey just so she could exploit it all to the best advantage for her.

In Cali things were VERY different. However it varies from state to state. Sadly when I got to Ohio I found out it was exactly the same as New Jersey.

Fucking disgusting.

Cobra. I really empathise. I get £90 a week. Half of that goes straight to my family (whoever I am with at the time) and then I have to stick loads aside for bills if they over run what I allocate. It's hard. Part of the reason I don't leave the house is because I can't really fucking afford to. My psych sent me to a hospital last year 50 miles away. I was told my £23 train ticket would be refunded. In reality when I got there they just fucking fobbed me off saying "Write to this address".

They gave me a name and a post code. No address. Just a simple fob off. What they didn't fucking get (greedy cunts) is that £23 is about what I have in total per week. I couldn't even afford to go and get the care I needed in the end and now they're lashing out at me for not showing up for appointments. Last time I was there (three months ago when I was really ill) I asked to be admitted. Sectioned. I was so fucking lost in the head I couldn't even look after myself. They said there were no hospitals like that as they weren't needed and if I felt like killing myself just go to casualty. Great care for the mentally ill that. Sit in casualty for about ten hours waiting whilst crying and rocking your head back and forth.

That's what they just don't fucking get. It's so belittling and so demeaning that people would go round the twist before doing that shit. They still can't get it into their fucking thick skulls that I even suffer with depression because they can't seem to understand why I wouldn't want to go out in public stinking, unshaven and physically shaking and crying.

As an aside, is there anywhere in the UK that has plenty of nice council housing? I remember looking in a few places and waiting lists seemed to always be about ten times longer than the number of houses available.

Thanks you've obviously been through the wringer yourself.

The bad news on the tv is never ending, the government has obviously noticed that some get £90 a week for disability and thought "that is too high - can they survive on £65?" and so have brought this bloody ESA to replace it, and has questions on it such as "can you lift a pencil?" "can you make a cup of tea?" and if you answer yes to these questions your classed as 'eligible to work; with the incentive of trying to make ends meet on 2/3s of the money you were getting. Shame that employers dont employ people who have been out of work for 2 years (dont believe me? - try phoning one up)

How long before the poll tax riots return?, I'd say 2012 at latest.

I hope not either, as an uninsurable. We'll have to see how the British public is 'softened up' in the longer term, though. I suspect that demolishing the NHS is more of a long-term goal of the coalition, the LibDem Orange Bookers advocating the replacement of the NHS with health insurance schemes, after all. Still, I expect it is more likely for them to imitate the Dutch health system (buy private insurance or get fined!) rather than the American one.

This Duncan Smith bloke is obviously a genius which is why the tories kicked him out for being an inept leader.

This will lead to yet more crime on top of the amount created by his previous measures and the police numbers are being slashed at the same time. Pure genius.

Go fuck yourself, you sad, spiteful, little man.

Oh don't be a cunt. If I need to stick a smilie after every post then I suggest you go and join Dimrill in the "bit senstive" corner.

Hello, I think it's a good idea.

Cheers, bye.


[edit]My 'good idea' comes with stipulations
1) It's not full time
2) It's a job no-one else is doing

I think it could be a good idea or a bad idea, depending on the implementation. If they do something that potentially replaces the job of a paid employee, that's of course ridiculous. But if it's something that's generally useful, both to the claimant and to society, I think it's a good idea.

As an example, a mate of mine was claiming jobseekers for a long time, a number of years ago. He was assigned to a project where they built a row of houses. He learned a fuckload of skills, from carpentry to roof-tiling, and at the end of it they were offered the opportunity to rent the places they'd built for a significant subsidy. Stuff like that is brilliant and to be encouraged.

Yes. You can't set this up in any way that competes with normal jobs, or you'll end up costing more jobs than you'll generate. Which raises the biggest question, which is what are these people going to actually do?

I'm concerned that there isn't enough busywork around that you can give these people that's useful that isn't already filled with employees. Plus you have to factor in the cost of administrating the scheme -- hiring supervisors and administrators and such -- to counterbalance any positives from the work they do.

That's fair, but on the whole I'd say this is a scheme that requires a worrying degree of non-cackhandedness about implentation. I have my cynical face on.

Yep. I see the "community service" people around the place occasionally. They're picking up litter, mostly. Seems to take half a dozen paid staff and two trucks to keep half a dozen of these citizens active, doing nothing terribly useful

I've often thought how that must be very expensive, and they're only doing it as part of the punishment/rehabilitation or whatever.


There's an awfully large requirement for seasonal farm workers though, doing tasks that are currently 100% staffed by eastern european immigrants, on presumably lower than minimum wage, somehow.

Someone I know was at a loose end a few years back and went round a few farms asking for a job picking whatever. They all flat out said no, unless you're a non-national.

I wonder if that's the type of thing this is aimed at.

I'd imagine "cash in hand under the table" is how they manage that. And actually yes -- replacing that shadow economy with this scheme could work out for everyone.

I'd be surprised if there is much busywork that it would be cheaper and easier to just hire someone to do. I doubt much money would be saved getting someone from this scheme to scrub graffiti off walls as opposed to just straight-out hiring someone to do it.

Yep, this is borderline totalitarian indeed but I do think something has to be done. I used to work in a dole office and we gave out more in benefits to some people than I was earning. I wouldn't mind but it was mainly because they had kids but they were doing a piss-poor job of raising them.

Also, in my last house none of our neighbours worked and were lazy scum as well. There was nothing wrong with them but they sat around all fucking day smoking and watching Trisha on new flat screen tellies whilst I was getting up at fuck o'clock and driving to another day working for the man, like some sort of sucker.

It is indeed.
I used to work with a charity that promotes houses that you essentially build for no money if you have free labour and time (we used volunteers). Straw bales, rammed-earth, reclaimed windows etc. End up with a completely usable, if unconventional house that costs a fraction of a standard wimpy thing to heat.

Would kill two birds with one stone, right?

Learned Outcome: it's just not a thing that is possible in this country, or ever likely to be.

Everything is designed to make people less independent, not more. If you've built your own house then you don't need a high income to spend on things like gas bills or mortgage debt, because you don't need them. That's bad for the economy, and all policy that you meet in day to day life has a built in motive to encourage the "standard" way of living instead.

I'm afraid I'm in the 'good idea' camp. Albeit with caveats, I mean it does need to be jobs that no-one else is doing and it needs to be targeted at the piss-takers.

Fact is, I've seen two sides to this. My dad was on JSA for a long, long time back in the 90's and for him it was a horrendous experience. He wanted to work, but couldn't find anything (my father being unquestionably one of the hardest working individuals I've ever met) and trying to bring up a family on the scraps they gave him was a nightmare.

Then at the same time I have a cousin who can't work due to back problems, but curiously finds he can walk just fine without his walking stick when he's at home or pissing off on holiday, or down the pub, etc the horrible little scrote of a man.

Also, a very close friend of mine has very, very, very slight cerebral palsy and 'dodgy knees', so he also doesn't work. However, I know the guy and as much as I love him, I know that his lack of working has less to do with his knees and a lot more to do with his fondness for the pub, watching DVDs and not having people exerting authority over him. Contrast that with another friend of mine who damaged his spine in a car accident and is now paralysed from the waist down. Being confined to a wheelchair hasn't stopped him from getting on with his life - he has a fantastic job and even still drives, just in a car that has hand controls.

Anyway, I've gone off on a tangent here - basically something needs to be done about those that genuinely are scrounging tosspots, because it is these people that make things difficult for those that genuinely need state help while they are out of work, like some of the people posting in this very thread.

*gets into flame-retardant suit*

Interesting use of commas, I had to re-read to make sure I got the right jist!

The main problem with this scheme is that the tosspots will continue to do fuck all, while the people that want to work will go out and work (not that this is a bad thing - they'll have a little experience from whatever job they do, maybe they'll make some new friends, maybe do the community a favour if they're beautifying the place, and I know that not having a job caused me to become pretty depressed - I could probably have done with something like this six years ago).

Also, of course, you're just jealous.

I think any system has to recognise that there will always be some complete piss-takers in amongst the genuine cases and I'd rather entertain a few of these than compound what is an unfortunate situation for many people by making it an utter fucking humiliation as well. So before agreeing to mandatory work schemes (and presumably tearing up the spirit of the minimum wage) I want to hear some actual numbers rather than just "look at this individual it's a DISGRACE!".

Well I don't know about numbers but I know it's more than a few, as is evident when I take a day off and my home town streets are full of people milling about in garish tracksuits.

Heh heh, a little from column A and a little from column B... I'm certainly not enjoying my new job and I didn't much like the one before it (at least in the last year or so as it was great for a couple of years), so in that sense I'm jealous as I'm sick of having to keep coming in to this bloody place.

However! I too was unemployed for about 7 months when I was 18 and again for around 3 months when I was 24 and found both times to be thoroughly depressing experiences. I wouldn't want to go through that again, I just want to find another job that I don't dread going in to.

As long as it's not about that (it's not community service, after all, and there is emphatically nothing wrong with being out of work per se), I, guardedly, think this is possibly a good idea. If people are getting a handout from the state as they're unable to find work, it seems fair enough that the state should ask for a little something in return after a certain point. The value of any work carried out should be calculated on the basis of the minimum wage, though, so at £65 per week you're looking at, what, 11 hours a week?

And, yes, NI contributions are supposedly a contribution towards your own welfare if you're out of work, but it's not really - you just have to look at the very open way in which NI was increased to fund more money for the NHS. NI's just another employment tax. Even then, this proposed scheme is still working on the basis that you've "paid" for 1 year of out of work benefit.


EDIT - my guardedly saying yes is also conditional on this not being a cheap replacement for existing employees or job roles.

OK, here the problem is electric escalators, open shop doors and the prohibition of shotgun usage in pedestrianised areas. I had to commandeer a street sweeping tractor once to escape from a narrow alley when cornered by half a dozen big issue vendors. Brainsss!

Oh, wrong thread.