UK Wants Unemployed Youth to Do Unpaid Work for the State. State Sponsored Slavery or.....?

a reply to: pavmas

but thats what happens in the UK the poor attack the poor, you never get the rich attacking the rich. they help each other out and find ways to increase their wealth by cheating the rest of us and their mates in court and police never charge them and they continue to get richer and richer whilst the poor fight each other for the scraps

I'm strongly against it. In a country where more and more immigrants are allowed to come in and less and less jobs are available as they dry up, go overseas, or are simply erased to make a bit more on the profit margins (and yes it's happening there as well as the U.S.), for many people it's not going to be a voluntary thing to be on this, and that is the definition of slavery. "Take this thing or risk dying in the street" is NOT voluntary.

People who say that such a thing is voluntary are delusional. Period. End of discussion. You have but to look at the statistics coming out of the Western world for about five seconds to understand that there is a legitimate and serious fundamental problem with our society.

a reply to: jude11

Thirty hours of unpaid work, plus ten hours of job hunting... That is forty hours of effort, per week, for fifty seven pounds and some pence?

I have a number of problems with this.

First of all, working for less than the minimum wage, which IS what this would be, IS slavery. The last time I had no job, I would be out in town all day, handing out CV sheets, dropping off speculative letters, asking store managers face to face, to offer me a job, getting out there and getting people familiar with my face. This was week in, week out. Anyone who tries that lifestyle out while in the throes of a depression so deep that the Mariana Trench has been known to feel quite inadequate about the situation, will learn swiftly that it is VERY hard work. Miles and miles on foot every day, when the fat stores in your body are being burned off by stress, fatigue, despair, and the like, out in the cold, and the blazing heat, and the hammering rain, from seven in the morning, until eight and gone at night.

Second of all, asking the young to shoulder this bull, as if they are responsible for the state of the economy, is an absolute bloody disgrace. The reality is that successive governments have allowed government departments to sign bad contracts with private companies, contracts which allow those companies to overcharge HM Government to the tune of hundreds of percent for goods and services. These companies very often have another amusing string to their bow, that being that they do not pay the proper amount of tax because they bank offshore. We are talking about billions of pounds over a year, split between various departments.

So, because the government is full of incompetent halfwits, and has been haemorrhaging money from every bloody seam in its construction, means that the nations young need to be enslaved to pay for it? Give me a damned BREAK!

Here's an idea that Mr Cameron and George Osbourne might want to look into. First, BEFORE looking at regular people on the street, and whether or not they are doing what they should be doing, how about looking at all the private contractors working with government, and forcing a renegotiation, at gunpoint if necessary, with those who have colluded to allow the robbery of our nation, by corporate interests?

It is appalling that the young are being treated this way, while those who have treated our government much more poorly, those who have STOLEN from the people of this nation, and from its government by extension, go about pretty much Scott free. The bloody conservatives ought to be ashamed of themselves.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Yeah and after that stuff last week about the rich hiding the cash in Switzerland and HSBC giving their rich clients credit cards linked to swiss account to spend in the UK avoiding tax and getting Vat refund whilst living in the UK what do we get,
Ed Balls saying get a reciept if someone cuts your hedge even for £10s, You could not make this crap up, they have been stealing Billions of £££s yet they attack the poor guy that might cut your hedge for a tenner

a reply to: pavmas

My dad was a painter and decorator and he did cash in the hand at weekends, he worked 9 till 5 and paid his tax and stamp, but insisted that the government had his 40 hours and what he earned in his time at the weekend was his and had nothing to do with them, and he worked from aged 14 to 70 and only missed 3 weeks one year when he caught flu in all these years.

He got £7 sick money for 3 weeks, and they sent free school dinner forms, he threw it across the room from his bed saying my kids will starve before I fill that out they want to know everything but you sex life in these forms. They don't ask any questions when taking your money.

a reply to: pavmas

Exactly.

This is not even a shell game anymore. We all know where the ball is, but the grifters have long since done away with the cups.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: nullafides

Working for less than the minimum wage is never good and quite possably illegal, government sponsored or otherwise im afraid.

Pay the poor souls a fair days pay for a fair days work! Stands to reason if you ask me.

Anything else and they are essentially peeing in there pockets and telling them its raining.

PSSST...read back...we're on the same page!!!!

Cameron gave the OP speech in my son's school hall today and I am disgusted that he has used the very place my son sits to have assembly, to also potentially enslave him and his friends in a few years time.

That said there is an even darker storm the Tories are brewing!

Nearly 1m people who are in work and claim benefits may be required to work longer, increase their earnings or face losing access to the new universal credit, two welfare ministers, Lord Freud and Mark Hoban, said on Monday.

www.theguardian.com... dit-benefits-work-longer

Yep, as if the youth of today weren't suffering enough, even those of us in paid employment may soon be forced to work more hours.

Doesn't sound like a bad idea in principle, but when you are a single parent, with no family support at all and numerous situations where you run the risk of having no childcare, or loosing money to paying childcare, the ideology begins to unravel.

I'm all for an honest days work for an honest days pay, but between this and the OP, these proposals are not best serving anybody but the very people whose pockets are already fully lined.

I think youth should be kept in the education system until they have a job to go to, or join an apprentaship, or join the armed services.

Sending them into forced positions for the going rate of benefit is draconian in my opinion, when you consider there will be others doing the same thing for a wage.

I know there isn't much between the political parties, but there is no way I will ever vote Tory ever.

P.S, sorry to go off topic a bit, I just needed to vent a little.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: jude11

Most people who choose not to work suffer from mental health problems or other associated social disorders. A very small percentage of long term unemployed choose to subside on the pittance provided by our government.

That sounds like disability and not the welfare being talked about here.

Apples and oranges.

originally posted by: pavmas
a reply to: grumpy64

There are a lot of 55 to 65 years old men that work on building sites, in the past as they came to the end of their working life they took a couple of 16 year old under their wing and taught them the trade, the older guys slower pace was just right for the youngsters to take it in,

This was paid for by the company if you had 100 employees you had to take on 2 youngsters, Maggie did a way with this.

But more importantly the old were respected by the young, I had so much respect for my journey man teaching me knowledge that I had a renew respect for the old, where 2 years earlier as a 14 year old I thought they were old codgers.

Now they youth see them as old codgers at 14 18 20 and will rob them,

Government is responsisble, it was Maggie T that said there is no such thing as society.

That sounds like it was a good scheme. I did an apprenticeship too and always respected the older guys at the time. You could find out so much about stuff if you only listened. And I think unemployment is just as bad as it was during the Thatcher era. It's just that they calculate the unemployment rate differently now and it would be interesting to see the unemployment rates calculated in the same way as they were in the 80's and the same way as were in the Great Depression.

I never understood this, in my eyes its slave labour. my friend was forced to work for poundland in order to collect his benifits, poundland wouldnt give him a paying job because they had slaves already (including him) forced into working for pence.

originally posted by: BornAgainAlien
a reply to: jude11

In reality because of technology we all should be able to work less days a week and would be able to enjoy ourselves more...but that`s not what the 0,01 % wants...money is power, and they sure like their power over the rest of humanity.

I agree. But that 0.01 % makes it's money by skimming off a percent or two from whatever the rest of humanity does economically. A few percent of your wages, a few percent of what you buy or sell, a few percent of your rent or mortgage - in short, whatever you do. Banks, politicians and the ultra rich need you to work and spend as fast as you can because the more you do, the more they make. And as you said, money is also power.

it`s not slavery if they are getting paid, what do you call it when they collect pay for doing NO work?

I think it`s a great idea put them to work on state owned farms growing their own food to eat.

Are, the waifs and street urchins.........Do as we did in the good old days, when we had the same problem.....too many people not enough jobs.
Round them up and send them to the colonies, for the term of their natural life......that will fix the problem.

Not the darkies tho, that is not PC we cant do it to them, We are fair in England you know.

Only the Whitey scum.....damn natives!!

We will show them what real sunshine is like....that'll teach them!!, blighters!!!

a reply to: Tardacus


if they have the work avalible why dont they pay the workers atleast the minimum wage?

a reply to: kamatty
They won't have to pay minimum wage to anyone when they'll get government subsides to take on the unemployed.
Creating a viscous circle that brings all the poor down.

originally posted by: nullafides

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: jude11

In a country with a supposed minimum wage this is simply illegal.

They should be getting £5.13 or £6.50 per hour depending on there age and even then its quite frankly nowhere near enough to live.

You've got a very good point there! Someone should be fairly compensated for their work....

These people leave school, and without ever having contributed their taxes to the state coffers, they then proceed to live the following years on state benefits, to which they havn't contributed.
They want free money, then let them earn it doing menial tasks for the community.

Im sick of the sponging bastards of the world.

These people dont work, evade working yet expect a free hándout because its their "right".

Its time to give back a little of what the states given.. And now thousands will #ting their beds at the mere thought of having to get up before midday to work.

And in answer to the OP, its not unpaid work, they've been paid for years without ever having to work, now its time to pay back a little of whats owed.

I think this is a despicable idea. I have had to endure spells of unemployment and not only is it difficult to live on the very small amount of money received, but at a time when every week yet more companies were going down the drain, the market was more and more flooded with competitors for the less and less jobs remaining.
Since most employers were demanding several years of experience for the few jobs that were on offer, a huge number of jobs were totally unobtainable and was difficult to break into a new career path.

It was not unusual to spend 3 hours filling out a large paper or online form where the company, who would advertise via the jobcentre portal, would not accept the uploaded C.V. and only would accpet applicatin on their company specific form. The rest of the time was taken up by trawling the portal and other job websites. Doing this daily (even over the weekend, as you MUST apply for jobs EVERY DAY, as per the jobcentre agreement that you sign) I found quite a few flaws in their portal system. One of them was that a lot of agencies advertised there, and so what looked like 50 vacancies was in fact only ONE vacancy advertised by many different people. Then there was the 'not a real job vacancy' where you read through all the text/description to find that at the end it said 'self-employment opportunity' or 'commission only'. This to me is not a vacancy for a proper stable income, more precarious when you have kids too. Also I found jobs that sounded dodgey. I would look for contact details and looke them up on the internet, some showed a large house in a housing estate in England, some at premises that seemed unoccupied and whose phone number would ring but never be answered. Also there was a huge number of only part-time jobs (so basically you don't get the same holidays/sick pay/company benefits etc as a full time person) or Zero Hour contracts (talk about criminal!). I pointed out these flaws in the system, as nobody actually vetted the jobs posted or checked to see if there were multiple entries for the same vacancy. I also suggested they make the website where you could filter it not to include Zero Hour or Self-employment or Commission only jobs, but of course that would be too sensible for our government made website to actually implement.

Some weeks there really was just not much to apply for. It took over 150 applications before I managed to get a job interview, and inteviews never mind answers were few and far between.

So, far from the government view that everyone on the bru is a lazy good for nothing slob, even when activly seeking work every day, doing way more than the minimum required (and god knows how long it would have taken to get a job had I only done the minimum) there is no way I could have found time to do a full shift of basically unpaid/lower than minimum wage work as well.

Now the only thing that WOULD have been useful would have been some sort of part-time work experience placement in a RELEVANT FIELD so that say changing career path or gaining more experience within a dicipline already attained would lead to a job at the end of it. I am not talking about the BS slave labour they were making some people go on, e.g. mopping floors in Poundland, but something where you actually learn a skill/experience. Plus they should have it so that the company, who offers a place on such a scheme (basically free labour) should have to give you at least 1 years proper paid work as part of the contract.

Unfortunately our government elite are hell bent on making it look like they are 'doing something' but in reality are only going to make it take longer for people to get a real job, as their time will be soaked up doing menial tasks which teach them nothing but hatred for their own government and total despondancy (and believe me when you apply for lots of jobs and get no answer or no thanks back, you get pretty despondant and depressed)

Luckily my perseverence paid off and I am now in a job that I love doing.

a reply to: CthulhuMythos

I think this is aimed at those who have never worked and shiver at the mere thought of it.

This should'nt apply to those who have worked and, for an example, find themselves on the dole after a lifetime of working through no fault of their own.

Those who leave school, dont bother looking for, nor want to work should be those penalised.