Be Excellent To Each Other

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7514513.stm

They might as well, after all.

(inevitable - work for dole... surely that's just 'having a job'? - comment)

I'd hope that minimum wage would still apply for 'Work for Dole' schemes, otherewise someone's getting work done at slave labour rates.

Precisely, so then they'll be inclined to go out and get a decent one. It is important that such dole-work is monitored closely by people able to pick up on anything that might genuinely be holding someone back like dyslexia or undiagnosed asperger's or something. This needs to not cause anyone who can't work to be penniless, though better a tiny minority suffer that fate than a large minority steal from those of us who do want to make an effort.

Also in areas where not much employment is available, it is no good to just stick people on such schemes and let that be their job... a meritocracy only works where the carrot isn't an insult and the stick isn't a default.

That someone being us, society, the taxpayer, your nan, etc. Work which might otherwise be done by private contractors at your expense. Thus freeing up more money for those who really need benefits.

My nan's dead, you cunt!

It won't, otherwise it would make their £5 of work then we dock your benefits at 1:1 rules illegal too.

Unfortunately, it's slightly naive of you to think that'll be a possibility. I mean, I have Dyslexia and I've realised qyears ago that the vast majority of the population don't have a fucking clue what it is. (Example: one of my university tutors called it, inaccurately "word blindness" and insisted it was a Western cultural construct, rather than say something with a physiological basis. The ignorant twat.) Not sure about Aspergers, but I doubt that's even vaguely as commonly known about as Dyslexia...

Anyway, if there is 'workfare', for social justice reasons it should only be for long term jobless (say, over a year perhaps?) to those screened as being non-disabled, and then not a full time work placement, because that'll just impede jobhunting.

They have something called 'Euro jobs' in Germany, by the way. Literally workfare jobs that pay a Euro an hour. The work could be placed many miles from your home, the other side of your home state perhaps, and thus require more costs spent on petrol money than one would actually receive in benefits. Which is not nice in the former East, where much of the economy has been left to rot since reunification, and joblessness rates still very high. I think it's 30-35% still in the state (Lander) my girlfriend comes from. Not good. Many thousands of people genuinely desperate to work but unable to - we haven't experienced a situation like that in the UK for over a decade thankfully, although let's be honest, it's always a possibility...

Cracking post. I'm not naive, I'm aspirational, though. I think as a support worker, seeing so many clients processed like cheese in a jobcentre(plus!) when all they need to get motivated in the right direction is a pep talk and a quick skills assessment has made me somewhat aghast at the dumb approach we take these days.

In the JC they utterly ignore the fact that people don't like to talk positively about themselve, especially those who are unemployed in the first place. A little motivational, solution focused interviewing rather than "right you are a gardener, apply for three gardening jobs this week or we'll cut you off, now fuck off there's a queue" will in the long term improve things.

Maybe working for dole should not be compulsory, but claimants should be offered a commitment they can't back out of in the first place, say a day or two a week, just to stop them stagnating if they think it would help.

Of course with so much JSA linked to national insurance contributions, someone who finds themselves suddenly out of work should fucking well get the money they paid in in the first place, before they have to even think about obligaqtions to anyone else.

Or, how's this? Make a percentage of an individual's JSA a loan, once they've been sat on thre arse for a while, which comes out of future wages... that'd have motivated the lazy me a decade ago when I was on the dole.

Im a bit pissed by the dole standadrs really, since I left school at 16 I pretty much worked for 5 years straight, I got to sleep obviously. But the end of this academic year I thought I would concentrate on my last year at uni, being the main one and that, quitting me job at the end of my second last year, and then noticing I cant claim dole even though I've got 3 months or so off from academic course, fuck getting a job again after that, I was hoping for a couple of easy months before going back but I cant, fucking bastards.

You can't claim jobseeker's allowance, because you are not seeking a job. Also, you had a job and you left it, so why would you get jobseeker's anyway?

It's not to do with SAJ in this case technically, they changed the rules a good decade ago to stop full time uni students claiming between years.