Workfare scheme slammed by Archbishop of York



The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu

THE Archbishop of York has slated the Government’s controversial ‘workfare’ scheme, suggesting it took advantage of vulnerable people by using them as free labour.

Dr John Sentamu said his heart sank when he heard about the work experience project, which he said encouraged young people to take on unpaid placements in companies with no guarantee of permanent posts, by “apparently threatening to cut their benefits if they drop out after a week”.

Writing in a column in the first edition of the new Sun On Sunday newspaper, he said: “We can encourage people to volunteer, but a worker should be worthy of their wages.

“What we need is a culture where young people not only want to work, but where their work is valued and contributes to the national good.

“By all means, pay companies incentives to employ young people, but do not take advantage of the vulnerable by using them as free labour.”

He said that earning a living wage should not be an optional extra, but should be seen as a basic necessity.

He also criticised high levels of unemployment that left about a million young people out of work.

The Archbishop’s comments came after Employment Minister Chris Grayling defended the scheme, saying that half of those who joined it after the launch 11 weeks ago had now found a job, often with companies which had offered them work experience.

The Minister also claimed that some firms reportedly pulling out of the programme, including supermarket giant Sainsbury’s, had never formally been involved in the Government initiative because they ran their own scheme.

Elsewhere in his column, Dr Sentamu revealed that he had gone vegetarian for lent, having given up dairy products and meat as well as alcohol.

He urged people to buy as many Fairtrade products as possible as Fairtrade Fortnight starts today.
He admitted that some would criticise him for writing in a newspaper which would be seen by many as filling the gap left by the closure of the News Of The World, but he said he was “always one for responding to change positively and embracing new beginnings”.

Source

This is not wartime Nazi Germany and Cameron's attacks on the vulnerable and needy must be stopped

By Sonia Poulton

Dastardly: Sonia Poulton says David Cameron and the Coalition Government has surpassed itself in its campaign of terror against some of the most needy in our society

 

I'm unwell at the moment. I have a streaming nose, high temperature, cold shakes and low blood pressure. I get light headed when I stand and I have fallen over a couple of times this week. What I am experiencing has made me a bit miserable and snappy (sorry loved ones), not to mention bruised and sore from head to foot, but it's not life-threatening, not terminal. Unlike what many others are enduring.

 

I reveal my current state of health not because I wish to elicit sympathy (or even garner a gift or two, but either is always nice) but because I wish to highlight that even though I am physically poorly, I still felt compelled to rise from my sickbed and write.

Why? Because over the past week or so I have sat back and watched our Coalition Government surpass itself in its campaign of terror against some of the most needy in our society.

There we were thinking it impossible that David Cameron's Tory party could become even more dastardly, even more duplicitous, in their devastating aims against those in vulnerable groups - sick, disabled, single parent families and the elderly - but they have.

Take their next much-vaunted initiative - the Workfare programme. Controversial certainly - who can forget the graduate who declined to work at Poundland as part of the scheme? She who was reviled and martyred, depending on your political persuasion, reading pleasure and sense of justice, for refusing to work at the budget chain store so that she would continue to receive 'benefits' as she searched for the job she had studied and qualified for.

I agreed with her. I deplore the Workfare programme for many reasons but primarily because it is deplorable. Trumpeted as a programme that will give the unemployed key skills, it serves nothing of the sort.

What it is, in actuality, is a benefit system for sections of our work force. And there was I, foolishly, thinking that when you are part of the capitalist work force then the appropriate term for remuneration received is salary. Apparently not. These days, and under Cameron's stewardship, we receive 'benefits' to become part of the job market.

Controversial: The Government's Workfare programme has been trumpeted as a scheme that will give the unemployed key skills

Fair? Tesco is one of the firms set to benefit from the Workfare programme

Let me be clear. There is nothing wrong with getting hands-on experience that will enable progression in your chosen path, and we've all done plenty of that, but there is everything wrong with being forced to work in a place that has nothing to do with your aims and ambitions and everything to do with creating a labour force that verges on slavery to the system.

Astonishingly, the deplorable - I think I mentioned that already - Workfare has reached new lows this week as it became transparently clear that it also serves to line the overflowing coffers of wealthy corporations while making the already poor, poorer still.

The thing about Cameron's Workfare programme is it's almost too easy to criticise. The problem is not knowing where to start but wondering if I shall ever finish.

Presumably Tesco's slogan 'Every little helps' (the shareholder) is a similar mantra to the Coalition's 'We're all in this together' (politicians and bankers, that is). In that it benefits the few and not the many.

 

So I ask just this: how can it possibly be right for a multi-national - such as Tesco - to benefit from free labour?

That's wrong. Clearly. If staff are needed by our numero uno retailer then Tesco should have an absolute obligation to pay them the going rate. And not a penny less.

Presumably the company's slogan 'Every little helps' (the shareholder) is a similar mantra to the Coalition's 'We're all in this together' (politicians and bankers, that is). In that it benefits the few and not the many.

What Tesco, and other participants in the Workfare scheme, receive is far greater than what they give.

We, as the country, are, quite literally, paying the consumer giant to make even more money. And we are doing that by having our taxpayer funded job seekers work free for the company.

Does that sound right? It might if your view of life is from Downing Street, but it's not from elsewhere.

You have to wonder how many MP's have fat wads of shares at stake in the Workfare scheme. I know I do. It may not be illegal for them to benefit from increased corporate share prices that Government initiatives may bring them personally, but it sure is highly questionable.

Disability benefits

And this brings me to what I consider to be the most heinous of the Coalition's attacks this week and the one that finally prompted me from my sickbed.
As a result of Cameron's spurious recent behaviour in pushing through crippling, quite literally for some, amendments to disability benefits, it has become clear that the attached issues are even more heinous that the blueprint of the Welfare Reform Bill, itself.

And it is this: disabled people will now face the prospect of unlimited unpaid work or they will be subject to cuts in their benefits. For millions that is nothing more than a line on a page but for many terrified and suicidal others, it is anything but.

Unfair: Under new rules disabled people now face the prospect of unlimited unpaid work or be subject to cuts in their benefit

Even from the outside - in that neither I or my daughter currently require disability or sickness benefits, thankfully - it is clear that this will result in a deeply troubling outcome for those directly affected.

The consequences of this cannot be overstated. It will be, quite simply, devastating. As a number of institutes have not been slow in expressing their very real concerns.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) have written to the Coalition outlining the dangers of forcing sick and disabled people into the job market (the one that currently stands at almost three million unemployed by the way).

The RCP have a number of fears about the inadequacies of such a system. They worry, quite rightly, that managers in job centres and private companies - whose job it is to get people back to work - have inadequate health expertise and will push those with mental health issues into inappropriate placements.

Forcing people who have more than six months left to live - yes it is that stark, again - to earn a living is an outrage on a previously unseen scale.

Even I'm shocked by the ruthlessness of it and I wouldn't put anything past this compassion-free zone that is Parliament.

Sonia says cultural observers could not fail to notice similarities between what is taking place here and what occurred in Hitler's Germany

If nothing else the Coalition are proving themselves, over and over again, to be worthy defenders of the rich. If you're in the top percentage of income earners in this country then you, too, should be OK. I'm talking about the CEO, the landowners and shareholders. The banking industry, the pharmaceutical giants, the retail multi-nationals.

It's no great secret that one of the main reasons that MP's take care of business is because so many of them have financial interests in the businesses that they do business with. They are protecting their own interests while governing over the rest of us and insisting we do the same.

Morals aside, and I feel we must put them aside when referring to many, many politicians - and particularly much of the current shower in power - you can't really blame them for protecting their assets. They know which side their bread is buttered, or that of their colleagues, and they never fail to deliver or to resort to type in that regard.

Some people have written to me complaining that I get too angry when I write about our Government. But I AM angry. I believe we all should be outraged and I'm shouting because I want people to hear it.

Let us make no mistake what we are witnessing from our Coalition Government is absolutely, unquestionably, categorically scandalous.

The ritual humiliation, brutalisation, threats and punishment of anyone who is considered 'a burden to the state'. Anyone who is less than perfect, anyone who dares to find themselves in a position where they need the state to support them. Those people are the subject of shocking and terrifying behaviour at the hands of David Cameron's Coalition.

Cultural observers could not fail to notice the similiarites between what is taking place here towards sick, disabled, elderly or any group perceived to be vulnerable and weak and what occurred in Hitler's Germany.

This may not be ethnic cleansing that we are witnessing - and some are already experiencing - but it's a type of cleansing all the same.

There are hundreds of thousands of people around our country right now who are absolutely petrified for their future. It appears so hopeless. There have already been a number of suicides from people who left behind messages to the effect that they simply could not take the hardship any more. Could not face another winter without sufficient food or heat. And in the UK in 2012. Doesn't it make you proud?

Some of the actions that are being carried out around our great country - and it's still great no matter what the idiots trying to make it's not say - are an absolute living outrage and we cannot condone it in any way shape or form.

This Coalition have long since crossed the line of decency. Their attacks on those who need our help the most are vile, and transparently so, and must be stopped. Else we all live to regret it.


Sonia Poulton

This is not wartime Nazi Germany and Cameron's attacks on the vulnerable and needy must be stopped [Sonia Poulton]

Dastardly: Sonia Poulton says David Cameron and the Coalition Government has surpassed itself in its campaign of terror against some of the most needy in our society

I'm unwell at the moment. I have a streaming nose, high temperature, cold shakes and low blood pressure. I get light headed when I stand and I have fallen over a couple of times this week. What I am experiencing has made me a bit miserable and snappy (sorry loved ones), not to mention bruised and sore from head to foot, but it's not life-threatening, not terminal. Unlike what many others are enduring.


I reveal my current state of health not because I wish to elicit sympathy (or even garner a gift or two, but either is always nice) but because I wish to highlight that even though I am physically poorly, I still felt compelled to rise from my sickbed and write.


Why? Because over the past week or so I have sat back and watched our Coalition Government surpass itself in its campaign of terror against some of the most needy in our society.

There we were thinking it impossible that David Cameron's Tory party could become even more dastardly, even more duplicitous, in their devastating aims against those in vulnerable groups - sick, disabled, single parent families and the elderly - but they have.

Take their next much-vaunted initiative - the Workfare programme. Controversial certainly - who can forget the graduate who declined to work at Poundland as part of the scheme? She who was reviled and martyred, depending on your political persuasion, reading pleasure and sense of justice, for refusing to work at the budget chain store so that she would continue to receive 'benefits' as she searched for the job she had studied and qualified for.


I agreed with her. I deplore the Workfare programme for many reasons but primarily because it is deplorable. Trumpeted as a programme that will give the unemployed key skills, it serves nothing of the sort.


What it is, in actuality, is a benefit system for sections of our work force. And there was I, foolishly, thinking that when you are part of the capitalist work force then the appropriate term for remuneration received is salary. Apparently not. These days, and under Cameron's stewardship, we receive 'benefits' to become part of the job market.

Controversial: The Government's Workfare programme has been trumpeted as a scheme that will give the unemployed key skills

Fair? Tesco is one of the firms set to benefit from the Workfare programme

Let me be clear. There is nothing wrong with getting hands-on experience that will enable progression in your chosen path, and we've all done plenty of that, but there is everything wrong with being forced to work in a place that has nothing to do with your aims and ambitions and everything to do with creating a labour force that verges on slavery to the system.


Astonishingly, the deplorable - I think I mentioned that already - Workfare has reached new lows this week as it became transparently clear that it also serves to line the overflowing coffers of wealthy corporations while making the already poor, poorer still.
The thing about Cameron's Workfare programme is it's almost too easy to criticise.

The problem is not knowing where to start but wondering if I shall ever finish.

 

Presumably Tesco's slogan 'Every little helps' (the shareholder) is a similar mantra to the Coalition's 'We're all in this together' (politicians and bankers, that is). In that it benefits the few and not the many.

 

So I ask just this: how can it possibly be right for a multi-national - such as Tesco - to benefit from free labour?


That's wrong. Clearly. If staff are needed by our numero uno retailer then Tesco should have an absolute obligation to pay them the going rate. And not a penny less.


Presumably the company's slogan 'Every little helps' (the shareholder) is a similar mantra to the Coalition's 'We're all in this together' (politicians and bankers, that is). In that it benefits the few and not the many.


What Tesco, and other participants in the Workfare scheme, receive is far greater than what they give.


We, as the country, are, quite literally, paying the consumer giant to make even more money. And we are doing that by having our taxpayer funded job seekers work free for the company.


Does that sound right? It might if your view of life is from Downing Street, but it's not from elsewhere.


You have to wonder how many MP's have fat wads of shares at stake in the Workfare scheme. I know I do. It may not be illegal for them to benefit from increased corporate share prices that Government initiatives may bring them personally, but it sure is highly questionable.

Disability benefits

And this brings me to what I consider to be the most heinous of the Coalition's attacks this week and the one that finally prompted me from my sickbed.


As a result of Cameron's spurious recent behaviour in pushing through crippling, quite literally for some, amendments to disability benefits, it has become clear that the attached issues are even more heinous that the blueprint of the Welfare Reform Bill, itself.


And it is this: disabled people will now face the prospect of unlimited unpaid work or they will be subject to cuts in their benefits. For millions that is nothing more than a line on a page but for many terrified and suicidal others, it is anything but.

Unfair: Under new rules disabled people now face the prospect of unlimited unpaid work or be subject to cuts in their benefit

Even from the outside - in that neither I or my daughter currently require disability or sickness benefits, thankfully - it is clear that this will result in a deeply troubling outcome for those directly affected.


The consequences of this cannot be overstated. It will be, quite simply, devastating. As a number of institutes have not been slow in expressing their very real concerns.


The Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) have written to the Coalition outlining the dangers of forcing sick and disabled people into the job market (the one that currently stands at almost three million unemployed by the way).


The RCP have a number of fears about the inadequacies of such a system. They worry, quite rightly, that managers in job centres and private companies - whose job it is to get people back to work - have inadequate health expertise and will push those with mental health issues into inappropriate placements.


Forcing people who have more than six months left to live - yes it is that stark, again - to earn a living is an outrage on a previously unseen scale.


Even I'm shocked by the ruthlessness of it and I wouldn't put anything past this compassion-free zone that is Parliament.

Cultural observers could not fail to notice similarities between what is taking place here and what occurred in Hitler's Germany

If nothing else the Coalition are proving themselves, over and over again, to be worthy defenders of the rich. If you're in the top percentage of income earners in this country then you, too, should be OK. I'm talking about the CEO, the landowners and shareholders. The banking industry, the pharmaceutical giants, the retail multi-nationals.


It's no great secret that one of the main reasons that MP's take care of business is because so many of them have financial interests in the businesses that they do business with. They are protecting their own interests while governing over the rest of us and insisting we do the same.


Morals aside, and I feel we must put them aside when referring to many, many politicians - and particularly much of the current shower in power - you can't really blame them for protecting their assets. They know which side their bread is buttered, or that of their colleagues, and they never fail to deliver or to resort to type in that regard.
Some people have written to me complaining that I get too angry when I write about our Government. But I AM angry. I believe we all should be outraged and I'm shouting because I want people to hear it.


Let us make no mistake what we are witnessing from our Coalition Government is absolutely, unquestionably, categorically scandalous.


The ritual humiliation, brutalisation, threats and punishment of anyone who is considered 'a burden to the state'. Anyone who is less than perfect, anyone who dares to find themselves in a position where they need the state to support them. Those people are the subject of shocking and terrifying behaviour at the hands of David Cameron's Coalition.


Cultural observers could not fail to notice the similiarites between what is taking place here towards sick, disabled, elderly or any group perceived to be vulnerable and weak and what occurred in Hitler's Germany.


This may not be ethnic cleansing that we are witnessing - and some are already experiencing - but it's a type of cleansing all the same.


There are hundreds of thousands of people around our country right now who are absolutely petrified for their future. It appears so hopeless. There have already been a number of suicides from people who left behind messages to the effect that they simply could not take the hardship any more. Could not face another winter without sufficient food or heat. And in the UK in 2012. Doesn't it make you proud?


Some of the actions that are being carried out around our great country - and it's still great no matter what the idiots trying to make it's not say - are an absolute living outrage and we cannot condone it in any way shape or form.


This Coalition have long since crossed the line of decency. Their attacks on those who need our help the most are vile, and transparently so, and must be stopped. Else we all live to regret it.
Sonia Poulton