Slaves in Workfare

 

There is a lot in the press this week about workfare and the idea of poor jobless fellows becoming mindless drones, slaving away at a supermarket's shelves without decent compensation.

Up goes the shout: Slavery!

When I was out of work (thirteen times in thirteen years before I employed myself), one of the worst aspects of unemployment was the total lack of communication with other people. Old colleagues were themselves looking for work, others proved that they didn't value my friendship as much as I had hoped and didn't help me search for work, and what with that and the inability to go to a pub to socialize because of the cost, I was left alone and miserable.

I did go once, and a guy I'd considered a friend offered to help me by buying my Morgan. I had nothing else left of value, all my savings from my twenties were gone, but I still had my Plus 8. That car was my pride and joy – but I had nothing else. It represented something of value.

Well, my drinking companion offered me less than half its value. When I pointed out it was worth rather more, he told me yes, but I needed the money urgently.

I still miss this car. Waited ten years for it to be built, and lost her in less than half that time!

Oddly enough I never drank with him again. I don't like people who try to take advantage.

Still, missing company is one of the worst aspects of unemployment. It is the first issue that people contend with. The sudden loss of work means an equivalent loss of confidence and sense of shame, as if it's the worker's fault that it all went wrong.

For them it is hard, but for those who have never had a job, it's probably still harder to motivate themselves. It's not easy. Much easier to stay at home and hope it'll go away. Smoke a cigarette, drink another beer, watch mind-numbingly poor television, and wait for someone to call.

The real world isn't like that.

Some weeks ago, I was looking at a BBC page here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16812185 – if you look down, you see lots of interesting detail about a family on benefits. For one, their weekly shopping includes 24 cans of lager, 200 cigarettes and a large pouch of tobacco. I had to give up all smoking when I lost a job, and haven't started again. I had to stop drinking too. Now, apparently, I'm paying for someone else to enjoy the pursuits I had to stop all those years ago!

There's more. They have a budget for "entertainment". Not sure what that is. Ah, but there's "Sky TV" in there. That's nice. I still can't afford that now. But at least my taxes go towards someone else's enjoyment of it.

Now, I'm not sure that too many people who are working shifts to fill the supermarket shelves can necessarily afford Sky either.

In the real world, people get up and go to work. They find jobs – any jobs – that pay minimal amounts, so that they can go out at the end of the week and have a couple of drinks with friends. They don't enjoy it much, who does, really? But they know that nothing in life is free. If they want beer, they have to earn to buy it. If they want a television, they need to save to get the money together.

And the people who stack the shelves at the supermarkets up and down the country work not because they want to, necessarily. It is menial work: drudgery. But their taxes go to pay the living standards of those who remain on benefits.

Often those in supermarkets are only there a short time. They move up into other jobs, in retail or some other line, and finally discover a career that they do enjoy. But that is the point. People need to try out different jobs before learning what it is that they will want to do for life.

There are many who deserve benefits. The disabled, the ill, the old. But of those who can, they should work. No one should expect a free ride.

It seems absolutely crazy that people who are unemployed – and I don't mean the disabled or elderly, I mean those capable and strong enough to earn their own living – are paid the equivalent of £35,000 to be unemployed. It is far more than the guys filling the shelves who are employed by the supermarkets – the ones who pay taxes so that the unemployed can have their incomes covered.

In the same way, I do not understand why people should be allowed to stay in council housing when they get back into work.

Council housing was always intended as a stop-gap to help those in most need while they needed it. It was not intended as a gift. Yet now if a family goes out of work, they can be rehoused and will remain there, paying lower rents, in a larger house than they could afford if they were working, and then, in a supreme ironic gesture, I am sure, then they can expect to be offered the house at a massive discount after some years.

Why?

Is there any other benefit that offers gifts once the period of difficulty is passed? It is absolute madness to throw away our Council housing stock in this way. Houses should be provided to those who have a passing need for a house, but it should be assumed that if they become fit and well, they should go and find work, and find their own property. The house should then go to the next deserving family in need, just as used to happen in the past.

Harsh? No. I never had my mortgage interest paid when I was out of work. I didn't expect it. And recently there have appeared too many examples of senior politicians and trades union leaders who not only enjoy great incomes, but who also have council flats or houses. It is ridiculous that men and women with good incomes should be permitted to take houses and keep them at low rents, blocking those properties from much more needy and deserving people (Bob Crow, head of RMT union, earning £145,000 a year but using a subsidised council house; Frank Dobson, MP's salary of over £80,000 a year plus allowances and subsidised food, drink and living costs, but has a council house as well as his other properties).

But a first pass at helping the unemployed would certainly include helping them to get out of their houses, and into working environments, where they can make friends with new people, get themselves motivated, perhaps even expose themselves to the risk of getting a job.

 

Tagged: benefits, council houses, slaves, workfare