Cable Forum - View Single Post - Sainsbury's pull out of 'Work for your benefits scheme'

**Hugh** · 29-02-2012, 22:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maggy J

It was the suggestion it was mandatory and that benefit would be removed if they didn't get what they expected from the scheme that made me cross.Also I suspect that all the large companies involved(and charities) will ensure that it is REAL works experience now the public eye is on the scheme not just stacking shelves and make do work..

I still have some reservations such as just how many placements can be offered if jobseekers actually get a job at the end of the placement and a company has less jobs/spaces available as a consequence.There must be a finite amount of actual jobs available especially as there are pockets of high unemployment around the country.Plus I'm wondering how good the 'training' aspects will be and if there are any real usable qualifications to be earned as a consequence.

And yes I do trust Barnados to have the age group concerned interests at heart.They are an organisation who deal with disadvantaged youngsters and know and understand that many 16-25 year olds from broken homes and social care are the very ones who do end up with a poor education and a lack of self confidence and do need a lot of support that is not always available from the government agencies after they are thrown off social care at 16.If they think it can work then I can get behind this scheme.

Funnily enough, the founder of the Big Issue magazine agrees with Barnados.

Times (behind a paywall)

Quote:

Middle-class liberals should try a spell of unemployment before they criticise workfare

One of the worst places to be is on social security. From above you your paymasters, Her Majesty’s Government, seem ill-disposed to continue with the arrangement for a moment longer than they have to. From above you too, it would appear, vast supermarket-type businesses are desperate to suck the living blood out of you and pay you nothing in return.

Also above you, looking down at you and your predicament, are middle-class liberals who are outraged that you are disturbed in your hibernation from the job market. With great anger they shout that big business is exploiting you and that the Government is using you to boost corporate profits.

I tend to take a worm’s eye view of the situation that benefit recipients are stuck in. By a worm’s-eye view I mean what it’s like being down at the jobless ground level while these big people circulate above you, all full of advice and supposedly looking out for your best interests.

So what would I do if I were to join the ranks of the unemployed again? I would take the flimsiest offer of work even if the advantage was greater for the company that was using my labour than for unpaid me. I would take a punt at this work placement scheme, however impure or contradictory are the reasons why the Government or business want me to do it.

Why? Because life on benefit stinks. And any half-cocked exit plan is better than no exit plan at all. Maybe the work will not lead immediately to a job, but getting up and going to work in the morning must be a step nearer proper work than a step away from it.

Let me give you a few reasons why I would want out of the institutional state-sponsored poverty of social security. First, benefits are a Bastille, a life sentence for too many people. They not only imprison you, limiting your chances of liberating yourself from unemployed life, but they also cage your children, who are less likely to do well in school and get into higher education.

You will die younger and your health will be worse than that of an inhabitant of mainstream society; you will be more drawn to the stimulants of drink, drugs and tobacco; you will be more likely to suffer from mental health problems or end up in prison or excluded from school.