Posts Tagged ‘Workfare’

Workfare: it’s failed, but that won’t stop this government

by Michael Meacher.

As from this week, if you’ve been out of work for a year, you’re put through the Work Programme for 2 years and then if you emerge with no job, as many do, you’re into workfare disguised under the deceitful title of Help to Work. What this means was spelt out by Osborne at last […]

The Tories bring in workfare though they’ve proved it doesn’t even work

by Michael Meacher.

As from this week, if you’ve been out of work for a year, you’re put through the Work Programme for 2 years and then if you emerge with no job, as many do, you’re into workfare disguised by the deceitful title of Help to Work. What this means was spelt out by Osborne at last year’s […]

Labour must fight to give young people hope

by Jack Stuchbury.

The Labour Party needs to be seen as the party pushing issues relevant to the future. The 16-24 year old age group is the only generation in living memory that will have a worse quality of life than the generations before them. Labour need to be seen as the party that bring issues affecting young […]

What was Liam Byrne playing at?

by Phil Burton-Cartledge.

What is Liam Byrne playing at? There has been exasperation and annoyance that Labour MPs were instructed to abstain on last night’s DWP Commons vote. This was to retrospectively revoke workfare recipients’ right to claim compensation in light of the so-called Poundland ruling. Readers will recall IDS and his minions fell foul of an especially […]

Labour supports Tory sanctions on job-seekers – but 40 fight back

by Michael Meacher.

A few months ago two young workers at Poundland appealed to the courts against being forced to work there for no wages at all or else forfeit all their benefits. The judge in the Court of Appeal decided in their favour, but also ruled that existing back-to-work schemes, of which Poundland was just one of […]

Workfare: London Bridge is the tip of the iceberg

by Michael Meacher.

The more the job market shrinks, the more the government is revving up its programme to force the jobless to work for nothing. Like so much else, it started with New Labour, but the Tories have now expanded the project of payless work out of all proportion. It operates either by threats (loss of benefits […]

Now we know what unpaid work experience really means

by Michael Meacher.

The Close Protection UK (CPUK) ‘London Bridge incident’ casts a grim spotlight on the nature of the government’s Work Programme. A total of 80 persons were bussed in from Bristol, Bath and Plymouth, 50 of them ‘apprentices’ paid £2.80 an hour (when the minimum wage if £6.08 an hour) and 30 unemployed paid nothing at […]

Better to be a banker than on workfare if you do something wrong

by Michael Meacher.

Penalties, as the current bonus season reveals all too clearly, are still a matter of class. If you’re a young person 16-24 on a work experience programme promoted as ‘voluntary’, and you drop out even for good reason, you stood to lose two weeks’ benefit (until the government was forced to back down by public […]

Workfare climbdown hasn’t stopped the Tories penalising the young jobless

by Michael Meacher.

It was always absurd that a young person aged between 16-24 was forced to undergo an unpaid work placement for up to 8 weeks on the basis that it was ‘voluntary’, yet if they left for any reason they would suffer the sanction of loss of unemployment benefit for 2 weeks. But what is most […]

Tory Councillor threatens to boycott firms dropping out of workfare

by Carl Packman.

It was voluntary before, but now, when the game was up, Chris Grayling came along and announced that “all benefit sanctions for work experience programme are dropped”, claiming to have only listened to employers, not protesters.

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