They Workfare for you

The government’s highly divisive ‘Workfare’ scheme was been given the bum’s rush by the Courts on Appeal yesterday. The court reckon that the government will have to pay back all the people it took off income support and JSA because they didn’t particularly want to “slaves” and work 40 odd hours a week for nothing. Nada. Zip. Except, it wasn’t for nothing. It was for the JSA. So they were getting that, but the issue was that this didn’t constitute the minimum wage. But then they weren’t WORKING working, just working in a scheme. It’s all a bit confusing as to what the reality of the situation is.

If the companies involved were sacking or laying off their normal salaried staff in favour of getting people to work for them for free then that is wrong and they should have their wrists slapped or possibly cut. If they were genuinely offering a chance to keep the people on the scheme out of bed and contributing in a work environment then that is a good thing. I have been unemployed and had to take out JSA when I left university – they didn’t have this scheme then but as long as I wasn’t out of pocket or travelling for miles then I would have done it. Mind you, the fortnightly interviews down the job centre were pretty horrific so maybe not. The point is that you lose the work mindset pretty quickly. I even get it when I’m on holiday for more than a few weeks. My mind goes sludgy and I can’t wake up even for delicious pancakes for breakfast. But that is just me.

Although I am generally in favour of the scheme, I can’t help but think about the situation in the US where prisoners are forced to work for pennies to build and manufacture things and they genuinely are an alternative cheap workforce that are deliberately put to tender against other companies and almost always win. As long as there is safeguards in place to prevent abuse then I don’t see what the fuss is.