New Welfare Reform - A Mistake?

[Scottish Business Owner]

I'm sure you've all heard about the reforms concerning unemployed people doing community work in exchange for their benefits. I was broadly in favour of the idea but the TUC has now came out and said it's a mistake.

Welfare reform is 'a mistake' - 22 Jul 2008

What do you all think?

 

[Former Member 1]

These "workfare" proposals for the UK are nothing new. And were floated as long as 20 years ago under Thatcher.

One BIG problem is that they eat away at the lower end of the labour market. If there's work to be done then yes it should be done by those who are able, who should receive the commensurate rewards and rights for doing it. But why should a public body (or worse still a private organisation) meet minimum wage and satisfy the call of employee's rights when they can have cheap slave labour off the dole?

IF on the other hand these people are unemployable or lack qualifications then they should have the opportunity to train and learn with legitimate training bodies. And by that I don't mean the sort of worthless so-called training schemes that have existed in the past merely to deflect public funds into the private pockets of Tony and Margaret's cronies.

We have a situation where education is rationed and now they propose forcing society's 'fallout' into what is effectively slave labour. If people can work and there are jobs needing done then by all means they should be obliged to take them.

But a fair day's pay for a fair day's work HAS to be minimum standard both required OF and expected BY the workforce.

Like I keep saying, New Labour = Old Tories....

 

[Idea15]

That article was a good (and typical) laugh because the CIPD comments hint at the real issue - unemployment is a big business and it keeps a lot of people in work. I know that, because for a few months I was one of them. The overwhelming majority of getting-into-work schemes devised until now have been made to create jobs for the poverty industry itself. I was disgusted to see how the only jobs my company's management were interested in creating were their own. Almost as bad as having to spout the patronising party lines about "finding your dreams and ambitions" to people who are quite happy living on benefit, ta.

The poverty industry has been made possible by the lack of welfare reform. All the into-work schemes until now have been academic exercises as they did not address the root causes which made lifelong unemployment possible. The new reforms change that. Reform welfare, move the safety net, and you render a lot of "unemployment professionals" unnecessary.

What me cynical?