Coalition Scraps Minimum Wage and Introduces Forced Labour

Coalition government decides to make long term unemployed do community work or lose benefits. So the plan is, anyone that has been claiming benefit for too long will have to sweep streets, cut grass and do other council work for free while the councils sack staff to save money. Enforced labour? Sounds like it.

I know that there are a lot of people claiming job seekers allowance benefit who could probably find a job if they really wanted one, but at the same time there are many professionals that have been made redundant during the credit crunch who are looking for a good job to get their career back on track. For many of these people the JSA and other benefits are what is keeping the family afloat during these difficult times.

What the government is proposing, or possibly already implemented, is that anyone that has failed to find a new job within a certain time-frame will have to start working for local government for free (community work, “voluntary” work etc) or their benefits will cease.

How can this be fair? Some people will go from looking for work full time, which involves networking, searching the internet and press for job opportunities, writing applications and creating unique converting letters and CV’s for each position that they apply for, to cleaning streets, or some other random tasks for the council.

And what about the people that would be happy to do this sort of work for the council. A lot of unemployed people would love the chance to work of the council – but now rather than employ more people, the council will force them into unpaid work.

This seems totally bonkers. And not very British. Certainly spells the end of the welfare state. What next? If you want to give birth in a public hospital and you haven’t been paying taxes you have to clean it first? Unemployed parents will no longer be able to send their children to school due to the additional costs in areas where there are not enough high earning tax payers? Sounds crazy, but then there was a time when “job seekers allowance” was just that – an allowance to aid you in finding a job.

Tags: coalition, job seekers, JSA, minimum wage. labour.