A graduate is taking legal action against the government over a scheme which she says forces people to do unpaid work.Well, no, not exactly. It forces people to work for their benefits. And maybe gain some valuable experience at the same time.
Cait Reilly, a University of Birmingham geology graduate, is currently trying to find work in the museum sector.
The 22-year-old said she had to work for free at a Poundland store for two weeks or risk losing her benefits.
She is seeking a judicial review.And that no doubt costs a pretty penny.
So, how can she afford this? Could it be she isn’t paying?
Public interest lawyers, acting on behalf of Ms Reilly, have sent a letter-before-action, the first stage in a potential judicial review, challenging the Jobseeker's Allowance (Employment, Skills and Enterprise) Regulations 2011.
"I think it's a form of manual labour in that they're forcing people to do jobs that are in no way related to what they want to do and giving them no experience for their careers," she said.Welcome to that experience we call ‘life’, sweetie, where you don’t always get what you want, and you may have to settle for something else.
And I’m not sure what ‘experience for your career’ you’re going to get doing nothing other than watching daytime tv, either…
Jim Duffy, Ms Reilly's solicitor, said: "Everyone agrees on the need to help the unemployed back into work, but forcing young people into pointless, unpaid labour at massive retailers who could easily afford to pay them the minimum wage demeans and frustrates them when we should be empowering and supporting them.It’s ‘demeaning’ to accept the offer of work which will give you experience you’ve maybe never had, that of getting in on time, taking orders, working with others, learning how a shop operates…?
"These Orwellian schemes are about work for its own sake rather than for any greater purpose."
We have graduates so utterly dim they can't translate that to their expected museum job, should they be fortunate enough to get one?
H/T: ttwtw via email
H/T: ttwtw via email
FTA: "Everyone agrees on the need to help the unemployed back into work, but forcing young people into pointless, unpaid labour at massive retailers who could easily afford to pay them the minimum wage..."
ReplyDeleteI have a solution. Stop their benefits and pay them the minimum wage instead.
...
What do you mean that's not what he meant??
Who would want to employ her with her attitude. So typical no wonder foreigners get most of any vacancies on the job market.
ReplyDeleteIf this was about helping the unemployed to "Gain valuable experience"etc, they'd be helping people into posts in their various fields, but bit isn't, so they don't.
ReplyDeleteAntisthenes, I remember back in the late 70s/early 80s when northern industry was being decimated, people in cushy pen pushing jobs all thought it was a good idea, trim the fat, country leaner and fitter etc. Was a different tale 15 years down the road when all their jobs when globalisation shipped their jobs off shore. There's a lesson in there, you may wish to ponder...
I'm conflicted on this. I don't really care too much about the mooching grads with stupid degrees, but I do think that giving stores free labour isn't really good for everyone.
ReplyDeleteIf places like poundland couldn't get this labour for free, that might free up an additional role at minimum wage. If they can get it for free, what's their incentive to employ someone ?
Reform the benefits system:
ReplyDeleteOption A: leave binbags full of fivers on street corners each monday morning and let everybody help themsleves. Lower admin costs and just as equitable in terms of due entitlement.
option B: Stop ALL benefits for a fortnight. At the end, anybody who isn't actually starving doesn't need it.
I've worked in the 'benefits industry': I really do know i'm talking about.
Bobo, How about option 3, where people people can earn a living doing whatever they so choose without government interference? Sack all benefit staff across the board, it's a win win as far as I can see.
ReplyDeleteBudvar I have pondered and it comes down to the practicalities of propping up failed businesses for the sake of maintaining the moral high ground. It does not work and it is self defeating. If jobs are still being lost to the East as they are then it means that lessons have not been learnt, they rarely are, and our propensity for high production costs has not been addressed. Until it is then the transfer will continue. You bleating on about how dreadful things were without thought to the reasons then you are only voicing a very biased and poorly thought out opinion. Which is less than worthless in a contribution to a debate on how we regain our competitiveness so that once again we can prosper in world trade.
ReplyDeleteBudvar:
ReplyDeletefair comment, but the real issue is the change from the benefits system as a safety net to the benefits system as a lifestyle choice/baselined income for criminals.
You mentioned the decimation of (not just northern)industry in the 80's. Those jobs are gone, and replaced by what? Assuming you're not a Billy Elliott, a plucky Northern Brass Bandsman, or willing to strip in pubs (the collective media suggestions for alternative working class employment)what,really, is there left? Not a fat lot. Pumping benefits money into sink estates has been the successive governments' cover-up for the destruction of the working class and the industries which were the working classes' raison d'etre: so long as the proles aren't actually starving in the streets, they won't riot.
Antisthenes:
Oh, we'll be competetive again: when its cheaper to make stuff in Sheffield than in Shanghai. Not long now, Comrades; not long now.....
Bobo That is the point. Not soon but in 20 to 30 years Eastern industries will be relocating back to the West for the reasons you state. In the mean time we will have to take our medicine for being so arrogant, decadent, selfish and greedy. We are going the way of all societies that rise to eminence. They always fall again at some point. If you think the socialist route is going to save the society then history is not on your side.
ReplyDeleteThere is another way and that is to make a proactive move into your career of choice and volunteer initially in that until they see how good an employee you'd be and ... employ you.
ReplyDeleteAnti, I'm nearly 50 now, when I was a kid we had a man come door to door slling crumpets out a wicker basket, there was also the pie and pea man who did similar.
ReplyDeleteThere was also a guy who for years who went around the pubs and clubs selling cockles, shrimps etc.
Health and hygene regulation has put all these out of business. They traded for years, anyone got a touch of the trots, you didn't buy from them again. That's how the system worked.
I could go on and on, but you deny a man the right to earn a living through government interference and regulation, what do you expect a man to do?
There are a whole raft of schemes available for the unemployed to "gain experience" of working.....except that most already have experience....what they should say is "work for little so we can afford to not employ someone on a decent, or any, wage"....most are a 12 week stint at the JSA allowance plus travelling...then back to the dole queue....I have never (yet) known anyone be employed for any length of time in any of the schemes....something about holidays and pay for same....and the job agencies are the same.
ReplyDeleteAs for the foreigners....couldn't have anything to do with short-term employment and not paying tax/ni on them could it ?
And another problem....most places want a crb check now....except those not resident here don't figure on it anyway...
But I must agree, most employers want compliant sheep who don't question whether it is wise to walk along the ridge of a house without fall-protection being in place....loads of economic immigrants falling off high places now...and before anyone rants about H&S killing jobs....it is designed so that JOBS don't kill WORKERS. If you don't figure that I have both a job and a right to not be killed doing it, then you are all-too-obviously an office-bound seat-warmer !
She's missing the point.
ReplyDeleteIt's not about being fair to her...it's about being fair to taxpayers...some of whom are slogging their guts out working in Poundland all day for minimum wage so she can be paid to sit on her arse.
If she has a solution that means she doesn't receive a penny from anyone else and still gets to do what she wants...which would be absolutely fair to all concerned... then let's hear it.
Otherwise...STFU and get on with it.
Anon, when I rail against H&S regulation, I mean totally unnecessary regulation. By totally unnecessary regulation, I mean having to go through certification every 2 years to do a job many have been doing for nearly 40 years. This isn't about safety, it's about revenue generation.
ReplyDeleteBudvar I am 67 so I have seen similar sights and yearn very much for lots of (lots was word then that you were not allowed to use) of those things we had in the past. I suspect that you like me do not mind progress as long as that which was good is retained and that which was bad and there was plenty discarded or reformed. That has not happened and the baby has been thrown out with the bath water. Progress has taken a path that has not made life better, superficially on occasions it has. Somewhere along the path the politics of envy took over and the bleeding hearts and the nosey Parkers became dominant. That was okay for a while it made us confront our prejudices and treat each other more equally and fairly. However power went to their heads and they started to enjoy manipulation especially when they realised how us plebs in the main are so easily manipulated.So instead of stopping when the balance had become right they ploughed on so now the balance is tilted too far the other way and that is why we are burdened by all these stupid rules and regulations that and the EU of course.
ReplyDeleteTatty, do you pay insurance for anything? You probably do, how would it be if you were to make a claim, the insurance company said we can't really afford to keep paying out for claims, but we will just so long as you do a spot of work for 12 weeks for us or at a selected company of our choosing?
ReplyDeleteAny right thinking individual would tell them to go fuck themselves, even if other premium payers whined about it being people like you making claims pushing up their premiums, but this is precisely what you're advocating.
We pay what, about 9% in NI?(OK it's capped above a certain level etc) at gunpoint, we have no right to opt out.
Here they have "€1 jobs".
ReplyDeleteThey get dole plus €1 per hour. They can not be "employed" by firms, but "work" for charitys and local council/community works.
BUT!!!
Now there is a plethora of tacky wee shops taking in donated books, and giving them away for free.
(THIS has fucked the second hand book market GOOD and proper. NO one can make a single Pfennig with second hand books within about 5 kilometers of one of these shitpaper recyclers).
Then there are the gangs of idiots going around all day measuring shop/pub/etc doorways to make an index for wheel chair users. ECEPT. This project was started on a volunteer basis ten or so years ago. What these are actually getting the money for, is repeating the exersize, then destroying the data base, and the next intake starts again.
There are also dog shit sweepers, (we alraedy HAD street sweepers. Not now. Oh no. They are all €1 jobbers!)
And various other schemes, furniture recycling, similar system to the books.
Take into account the loss of jobs in book sales, furniture shops, road cleaners, etc. THEN add the costs of paying for the offices and office staff to run these fucking stupid schemes (OFFICE staff of which, are ALL full time on "proper" pay!), THEN, given the fact that the U.K and U.S got all uppity about our scheme to employ the useless eaters 1933 to 45, tell me we would not be better off letting the bastards sit at home sitting trancelike in front of day time "T.V".
Here is the PERFECT answer;
ReplyDeletehttp://www.documentatiegroep40-45.nl/dwangarbeid_oud/korte-2.htm
XX these detention facilities had been necessary because many of the workers assigned to the project by the employment offices were found to have an "aversion to work". It had become necessary to "educate" these "habitual drinkers" and notorious "lay-abouts" in Hinzert and its Außenkommandos" (subsidiary camps.) XX
Budvar on the assumption you refer to everyone somehow being entitled to claim JSA because of payment of National Insurance can I just point out that there are two types of JSA. 1) contribution-based which as the name suggests is based on NI contributions and 2) income-based which is not.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many on income-based JSA actually believe they are entitled to it or are just grateful something is there to support them. I guess it depends on which generation they grew up in.
Once upon a time not so long ago there was no such thing as this benefit payable on two levels. If you hadn't paid at least two years NI in the preceding years to claiming Unemployment Benefit then it was you(and I) who was told to "go fuck yourself" as you so eloquently put it.
You complied with this instruction since you simply were not entitled and no amount of screaming "victim" was entertained. You got any job you could doing whatever you could in order to pay the bills accruing NI along the way for future claims if necessary.
Having been through that system (claimed twice for 6 months at a time following seasonal work and worked 7 days a week otherwise)I think it worked well and should have been left as was.
"What do you mean that's not what he meant??"
ReplyDelete:D
"Who would want to employ her with her attitude."
Well, quite! That's what lets down so many young jobseekers.
"If this was about helping the unemployed to "Gain valuable experience"etc, they'd be helping people into posts in their various fields, but bit isn't, so they don't."
If the only people they've been able to persuade into this is firms like Poundland, and not museums staffed with their own people, what does that tell you?
"If places like poundland couldn't get this labour for free.."
I'm not so sure that Poundland's the winner here - by the time they've trained them up, sat them down for the mandatory H&S talks, etc, had an existing member of staff supervise them, are they really coming out ahead, given they only have the person for a week or so?
I'd like to see the CBA on that one!
"There is another way and that is to make a proactive move into your career of choice and volunteer initially in that until they see how good an employee you'd be and ... employ you."
ReplyDeleteThat takes effort. It seems to be beyond most of our young students.
"She's missing the point.
It's not about being fair to her...it's about being fair to taxpayers..."
Spot on!
"Anon, when I rail against H&S regulation, I mean totally unnecessary regulation. By totally unnecessary regulation, I mean having to go through certification every 2 years to do a job many have been doing for nearly 40 years. This isn't about safety, it's about revenue generation."
And let's not forget modern idiocy like the CRB check, which YOU have to pay, and can't be taken with you to your next job. These overheads stifle job movement.
"...tell me we would not be better off letting the bastards sit at home sitting trancelike in front of day time "T.V"."
If that's ALL they did, maybe...
Jim Duffy there, ladies and gents. Winner of the Most Inappropriate Use of the Word 'Orwellian' in 2011 Prize. Orwellian? Pfft.
ReplyDeleteTwat.
NO one can make a single Pfennig...
ReplyDeleteNostalgie oder Sehnsucht?
XX Mick Turatian said...
ReplyDeleteNO one can make a single Pfennig...
Nostalgie oder Sehnsucht? XX
As I pointed out on another blogg, they have been printing new Deutschmark notes for at least three years, (A reliable Deutschebank source", reported on, among others "Kopp Verlag news letter".) and there are regular reports of coin collectors finding DM coinage with dates such as 2009 and 2010 in their "change".
So.....
At least two of these "reliable sources", were accompanied by videos of where they said it, on programmes where Deutschebank officials were also present, and the "accusation" has never been denied.
ReplyDeleteO.K. Never confirmed either, but it appears to be something of "an open secret".
So maybe another Währungsreform awaits? With a nice new DM50 note for everyone with the good old Holstentor on it?
ReplyDeleteRather than let Greece fall out of the bottom of the Euro, Germany should exit from the top maybe.
A Holsten Pils would suit me better, but aye, hopefully.
ReplyDeleteHolsten Edel - dicker Schädel!
ReplyDelete