tretwontice
bedefiess
JeagreeGabNah
Dipteelty
bedefiess

Bill Clinton's and Newt Gingrich's 1996 reforms refashioned welfare from a system of social support to a way of providing business with warm, docile bodies on the cheap by shovelling people into low-waged jobs. Everyone I meet here dreads unemployment, because there is no safety net.

kasbajuki foruntaly that is really a good idea more savii

Mrs.Josephine Hyde-Hartley. And if you are liberal minded you may just be asking, 'whatever next'?

McMac : "On the upside, I guess their cheap prices keep the riff raff out of Waitrose ... "

Ah, I see class divide is alive and well at the New Statesman ... and thriving more than ever before it seems. I bet you've got a Harrods, Marks & Spencer or Waitrose carrier bag always handy to hide your cheap brand purchases from Asda, Tesco or Morrisons. lol ;-)

As someone that has been on more than my fair-share of these schemes think I am in a good position to explain the feelings of the people that attend them. I have spoken to hundreds of people that have been on these programs with me. The general consensus was that they were bad in every respect.What folks need is real training to get a chance at the jobs that pay a living wage.

If only the Labour party understood how many votes this monster lost them. People that had voted for the left for a life time voted Liberal and Tory because of these schemes and the bullying these folks received.Unless the Labour Party understand this truth then working people will continue to ignore them in droves. Now that the true nature of the Slave labour side imported from America has been understood by the poor, they would be stupid to vote for any party that supports them.

The training that gets you jobs cost a few grand and is out of reach of the unemployed. The old system of training at your local college has had the bursary system destroyed for such training, the people suffering the compulsory programs understand this. These programs are just cash cows for vested interest, no real training, an assumption that if you are out of work you are stupid and lazy.

Why is the labour leadership so out of touch with normal people? it feels like we have two versions of the conservative party as an election option. This is a major cause for the massive swing to extreme politics especially the right on our estates. I know I have spoken to many that have made these choices.

At first I thought it was the wars that turned the people against Labour, True this pissed them off for sure, but it was these schemes that nailed Labours coffin lid down firmly and will continue to do so for as long as the leadership of the party is is denial.

Bullying by staff, no consistency, you can be told to do something by one outfit then told the opposite by the next, this is normal and if you have the temerity to try and explain are threatened with expulsion. I was thrown out of one in the first ten mins just for saying that I thought I needed training that could help me,I needed the hard skills as mine had been superseded by technological advancement. I did not need basic literacy or maths, which is the only thing they really are geared to offer, and even then it is done by machine and not done well.

I have been on some that make you spend days doing nothing, a string of subcontracted firms come in and waste your time, then get a slice of this evil gravy train. Once again if you try and explain the problems you get told you will be excluded and lose your dole, this means you lose your rent so become homeless. I have seen this happen to loads of good people. To create a situation whereby the job-seekers has no defence, faces sanction at the whim of an individual they have no control over in any form of decent and available due process is fascism, a recipe for exploitation, that's before we get on to these forced labour scams that are now being spoke about at last in our placed media.

If the Labour Party does not wake up to these facts then expect a lot more than losing the next election, expect a massive surge in crime and nastiness. Look at the letters pages of our newspapers, most of the nasty bile is straight from the script sheets of the EDL.

£61 Billion is the amount waste on New Deal by New Labour, enough to have set us all up in real jobs no less.Finding Jobs should be the remit of the Job centre, tried and tested kills, especially in the hard times we are about to face.The constant stream of such bully has had tangible effects on our society, a direct correlation between such bullying and the rise of a nastiness abounds. This is the main reason for the rise in so called feral folk we see all around us, it is an effect of being pushed into a corner you have no way of getting out of, this creates a feeling of helplessness amongst our people, this harshness is now everywhere and once again has lead to the rise of the far right.The new Slave labour schemes as promised by the Tory's and the bedroom tax that will see so many people made homeless is going to create hell on Earth.

So Laurie . Thank you for what is one of the few decent articles that offer accurate analysis of the real situation on the street. You have not got it all but more than most.

Overheard in Asian sweatshop:
"Isn't it terrible? There are people in England working in supermarkets without being paid at all!"
http://speedofdarkblog.com/?p=2128

If only those poor little boys and girls had an inheritance to live off whilst entering journalism as a career and then possibly writing books no one will ever read. Possibly whilst employing help below the minimum wage, work fair Penny did!

No benji, lauri is a hopeless far left buffoon and it's fun to take the piss, one assumes you are similarly a halfwit with your conspiracy theory.

Hi TSS,

It's been a few years since I've been to any of those shops, but if I did go there I wouldn't mind advertising the fact.

Shelf-stacking it about to go the same way as check-out tills.
It's all being robotized or automated. Eventually the only supermarket humans will be those on the 'Customer Services' counter. Even free labour will be too costly - besides surveillance for benefit reasons bathrooms/toilets would have to be provided and then there's those pesky 'ealth and safety rules.
Stewie Rose would only be too happy to work for nothing. He never got round to shelf-stacking being too busy as a admin assistant at the BBC and then as management trainee at M & S. Oh, in case you're worried - he was paid.
And for somebody with a Catholic/Quaker background Sir Stuart did good.

By Example

In what way is Laurie's well-off background relevant to the points she's making about the government expecting the poor & unemployed to work for nothing? Those wittering on about her "inheritance" - does her status make the long term unemployed better or worse off? Does it make her hypocritical to want better for those worse off? If she's so well off, surely she's not going to gain from any change she brings about to help those with no money? Is it a vile, evil thing, to be altruistic in this way, or something commendable?

Thank you Angelica, for taking care of my light work.

@)-)-)------

Mr Danger - it's not about "turning one's nose up at icky work". It's about being made to go stack shelves in Tesco for 30 hours a week for *nothing*, or face the loss of your benefits. It's not about forcing the jobless to take training - hell, I was on an ET course for a year back in '91 - they gave me £10/week extra & world-class training in programming in COBOL & MS-BASIC. THAT was a deal worth going for. These people are being *forced* to do work you could train a monkey to do, which *should* pay minimum wage, but when they're using dole-slaves, why would they ever pay minimum wage? It's a dead-end role, with zero prospects, and by avoiding paying minimum wage for it, it devalues the work of those they do pay; it introduces an atmosphere of distrust between the min-wagers & their employers & it makes their position incredibly precarious should they ever wish to try & negociate a pay rise.

Workfare goes against the best economic practices of both left & right. From the left's point of view it's a waste of taxpayers' money, subsidising the richest corporations & managing to avoid helping anyone but those super-rich corporations. From the right's POV it's government interference in the free market, again to the detriment of all but these near-monopolies. It's just crazy.

Hello, my names Laurie and I got down with the poor after meeting a scullery maid at Brighton college (£30000a year) dochaknow, just like my fellow lefties moon bat(Stowe) and Milne(Wykhamist) we are just like so understanding of how poor folk cannot buy cigarettes and like stuff. It's so unfair when and I blame Bush and Palindrome and like whatever Sean Penn says cos he says it.

Will71. How nice of you to knock at my door. Please come on in and take a seat while I tear your soul from your body very slowly....word...by...word.
"Buckskins - little point trying to get through to people like Andy."
A. I see, so you have to use a host to knock at my door. Now tell me, what do you wish to get through to me?
"they will never get it."
A. Get what?
"because they will never look for any good in anything."
A. I see no good in you but your cowardice. re you referring to the shelf stackers or soup kitchens Mr level 1.
"They like it when things are bad."
A. It would appear all over these articles that that is the dominant opinion.
"because it means there are plenty of other people as miserable as they are."
A. You couldn't be further from the truth my dear. Life has dealt me a good hand but I have kept my sense of the rules of natural justice.
"and it gives them something to moan and whine about."
A. What do my dear...stop trembling. The room is dark, please enlighten me.
"which is probably the only thing that brings any joy to their miserable little existence."
A. You keep repeating yourself, do you perhaps work for a supermarket? Oh so naughty.
"They also turn a convenient blind eye to the hypocracy of Ms Penny."
Even your little new found friend knows this statement is wrong. Do you really have anything worthwhile to say? Make some light baby, make em flash on and off with your razor sharp tounge.....ahhhh do it.
I await your next shot sire.....Grrrr

Will71, most of Andy's posts are a darn sight smarter than your crap.
If your opinion about Laurie is as you expressed, WTF are you doing in here. I guess you like something to " moan and whine about"

Sciamachy :- "Workfare goes against the best economic practices of both left & right. From the left's point of view it's a waste of taxpayers' money, subsidising the richest corporations & managing to avoid helping anyone but those super-rich corporations. From the right's POV it's government interference in the free market, again to the detriment of all but these near-monopolies. It's just crazy."

In addition it reduces the amount money at the lower end of society (the demographic most like to spend). As fewer people spend on local goods and services those local businesses will start laying people off, increasing unemployment, which will in turn degrade local economies further.

As big businesses like Tesco step in to fill these vaccums they'll be in a position to pay a pittance, if anything, for any staff who works for them and will eventually be able to completely consume local economies and have society literally in thrall to them.

This makes no sense for left or right wing politics, but it if you are trying to foster a corporate governed system then it works perfectly.

"If your opinion about Laurie is as you expressed, WTF are you doing in here. I guess you like something to " moan and whine about""

What's wrong with that? It's a comment thread not an appreciation society.

"They also serve who only stand and take the piss."

I don't even disagree with anything she says in this article; just that it's her saying it and not some poor twat who's actually stacking the shelves or sweeping the floors. Mightn't they bring a bit more insight, urgency and substance?

"its about being made to go stack shelves in Tesco for 30 hours a week for *nothing*, or face the loss of your benefits."

But they aren't forced to do it. You are repeating Penny's lie.

Also, Michael, the old story about Tesco ruining communities is a middle class whine we are all tired of hearing. Tesco offers better prices, better hours, and better selection than any mom and pop grocery could ever do. That's why people shop there.

So the offer is for businesses to take on people to do jobs for their benefits. So my taxes pay the benefits of the unemployed person to work for free for an organisation that makes profits measured in large numbers. That organisation pays no VAT and evades/avoids corporation tax. There is no guarantee of the offer of a job at the end of this work period. So basically I am subsidising the person drawing benefits and the organisation offering the work. How many kinds of wrong is this? How many different ways am I, as an employed taxpayer, being ripped off here?

If the argument is expanded to encompass the drop in living standards due to rent rises, etc, then yet again it is me that is making up rent payments. The lower classes are being harried from pillar to post, told that they must expect falling living standards as the country is in dire financial straits but it is not they who caused the crisis, except in an extremely convoluted argument that it is their personal borrowing that played a part.

Why is it that landlords are allowed to keep increasing rents? Are the premises that they rent giving an improved service, a better standard of living? The government could systematically reduce rent allowance over a given period of time - say three years. Landlords could either reduce their rents, sell up or go bust. That's capitalism. However it seems to me that everyone suffers except the rich and they must not, under any circumstances, be allowed to suffer in any way, shape or form.

There are no jobs. If there were, people should be paid an appropriate wage for doing them. This is a scam, a PR exercise to appease DM and DT readers to show that this government of Tim, nice but dim, Tory boys is being tough on scroungers. Get tough on businesses paying their taxes and VAT. Get tough on the wealthy paying their fair share. Do something to get industry back up and working. Do something to generate REAL jobs and stop subsidising the already rich and profitable.

Let's just pick up ONE fact here : "If a couple both stack shelves full time they should be taking home about £1500 a month, enough to rent a small property, eat reasonably well & have a family,"

£1,500 a month is not much money. To rent a 2 bed property in the South-East (even 50 miles from London) is £600-£700. So that leaves 2 people £800. Then tax at 20% - that's down to £500. Then council tax. That's £100. You say they can have a family? So a family of three, or four, on £100 a week. Add in childcare, after all, these parents are working, at ...

Oh. There's no money for two people to have even a rented property, and children, and a job, and a childcare on £1,500 a month.

The lies of the rich drown out the agony of the poor.

"The reason is that a day's work no longer pays the rent."

The reason is that Labour, the supposed party of labour, has long since abandoned the welfare of the working class as its guiding principle in favour of middle class jobs in Westminster. I remember in the 70's when the Tories were claiming you could earn more on the dole than you could in work. Instead of jumping on this and accusing business of aping Scrouge, the Labour politicians of that time simply denied the obvious - and lost the general election. With political allies like Labour, labour stands no chance.

What shocked me about the advert when I saw the image on line somewhere was how the SOC ( standard occupational code) appeared to be 0. Nothing.

To my mind this might mean the work has no apparent standard,people going for these jobs might find they bear no statistical significance that can be accounted for properly ie in terms of responsibility, rights duties and everything else ( Laws, policy frameworks from EU to national and local level)- important standards of both quantity and quality that an ordinary member of the UK public might reasonably expect to benefit from in our normal work/life balance.

What concerns me is that these roles, positions or pretend jobs might be too easily corruptible - being situated as they are in this weird marginal place - the margins that everyone wants to claim belongs to them and their concerns in the good times - and nobody wants to acknowledge or be bothered with when the going gets tough.

These jobs where people are in effect playing at working might be where, as the old saying goes;

" you can take owt from nowt "

It strikes me that all the hard won rights and freedoms we associate with decent markets and decent working environments might be lost - without some properly regulated body to keep an eye on both the so-called employers and the so-called workers, real or otherwise who facilitate these schemes.

If two people each earn £750 pounds a month, each of them will pay no tax on about £7500 of their total pay and only tax on the £.1500 left over.

And the benefits would be?

I suspect the lies of the left drown out the howls of the poor.

I wonder how many full time staff have been 'let go' since the introduction of the said scheme? The fact that these people are on low or no wages effects just about every other aspect of their lives. They are already living in a semi-state of adverse poverty and are then forced to work in order to live in the same condition. Listening to question time last week I was led to believe that this shelf stacking was "an incentive scheme".
As for the non starving commentator above, maybe you should try a bit of voluntary work at your local soup kitchen. You will find many slim people around and you will also find that the kitchens can't cope with demand.
These circumstances have been brought about by those who have never suffered such indignation and had us believe that they were the wiser of the wisest. Now they will have us believe that they know just how to get us out of it....do we believe them? Like fck I do.
Good and one of the better article's.