…Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has claimed that some people think they are above shelf-stacking.
Having over thirty years experience in learning and development – training people to drive, ride motorcycles and to be able to teach and assess, when I found myself having to stack shelves following a crisis, I quite rightly recognised that I was better than this. IDS can go fuck himself. When I see politicians putting up with the shit that Sainsbury’s et al dish out to the poor sods stacking their shelves, I might pay them some heed. Until then, nothing a politician says is worth listening to. Scum, the lot of them.
If you’re above shelf-stacking, then presumably you’re above claiming benefits too.
NO
WRONG
If work is offered, fair do’s, but AT THE GOING RATE FOR THE JOB – & above the minimum wage …
There is a name for the alternative proposed by IDS & some Tories.
SLAVERY
It is involuntary labour for no pay, after all.
I’ve discussed the case that led to this setback for hmg when it first kicked off. I agree absolutely with the appeal court’s decision. If the government want people to go on work placements, that’s fine – pay them the going rate for the work. We rightly outlawed enforced servitude 200 years ago.
As for the woman at the centre of the case – she was already engaged on a work placement that she had found for herself. Yes, she was right to complain and right to take this case to court. And, yes, she was above shelf stacking. She has more than proved that.
Shelf stacking is what we do when we have nothing better to fall back on. It’s menial, mind numbing and tedious. And those that do it suffer the humiliating work regimes imposed by the supermarkets who employ them. Everyone who does it is above it, frankly.
If she was ‘above shelf stacking’, how come she now works for…Morrisons?
Okay a few points here. Firstly, she was already in a work placement directly relevant to her chosen profession, so should not have been placed in Poundland.
Secondly, if she subsequently decided, as I did, that this was the best way off JSA, then good for her – and Morrison’s are paying her the going rate, not using her labour for nothing.
Hmm.. How long have you been reading this blog, Mr Curmudgeon. If you had been around since the author’s move to France you would know that is an unfair (not to say unkind) comment.
I’ll do what needs to be done, to survive, including shelf stacking. I am, however, better than that and object to some slimy politician criticising me for it. I’m better than all of them, as well.
I got the impression that politicians don’t criticize those who take on shelf stacking jobs when there are no other jobs, only those who don’t like taking on such jobs when they are already getting money from the state. I don’t agree with forced make jobs such as digging and filling holes, but shelf stacking, or some other low skilled job which is actually productive for those who are long term unemployed is useful.
Like himself?
My thoughts exactly.. 😈
Was he aiming his remarks at the kind of people who refuse menial work and claim benefits instead, rather than people such as yourself who take menial work until they can find something better? I was in and out of work quite a bit in the early 1980s, I took quite a few temporary jobs which provided work for three or four months. During that period, I don’t think that I would ever have turned a job down, no matter how rubbish a job it was.
You may be right. If so, perhaps he should have been more clear rather than slinging insulting remarks about – and, frankly, politicians are the last people to be accusing others of being work-shy.
My experience has been similar to yours and I’ve done all sorts of shit jobs to keep the wolf at bay. No politician is going to get away with telling me that I shouldn’t consider myself above them, though because I was.
Absolutely. IDS wasn’t criticising people who take on shelf-stacking, rather those who refuse to do so, but are quite happy to keep taking their benefit cheques. Though as I understand the girl concerned is now shelfstacking in Morrisons, it may have been more the case that she thought she was too good to work in Poundland….
Though as I understand the girl concerned is now shelfstacking in Morrisons, it may have been more the case that she thought she was too good to work in Poundland
Wrong. She declined the “work experience” at Poundland because she already had a work placement in a museum, which was directly related to career. It had sweet FA to do with her thinking she was “too good” for Poundland.
She felt that she was too good to work in Poundland for nothing .
In return for her JSA to be more accurate.
To be fair, she might have previously worked and paid enough NI to be entitled to the 6 months’ contributory JSA, though it seems rather unlikely.
No, because job seeking is what she should have been doing for her JSA. That is the bargain. The state pays subsistence, the job seeker looks for work. What she did for Poundland was for nothing.
It doesn’t matter that at that point she may not have paid anything in. Since then, she has been in paid employment. If she has not yet paid more back than she took out, she soon will. It took me two or three pay packets to pay back three months worth of claims.
In return for her JSA to be more accurate
Wrong. JSA is paid to those looking for work, with your “job” being looking for employment. It is not paid for you to do 30 hours a week unpaid labour. It is like going into a shop buying some eggs and then helping yourself to a steak without paying for it.
Was he aiming his remarks at the kind of people who refuse menial work and claim benefits instead
No he wasn’t. He is trying to defend the principle of workfare, of forced labour for benefits and not pay.
If there was a real job in Poundland then employ someone at the appropriate wage. Why should my taxes provide free labour for private enterprise? On the other hand – if benefit claimants were required to work for their benefits on things that otherwise wouldn’t happen – e.g. filling in holes in roads -which where I live sure doesn’t happen – then I’ve no problem with that.
I have a problem with it, it is enforced servitude and below the minimum wage. JSA is there to enable the jobseeker to survive while seeking work not to provide unpaid labour. When you’ve been paying into the system for over thirty years only to get a pittance back when you need it, you do not expect to be used as slave labour while you try to find work. So, yeah, I’ve got a problem with it – a big problem.
JSA is there to enable the jobseeker to survive while seeking work
Exactly. Your job is finding another job. Workfare means that people have less time to find a new job and are therefore likely to spend longer unemployed.
if benefit claimants were required to work for their benefits on things that otherwise wouldn’t happen – e.g. filling in holes in roads -which where I live sure doesn’t happen – then I’ve no problem with that
Excuse me, but if holes in the road need filling in then employ someone to fill them in. Why should you expect cut price labour to reduce your council tax?
it is lovely to hear the young uns talk of slave labour. Try military service or being a Bevan’s boy.
Ah, yes, military conscription – slave labour by any other name and always wrong and always immoral.
The thing about workfare is that it destroys jobs. Why would an employer create entry level unskilled jobs if they can get the labour for free, as they can with workfare? I know of one case of an unemployed graduate who was turned away from all the supermarkets in his town because there were “no vacancies” for shelf stacking. But a couple of months later he found himself shelf stacking for benefits at one of the supermarkets that claimed to have no vacancies for that kind of work. Also, in places where workfare is well established (e.g. New York State) public sector workers may find themselves being fired and then taken on to do the same work they were once doing for a salary for a welfare cheque.
The government justifies not paying minimum wage for this work because it is “work experience” but that’s balls. For anyone who has past work experience there is no useful experience to be derived from stacking shelves. It is a job, pure and simple, and should pay the going rate for that kind of work.
IDS can go fuck himself.
Think that just about sums it up, LR.