The Conservative Cave
Current Events => The DUmpster => Topic started by: SSG Snuggle Bunny on November 04, 2014, 07:49:46 AM
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malaise (124,541 posts)
Is it Slavery Yet - DWP orders man to work without pay for company that let him go
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/03/dwp-benefits-electrician-work-placement-labour
<snip>
Electronics specialist John McArthur, now unemployed, says he is living off 16p tins of spaghetti and without heating after being sanctioned by a jobcentre for refusing to work unpaid for LAMH Recycle in Motherwell, a Scottish social enterprise.
He says he was happy to work for LAMH under the now-defunct future jobs fund for the minimum wage in 2010-2011, but refuses on principle to do the same job unpaid. McArthur, 59, says he is surviving on a monthly pension of £149 after the DWP stopped his unemployment benefit until January as punishment for his refusal to go on the 26-week community work placement (CWP).
For almost three months, McArthur has spent two hours each weekday morning parading outside the plant wearing a placard reading: “Say no to slave labourâ€.
jtuck004 (9,422 posts)
1. Wow. He seems to be fighting some seriously scummy people...
Interesting story, and pretty widespread. Good for him.
Wonder about the companies profiting from the taxpayer-provided labor...
"
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Last Wednesday, the DWP continued to battle the information commissioner and hostile court judgments ordering it to reveal where possibly hundreds of thousands of people are being sent to work without pay, sometimes for months at a time.
At the tribunal, the DWP argued that if the public knew exactly where people were being sent on placements political protests would increase, which was likely to lead to the collapse of several employment schemes and undermine the government’s economic interests.
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“We are not naming the charities and community groups involved in the scheme in order to protect them from those who seem intent on stopping us helping people into work.â€
If there was sunlight into their slavery the public wouldn't like it, so we don't want to give you info.
Please, I would like the name of the person who thought that argument up, so I can avoid them in the future.
But it's RECYCLING!
You Proglodytes demand compulsory adherence to every temple edict to descend from the priestesses of Gaia.
THIS is what THAT looks like!
And you can't call it slavery because when the state does it, it's called THE LAW and any opposition is INSURRECTION.
Recursion (34,682 posts)
7. Haven't people proposed similar jobs plans on DU?
Pay people with public money to go do some sort of social good that needs to be done?
marble falls (5,367 posts)
2. Certainly sounds like slavery. Or even forced prison labor without even the benefits of even....
a prisoner shelter, nominal payment, food, clothing, medical treatment. Shocking!
How about tax laws, government regulations and asset forfeiture laws that treat people like criminals before they even enter the system?
Monk06 (5,897 posts)
4. Future jobs fund? What marketable skills can you aquire from working 26 weeks in a trash plant?
So the People's Glorious Recycling Plant is dead-end work? An employment gulag?
Interesting admission.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025753403
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malaise (124,541 posts)
Is it Slavery Yet
Yes, it is, you DUmmy.
This is your socio-economic model, so ...
:ownit:
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He was getting unemployment payments until he refused to do a little work for it at recycling place. Sounds to me like he was getting paid and just didn't want to work for it.
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“It was simply a case of: ‘Go here, work for nothing and if you don’t we’ll stop your subsistence level benefit,’†he said.
So he's getting some kind of unemployment/welfare benefit as long as he attends a 26 week training program for the long term unemployed.
How is that not getting paid? I think our welfare system should (it used to) have some kind of work training attached while collecting benefits.
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Monk06 (5,897 posts)
4. Future jobs fund? What marketable skills can you aquire from working 26 weeks in a trash plant?
About the same as working in a sewage plant, right OmahaSteve?
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But it's RECYCLING!
You Proglodytes demand compulsory adherence to every temple edict to descend from the priestesses of Gaia.
THIS is what THAT looks like!
And you can't call it slavery because when the state does it, it's called THE LAW and any opposition is INSURRECTION.
(https://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/hipster-sunglasses-6.jpg)
Huh? Whut?
Monk06 (5,897 posts)
4. Future jobs fund? What marketable skills can you aquire from working 26 weeks in a trash plant?
(http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/57/a2/65/57a265e3cb7d3e24041c43a957644c80.jpg)
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Something isn't right with this. It says that he worked at the plant previously as an electronics specialist. I wonder exactly what that means.
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Something isn't right with this. It says that he worked at the plant previously as an electronics specialist. I wonder exactly what that means.
He replaced batteries and light bulbs . . . :whistling:
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He replaced batteries and light bulbs . . . :whistling:
He belonged to a union....he did one or the other but not both.
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He belonged to a union....he did one or the other but not both.
:o
Good point. My bad.
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He replaced batteries and light bulbs . . . :whistling:
Probably sorting the e-trash, or even checking the junk for still-functional stuff that could be re-purposed. It's serious title inflation if so. I suppose it's possible he actually ran a database for them on the site's computer, or something of the sort, of course the phrase may have some particular meaning in Brit employment circles, like 'Office automation specialist' does in our Federal government jobs (Where 'OA Specialist' means answering the phone, getting the mail, making copies, and having the basic computer literacy to do input, email, schedules, and printing).
Actually it sounds like this was a workfare system, where in order to get benefits he was supposed to work a certain number of hours in an assigned community-service job...he kept getting the benefits but refused to go to the work, so he's just been ordered to make up the time he owes them. A US court would probably have just ordered a financial judgment against him, which would be meaningless since he'd never repay it anyway.
I don't have a problem with it.