"Volunteer" at Poundland or lose benefits

[rebbonk]

Amazing what you can stumble across whilst browsing....

Jobseekers have been volunteering at a Poundland shop after being told that they’re likely to lose their Jobseekers’ Allowance if they don’t do voluntary work.

A new leaflet from the Department for Work and Pensions includes private sector companies on a list of places people can volunteer. Heather Allen, manager of Volunteer Centre Dacorum, said:

“The voluntary work being done by these people is mainly stacking shelves. At best, that is work experience rather than volunteering. At worst, it is exploitation. When these unemployed people appear at our door, they are demotivated and they are volunteering only because they are afraid of losing their benefits.”

One of the businesses that actually benefited from the recession is now exploiting the unemployed.

Everything’s £1 at Poundland. Except the wages.

UPDATE: Poundland is now denying that it uses volunteers to stack shelves in its shops, but claim that it does take people on “unpaid mandatory work experience placements”. In a statement given to Third Sector the company claim:

We work in partnership with JobCentre Plus and other government-funded organisations to implement a comprehensive Work Placement Programme designed to provide on the job training for those looking to retail as a career opportunity,” the statement said. “A placement lasts for four to six weeks, and during this time jobseekers continue to receive benefits.

Source:http://politicalscrapbook.net/2011/03/now-jobseekers-told-volunteer-at-poundland-or-lose-your-benefits/
Further info here:http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/news/rss/article/1059489/Poundland-denies-using-volunteers-its-shops/

[dutchman]

This has been the case for years now, Channel 4 even filmed women on so-called "work placement" at Poundland a couple of years ago. Other major retailers such as Tesco also make use of the system. Some people have complained that they were tricked into 'volunteering' in return for a tiny increase in weekly benefit.

For those unfamiliar with the system, anyone unemployed for more than year is required to attend 'training classes' for 30 hours a week for six months. This includes the chronic sick and disabled (except in a few extreme cases). These so-called 'classes' are made so mind numbingly dull that inmates will volunteer for practically any unpaid work in order to get out of them.

[rebbonk]

I honestly didn't know about these "placements" Dutchman. I must admit I was shocked. How far away from slave labour? - And I'm not a particular left-winger.

I'd heard about attending the "classes" and heard a few stories similar to what you say. I know of one guy that had almost 30 years of continuous employment, found himself unemployed and was forced onto one of these courses. He knew more than the person leading the class! Unfortunately, he was told that non attendance (an agreed waste of everyone's time) was compulsory.

It strikes me that as usual it's a numbers and people shuffling game and that very little real help is being provided to those that need it. I can only thank God that I have never found myself in this unfortunate position.

[Euphoria]

thats a bit crap that they have to work for businesses, they get fere labour?!?! if they want to force people to get off thier lazy backsides for long term benefit claimants why not give them community work, like cleaning canals, litter picking, painting over grafitti or something similar? getting free work for companies is wrong.

[dutchman]

I've just read the latest long-term unemployment statistics (ie: those out of work and claiming benefits for more than 12 months) and there are now 2.4million people enrolled in these 'work experience' schemes. This figure is expected to rise by another 743,000 over the next two years and does not include an additional 100,000 aged between 16 and 24 who are not counted in the official tally.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/ ... sfeed=true

[Spuffler]

Many countries in Europe have a system where to stay on benefits after a year, you have to do something specific.

Denmark, for instance, requires anyone still on the dole after a year to do one of two things:
1. attend government run refresher classes in your own discipline, so as to help you get a job, or
2. attend government run classes in a different discipline (effectively retraining) so that you can try something else.

You can then have a go at your own business, for instance. If you fail, you can go back on the dole, retrain again, and try something different again. There are two BIG differences, however, to the UK:
a) dole is 80% of the pay you received in your job before redundancy
b) trying self-employment doesn't disqualify you for dole money [as I understand UK law, if you go self-employed and fail, you have to wait 6 months before you can draw the dole again - an inhibitor to trying.]

The biggest difference is that most countries in Europe actually want to help their people get back into work, rather than penalise them for being out of work. Again Denmark is a good example. Denmark has a huge fishing fleet, and many fishermen were thrown out of work by EU fishing quotas. Their government started an experiment to see if cod farming could be effective, using the salt lakes just inland of the dunes on their west coast, and used the out-of-work fishermen to work the fish farms. The farmed fish were to be put back into the North Sea, so as to rebuild stocks. What shame we just throw people on the dole, brand them scroungers, and treat the whole scenario in a totally negative fashion! If we'd done something similar to the Danes, the North Sea could have significantly recovered by now.

[dutchman]

Many parents 'better off on the dole' after tax credit changes

Thousands of parents could be better off claiming benefits than working under changes to the tax credits system, it was claimed last night.

Working tax credit is a payment for people in employment earning less than £12,900 per year or a couple earning less than £17,700 or less a year.

However, Government figures show that around 200,000 couples who work part time while bringing up children are set to lose their entitlement of almost £4,000 per year from April, unless they increase their working hours.

Charities said the move would “push families back into the benefits system”, as couples must now work at least 24 hours per week before they are eligible for the credit.

Rachel Reeves, the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury minister, will today claim the changes will mean “going out to work makes no sense” for some couples.

“In this climate, very few people in part-time work will find be able to increase their hours by up to 50 per cent,” she will say. “This tax credits bombshell is now just a few weeks away. For thousands of families it means going out to work won’t pay and they’ll be better off on benefits. That makes no economic sense at all. The government urgently needs to think again.”

[Spuffler]

I think even more worrying is that there should be a need to take action re long-term unemployed; they used to be very much a minority, but now it seems like an admission that the unemployed are for the long term regardless. Talking to one of my neighbours this afternoon, he told me that he had visited a friend in Essex yesterday, and the friend said there were no jobs to be had there. Also, a guy from Birmingham is commuting 150 miles plus each way every week for a relatively low-level job here because there is no engineering work to be had in Birmingham. And yet our government is seemingly content to let e.g. Bombardier and BAe jobs go abroad.

I can remember a conversation I had with my then boss during Thatcher's time, when unemployment reached 3million. He said "It would be much better if unemployment reached 4.5 million, so that bosses could pick and choose who they wanted, and really dictate terms to those on the dole." And he wasn't joking - he really thought like that. It makes me wonder if that is the objective of current government policy, because there seems little other reason to carry out the policies that we have had for the last 2 years. It's just common sense that if the country has a debt to repay, to do so as quickly as possible requires the maximum possible level of taxes accruing - and that isn't achieved by throwing people on the dole. Obama's policies in the US are having a positive effect; at the same time, we have seen what similar policies to those being practised here have achieved in Ireland, for instance, so our government can't claim ignorance.

A very, very disturbing scenario, IMHO. And the cutbacks haven't even yet started to bite!

And there is another important point here. If the best job school leavers can get is shelf stacking (at Poundland or anywhere else) how is that helping them for getting jobs in future? Likewise for adults on such a scheme. "Maintaining their work ethic" is nonsense! What they need is keeping their skills alive, not doing menial work. This looks very much like continuing to de-skill our workforce - and that does anything but bode well for the future!

[dutchman]

Most of the effort by successive governments over many decades has gone into disguising the true unemployment figures rather than reducing them. Whether people are forced to work for for their benefits or enrolled in bogus 'training schemes' they are still 'unemployed', they are just not counted as such. No one political party is any worse than the others in this respect, they are all equally guilty.

Something I can't help noticing - and I'd love someone who works for the DWP to verify this - is that the more steps someone takes to make themselves employable, the more likely it is that their benefits will be stopped! Just one example is when somebody takes a part-time or temporary position. This is the exact opposite of what should be happening.

Another factor which most people seem oblivious to is that the UK probably has too many people who are employed. This is born out by the official figures which show a higher percentage of the population in work than any comparable european country. The trouble is that in too many cases they are the wrong people doing the wrong jobs!

[Spuffler]

Yes, very true. Politically, I don't much care who is in power, it's what they DO that matters! Is it good for the country? If not, I'm against them.

I agree strongly about the more you do to help yourself become employable the worse off you are. I think it has much to do with the view of the unemployed as being something to do with their own faults, and when they try to adopt self-help, it gives the lie to that view. But then, 48 years at work has made me more than a bit cynical - I'm sorry to say!

Admin: I've moved the rest of this post and the replies to it here The decline of the engineering profession as it's a slightly different subject. Nothing has been deleted