Friday 20 June 2014

Workfare for an exploited lost generation, now also "workfare till you drop" for older redundant unemployed


Workfare has already been used a rouse, a con to extract work from a lost younger generation, now the government plan to step up enforcing unpaid work on older redundant, often due to losses of real jobs being replaced by a transient casual Mcfry type limited opportunity work, that often selects only the very youngest unemployed, so they can be treated more casual. This may be acceptable for students trying to earn some money whist at university, or temporary when starting out, but these same people are often discarded when they graduate and besides pocket money income does not support independence and the cost of living in UK, which is amongst the most expensive places in the world to live.

As retirement age is extended towards 70, so too is workfare, working full time for benefits that are far less than minimum wage and inadequate to live on especially for people who are managing independently and for older unemployed often no alternative as no means to return to a family to support them, nowhere to turn to.

More people than ever work on zero hour contracts that are totally inadequate and unreliable, insecure, also often on minimum wage for less than full time, so income well below minimum wage. This is added to and supported by a threat to the masses if they don’t work for minimum wage and less to join further masses of unpaid labour as part of forced labour schemes removing the need to even pay for lower skilled work, hence maximising profits for corporations and bonuses for bosses, men in suits who are not innovative or bringing anything useful , such a being a cardboard cut-out manger in one of thousands of McFrys around the world, all the same, all offering the same questionable quality products and using a virtual slave labour workforce.


Matters are made even worse where someone is disabled, repeated assessments, declaring unfit as fit to work and what kind of work, as Artist Taxi Driver often remarks "slave labour death camps", which for some even many have turned out to be the case, along with added stresses, physically and mentally, weighing heavily on what they already have to cope with and chillingly real suicides.

The disabled and vulnerable are at the mercy of  system designed to make them work until they drop and all for no remuneration, no real quality of life, no disposable income after paying for bills, inadequate benefits to even support basic needs.

Workfare Till You Drop – Esther McVey To Target Older Claimants:



 
Amongst any inaccuracies and debatable uses and interpretations of statistics mentioned by IDS in the interview, he repeatedly says that workfare lasts 2 months. It appears workfare together with associated work programme supposed schemes starts at 2 months and can accumulate into much longer periods of unpaid employment, even to 12 months and with only short breaks can be repeated adding up to regular longer periods. In many cases employers use people on workfare and replace them with other people on workfare at the end of a block of workfare for each job seeker and they are paid to use free labour thus can make them much more attractive than even low paid staff on minimum wage or zero hour contracts as it means increased profits based on being paid by the government to use free labour instead of paying staff a wage, undercutting even the lowest wages.

At the youngest end of the spectrum,even children as young as 14 to be pre-conditioned for a life of servitude, if poor, to be sent on mini workfare, just like ideas of pre-apprenticeships, word used to describe low quality menial work programmes:


Army Reservist workfare for young long-term unemployed:






Ongoing blog item that can be added to and updated as appropriate
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