Following the court of appeal’s decision regarding the case brought by Cait Reilly and Jamieson Wilson, the government was found to have unlawfully penalised job seekers, leading to the obvious expectation for demands for money owed. In some cases, people were thinking abut demanding a minimum wage for the time they spent working for nothing on behalf of large private companies that could more than afford to pay for their labour.
HMG, having been caught breaking the law, has decided to change it.
The Department for Work and Pensions has introduced emergency legislation to reverse the outcome of a court of appeal decision and “protect the national economy” from a £130m payout to jobseekers deemed to have been unlawfully punished.
They were unlawfully punished. They had every right to expect a proper wage for any work they carried out and those who stood up to the bullies at the DWP and refused, subsequently being penalised, damned well should be repaid the JSA that was withheld.
Lawyers and campaigners branded the DWP’s move as “repugnant” and “unbelievably disgusting”, saying it undermined the rule of law.
I really cannot add anything to that. Once again, we see politicians treating the most vulnerable people in our society with contempt. They are scum, the lot of them.
A DWP spokesperson said: “This legislation will protect taxpayers and make sure we won’t be paying back money to people who didn’t do enough to find work.”
Excusefuckingme!?! Refusing to work for nothing is not “not doing enough to find work” you arrogant, self-righteous fucker. When I pay taxes, I expect them to be used to provide a safety net for people who find themselves in the situation I was in a couple of years back. I object vigorously to them being used to keep arseholes like this in the manner to which they have become accustomed and I object to them being used to subsidise multimillion pound businesses. A few sackings at the DWP is in order and let them find out what it’s like living off £64 a week. I am struggling to find words that adequately express my utter contempt for scum such as this.
They are the same all over.
This week, I was offered a job at the end of my course, so long as I completed a 100 hour “Conversion” course.
I needed the signature of the Arbeitsamt (Brew) to take the course, (even though THEY WERE NOT PAYING!!!), They said “NO!”
Now. I have a job, as Male nurse, which I can walk straight into (I have been DOING the job for the last ten weeks!). I have the (Unsigned) contract.
But the mother fucking imbicilic cunts in the Brew will not sign it!!!
Why?
“We do not have to give a reason!”
Na, I KNOW the reason; Too many people get work, YOU are the one on the brew you fucking WHORE!
Damn! I nearly lost my temper there.
Sorry missed the main point.
TWO days later, I get the normal “What are you doing to find work interview!!!!
THAT is where I nearly got arrested.
In fact, I nearly got arrested there….
Assuming the unspeakable scum get ths modification of the law through, there may still be hope.
Appeal it in the light of the Manfield judgement of 1772 – which went, lest we forget: ..
“The air of England is too pure for a slave to breathe”
“Lawyers and campaigners branded the DWP’s move as “repugnant” and “unbelievably disgusting”, saying it undermined the rule of law.”
Yes yes…how lovely…that’s very nice. Now DO something about it. Y’know, since you’re best placed to an all that.
Don’t “we” have a little something called The Human Rights Act ?? 😐
“”Once again, we see politicians treating the most vulnerable people in our society with contempt.””
Who are these vulnerable people, why are they vulnerable and whet are they vulnerable to?
I would not class Cait Reiley as a vulnerable person. I would be erring towards spoiled brat.
The scheme does stink but it just needs to be tidied up properly. We pay people to sit on their arses and do nothing when they have no intention of finding work. This really does need to stop.
Benefits should be a safety net, but if you take the piss, your benefits should stop or you should be made to earn them in my opinion.
Have you ever tried to live on £64 a week? I have and believe me, you are vulnerable (in our case, vulnerable to losing the roof over our heads). Cait Reilly, far from being a spoiled brat, stood up to the state and good for her. We need more people with a bit of backbone prepared to say “no” and fight for it. There is no evidence whatsoever that she or the other litigant were taking the piss (quite the opposite – she had managed to find voluntary work through her own efforts). Indeed, there is no evidence that the majority of JSA claimants are taking the piss. This is an urban legend and needs debunking for the nonsense that it is.
You (and I) are not paying people to sit on their arses. We are paying them to look for work. They can’t do that if they are stacking shelves for 35 hours a week. I tried doing that and temporary work for a while a few years back. The work got in the way of looking for work, perverse though it may sound. No time for interviews for example and, yes, temporary employers did get arsey if you wanted time off for an interview for a permanent position.
Yes, the scheme stinks. It stinks because those people put on workfare are not paid the going rate and it assumes that any work placement is suitable for any job seeker – i.e. a one size fits all mentality.
What we have here though is particularly insidious. Having broken the law and withheld payments illegally, hmg is going to retrospectively change the law to continue to whithhold them. That is a deeply worrying precedent. Irrespective of your take on the case that led up to this, the decision to enact retrospective legislation should worry you.
“Having broken the law and withheld payments illegally, hmg is going to retrospectively change the law to continue to whithhold them. That is a deeply worrying precedent.”
Yes but it’s ok when they’re doing it to people, apparently, no one likes. Propaganda 101.
Find Hate Button – Press – Rinse & Repeat.
The retrospective bit does indeed worry me and I’m not sticking up for the governments ways and means.
However. People taking the piss is not an urban legend. I’ve walked among them. And they don’t just get £64 per week, they get their council house and council tax paid for them, plus all the added extras they get for kids and stuff. And then there’s disability – More money than I’ve ever earned.
The system stinks, not just workfare but all of it. Maybe this girl was right to stand up to it? She came across to me as a spoilt brat. I dunno. Having an education in a field does not guarantee you work in that field. You may need to do something you don’t like for a while. That’s life.
But those who do take the piss, and there are many, need to be stopped.
Yes, there are people who take the piss. They are a minority. And, we are talking about JSA here, not other benefits. I got £64 a week after paying in for over thirty years – everything had to come out of that. We couldn’t get housing benefit or any other benefit as I had been self-employed and at the time, we still had the house in France, which, despite being an asset was a money pit. If it wasn’t for help from family, we would have gone under.
Cait Reilly was not asking for a guaranteed job in a particular field. She had managed to secure voluntary work in that field (which demonstrates just the right attributes for someone seeking work). Taking her out of it and forcing her to stack shelves – despite previous retail experience – was perverse.
You may have got £64 a week. Folk who have worked for years, have property etc, they will only get the bare minimum. Folk who own nothing and have either never worked or not worked for a long time take a lot more than £64 a week out of the pot. I know we are only talking about JSA but for many people, that is the root of a much bigger money tree.
These are the people that need to be on the workfare scheme.
I wonder how many people have actually had a bloody good look at what these workfare schemes entail. No, not the media proclamations but the actual legislation, claims processes, assessments and appeals that thousands of people are currently going through. A large proportion of which have been through multiple times.
The brutality of the injustices really aren’t that hard to spot.
For instance and just a general example…do your own googling you lazy sods !…the sick and disabled who will fail to die within 6 months of claiming ESA and due to the lies or incompetence of an ATOS “healthcare professional” or failing an appeal against a DWP decision are placed in the Work Related Activity Group are subjected to Workfare. I’ve just read that The British Heart Foundation backpedalled from Workfare schemes when they realised patients with cancer forced to work in their shops just might be perceived as a little bit evil.
According to t’internet what’s coming next is Workfare for the low paid who have the fucking temerity to try and top up their piss poor incomes with Working Tax Credits. It’s their own fault employers don’t pay them enough money to live on, after all.
The more I know sometimes the less I want to and do understand where Bucko is coming from but people really need to be careful what they wish for. The way it’s all going then unless you’re self-employed and/or totally self-sufficient then this Workfare shit is coming for YOU. One way or another.
It’s just a matter of time. 😯
Well said
I’ve walked among them. And they don’t just get £64 per week, they get their council house and council tax paid for them, plus all the added extras they get for kids and stuff. And then there’s disability – More money than I’ve ever earned
Wrong. Only those who have no assets and would be destitute get those benefits. And guess what, it is people like you who are to blame for that, because if anyone with any assets got those benefits you’d be bleating to your paper of choice that they really “didn’t really need them”. And clearly you know sweet FA about disability benefits as well and the criteria for getting them.
These are the people that need to be on the workfare scheme
No one should be on workfare. If there is work for them to do then they should be EMPLOYED to do it. Workfare destroys jobs, which is the point of it, really.
Not wrong. If you read my comment again you will see I was refering to those who would have no assets. You don’t get a council house if you own a house of your own now, do you?
And I don’t bleat to papers. I think many people on benefits get too much. I think this because I’ve talked at length with many of them, I know what they get paid and what their circumstances are.
Suggesting I know sweet FA about something does not make it so. I know plenty about disability benefits. I know it from talking with people who are on disability benefits.
Maybe if you think I don’t know what I’m talking about you could offer an arguement to the contrary rather than just stating, “Wrong”.
XX You don’t get a council house if you own a house of your own now, do you? XX
Yes. You can actually. Council housing is not “means tested”. Had an Uncle who had a council house in Cheshire, and his own house in Cumbria. TOTALY legal, if you are prepared to “wait the list”.
Really? I presume the rent comes out of your own pocket if you do that though?
You have to pay the rent. But thats all.
We pay people to sit on their arses and do nothing when they have no intention of finding work
We not pay people to “sit on their arses”. We pay them a very small stipend (JSA) to search for work. The Job Centre monitors their search closely and will terminate their benefits if they are judged not to be searching hard enough. That you have to lie continually to make your point just tells us that you have nothing valid to say.
I am not lying. We do pay a great many people to sit on their arses and do nothing. If you can’t see this then you really need to open your eyes.
Small stipend, my arse.
It’s worrying that with all the government advisors & think tanks and so on, none of them considered how people might react to having to do a crappy job for no pay. And then worse still when it bites them on the arse they try to change the law?! are they even allowed to do that? – making things retrospectively legal or illegal is setting dangerous precedents, especially over “trivial” things like this.
“A DWP spokesperson said: “This legislation will protect taxpayers” – yeah but who is going to protect _us_ from the government?!
If the bastards hadn’t broken the law in the first place, there wouldn’t be an issue. The claimants would have been paid what was due and that would have been that. Also, the “saving taxpayers’ money” argument rings somewhat hollow when we realise that the amount involved is small change and the state still pisses billions away on fake charities, quangos and foreign aid.
If the bastards hadn’t broken the law in the first place, there wouldn’t be an issue
Employing someone but paying them benefits is an issue regardless of whether the law permits it.
At least one issue is that if you work while signing on as unemployed this is a criminal offence for which you can be prosecuted.
However, if the government forces you to “work” on one of their schemes that’s perfectly ok.
The stage was set years ago with phrases such as “permitted work” and “approved” courses. It wasn’t that difficult for them to make the leap.
The question is whether enough people can wake up to the fact that Workfare is a leap too far and must be stopped – for all our sakes.
“Protecting the omnipresent taxpayer” arguement is utter bullshit. We ALL pay tax in one form or another. Christ, they’d have you think that Income Tax was the only tax there is.