Caerphilly’s largest employer has vowed not to take part in the Department of Work and Pensions’ (DWP) controversial ‘workfare’ scheme, calling it “forced unpaid labour”.
‘Workfare’ is the term coined by opponents of the UK Government’s schemes for Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants, where jobseekers work unpaid or risk sanctions to their benefits.
A motion passed unanimously by Caerphilly County Borough councillors yesterday, March 10, said: “This council pledges not to use the UK Government’s ‘workfare’ placements and will encourage partners not to do so either, so far as it is legally permitted to do so.”
Introducing the motion, Deputy Leader, Labour’s Gerald Jones, said: “Caerphilly County Borough Council doesn’t use ‘workfare’ at present and as far as I’m aware has no plans to do so. But it’s important we take a strong stand against the policy.
“It stigmatises benefit claimants, locks people further into poverty and there is no evidence that ‘workfare’ helps people into paid employment.”
Labour group spokesperson Cllr Gez Kirby said: “These ‘workfare’ schemes that require benefit claimants to do unpaid work or face cuts to their benefits are nothing more than forced unpaid labour.
“They subsidise private employers by making the taxpayer foot the wage bill. But there’s no evidence that ‘workfare’ programmes get people into paid work.
“As we have previously, introducing the living wage for the lowest-paid council staff, and opposing the introduction of regional pay, our Labour-led council has yet again acted to put principle into best employment practice.”
Plaid Cymru councillors also supported the motion and Cllr John Taylor said: “If people are going to be working for 30 hours a week then they deserve to paid a proper rate for that work.”
But there were calls by councillors on all sides that the motion did not go far enough, with Labour’s Gary Johnston saying no contractor to the council should use ‘workfare’.
This was echoed by Plaid Cymru councillors who said all those working for the council, through agencies and third parties, should get paid at least the living wage.
Cllr Jan Jones called for a report into what is being done to ensure the living wage is paid to all workers employed directly or indirectly by the council.
Plaid Cymru’s Cllr Martyn James said: “As an authority we should be looking at agency workers we use and how they are exploited.
“If we are a council that wants people to be taken out of poverty we should be getting rid of these employment practices.”
Caerphilly County Borough Council’s Interim Chief Executive Chris Burns said only offering contracts to companies who pay the living wage and don’t use ‘workfare’ could breach competition laws.
He said: “If we do insist that contractors who work for us pay the living wage then we would have to be prepared to pay the additional cost. The additional cost would be very dramatic.”
Mr Burns said that agency workers are used “as sparingly as possible”.
Council Leader, Cllr Keith Reynolds said: “The principle of a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work is a core demand of the labour movement – and Government schemes like the Work Programme, Help to Work and Community Work Placements fail to measure up to this principle.
“As the largest employer in Caerphilly County Borough, it’s important that our council adopts best practice. I’m proud that full council has backed our Labour group’s motion, and rejected the unfair exploitation of people who are looking for genuine, paid employment.”
A DWP spokesperson said: “The truth is that every day our Jobcentre advisers are helping people off benefits and into work.
“The number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance in Wales has fallen in each of the past 12 months, and there are now 17,000 fewer claimants in Wales compared to this time last year – with over 1,000 fewer in Caerphilly.”
It’s not unpaid work, the claimants are being paid by the state so it’s reasonable for the state to expect a little something back in return, and it will teach the fickle and the workshy some discipline and show potential employers that they are prepared to work. When I was young folk were ashamed to admit that they claimed benefits, now they shout it from the rooftops likes it’s a badge of honour, make them work or bring back national service.
When you were young, I daresay that the sharp practice of making an employee redundant, then getting in someone (may be even the same person!) on Workfare to do the job, and taking Govt money for the privilege, was something that employers didn’t do. They didn’t do it when I was young. And if you went on a Govt work scheme back then you got more than the basic JSA rate. Incidentally, the armed forces don’t want national service brought back – it lessens the professionalism of the forces.
How do you know people get made redundant? What evidence do you have that shows redundancies lead to people doing those same jobs for free? None I would say. What’s just as bad is hypocritical Labour politicians criticizing zero hours contracts, whilst Labour MPs and Labour councils have been employing people on these same contracts since when Gordon Brown was PM
There’s been have been cases where this happened, and it was reported in the national press. The one I remember best was a man who lives not far from where I am. Was made redundant, and basically offered his own job back, except on Workfare, and at the greatly reduced wage that is the basic JSA payment.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/03/dwp-benefits-electrician-work-placement-labour
The link to a man made redundant and sent back to work for same company on workfare. A skilled man I hasten to add not an inexperienced layabout.
For those who thing everything printed in the Daily Mail is gospel and that the Tories can do no wrong there is this, a right-wing critique of Workfare and such schemes. I am pretty much as far from right-wing as it’s possible to be, but the logic contained in this piece is inescapable. I disagree entirely with the philosophical standpoint of the writer, but entirely agree with his analysis.
http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/why-right-wing-support-workfare.html
For those of you who want a regular, if anarchist leaning opinion piece on the current social security changes there is this blog:
https://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/
If you want to know how you can get involved with opposing these changes, or just want to inform yourself about which companies, charities etc are taking part in forced labour schemes there is this website
http://www.boycottworkfare.org/
If you are being bullied by the DWP at the Jobcentre and would like to know exaclty what your rigths are, check out this website, which when it comes to the regualations can’t be faulted as it always refers back to the DWP’s website that has the regulations, chapter and verse – read all that and it’s likely that you’ll know more than your advisor and maybe even their manager too. A lot of the things they tell you are ‘mandatory’; that you have to do, are in fact not so, and you cannot be sanctioned for refusing – though they might threaten you with a sanction, they are lying. You don’t even have to let them have access to your UJM account, if you have one, that is, as it’s not compulsory to have one, unless they give you a Jobseeker’s Direction, and then it’s only reasonable if you are not already doing enough jobsearch and providing evidence, so if you present them with a sheet of paper with the steps you’ve taken to find work every time you sign on they will have a very hard time forcing you to use UJM if you really don’t want to.
http://refuted.org.uk/
Finally, if you need advice or want to get a little more involved there is this website:
http://walesiww.org.uk/
If you search there are numerous examples where this has happened, the classic one was a couple of years ago when Asda’s regular staff were denied overtime at Christmas because Asda had taken on forced labour that was offered to them by the government for free. Tescos are also exploiting free government labour, though they are being very coy about it. In South Wales there are numerous small enterprises and charities using free press-ganged labour, but they too keep a low profile as they know that it makes them look very bad.
I agree with you 100% over zero hour contracts, but not all such contracts are necessarily bad – so long as they can’t dictate the hours and the worker is allowed to take up other work. Otherwise they are extremely exploitative. I had such a contract a few years ago, and it suited me down to the ground as it was well paid, and I wasn’t obliged to take offered work and could (and did) work for other employers too.
The classic kind of very exploitative contract is like one that Tesco uses a lot. They offer their workers a contract where there are ‘core’ hours, sometimes only about very few hours a week, and can then demand that those workers drop everything and go to work when Tesco needs them. The worker has to accept the work or eventually they will lose their job. If zero hour contracts are banned, or restricted expect exploitative employers to start using these contracts for a very few hours a week to get around the legislation.
What I stated was that when I was young ( mid 1970’s ) people were ashamed to admit that they signed on and claimed welfare payments, now it has become a shameless lifestyle choice of the lazy, workshy and feckless. This has got to be stamped out, why should some lazy toe rag sit on benefits doing nothing, we now have generations of families who have never worked a day in their lives. If somebody has claimed benefits for more than 12 months then make them do something for it, and child benefit should be stopped or paid in vouchers that can’t be exchanged in Brighthouse for a 50inch Television. National service should be brought back, these good for nothing spongers need some discipline knocked into them.
If they are putting people into jobs, they should be jobs at a proper wage, and preferably permanent jobs – that was what Job Centres did, once upon a time – they found work for people!
When you were young (mid 70’s) Jobs were ten a penny. Between 1974 and 1980 I had 13 different jobs finishing each one on a Friday and starting a new one the following Monday.
If you are in Wales ( which given your attitude doesn’t look like) then you know the devastation the mine and steelwork closures brought in the 80’s and many thousands of “too proud for benefits” were forced onto the scrapheap.
Regardless of new technology and businesses Wales has never recovered from these major job losses there has been no business to my mind that opened and employed 30,000 like the steelworks once did or 100,000 like the mines did.
As you must be around the same age as me I presume you will not mind taking a job for £1 an hour until you retire, presuming of course as a freeloading pensioner that will not be beneath you too ?
Yes I am actually in Wales I do a low paid job and also voluntary work for the local community where I live, I just don’t live in the past spending all my time lamenting the closure of the mines and comparing everything in Wales to what goes on across the border in England.
I think Paul is really Kate Hopkins in diguise?
Combative, and antagonistic with very little substance in your comments, and, if you really do hold the views you express so fluently it does say more about you than the topic upon which you comment. Do you really live your life with so much venom in your mind?
Sad if you do Paul.
You have probably actually stated quite a good case in support for the position the Council have taken.
The Welsh Labour utopia of well paid benefit claimants and every public sector worker on £30k a year is only going to bankrupt the country, just like they almost did before the Tories yet again had to clean up the financial mess that Brown and Blair left the country in. Perhaps if Labour hadn’t opened up the borders to the world then the country wouldn’t be over run with immigrants who are the only ones prepared to do the low paid unskilled jobs that the majority of lazy workshy indigenous Brits believe is beyond them, and why should they when they can claim the same money sat on the dole. There is always some pathetic excuse rolled out as to why they refuse to work – the foreigners have taken all the jobs, there’s no jobs where I live, there’s no work since the mines closed, I can’t get free child care to look after the child ( the one that they chose to have ).
I have a low paid job and I have been made redundant three times, unfortunately life is tough and there is no such thing as equality and there never will be, it is easy for Caerphilly Council to sit in their multi million pound European funded Ivory tower and make these statements to the peasants that they rule over, but it’s all complete rubbish – what’s Jobs Growth Wales if not merely temporary low paid work subsidised by the Welsh Assembly, isn’t this also exploitation.
Been there, done it, got the t-shirt then Paul?.
Yep sure, you can tell when somebody has lost the argument, they resort to name calling and sarcasm.
I have done many low paid jobs, from washing dishes to cleaning offices. My lack of a job has nothing to do with being workshy or feckless but physical capability and age.
Along with others in my age group who have worked since 16 I find it appalling that you lump all unemployed as workshy and feckless.
Whilst you may have been fortunate to have been re-employed at a lower wage many are not given that option and end up unemployed not because they are “feckless” but simply not needed.
I have a 62 yr old female friend who has had numerous interviews for jobs which show she is looking for work yet is forced to sign on every day to prove this point. At 62 it is hardly likely she is going to be top of an employers list of possible employees.
With regard to Britain going bankrupt that can never happen. A sovereign state with it’s own currency can never go bankrupt, we can have high inflation but never bankruptcy. Labour did not bankrupt the country it was the banking crisis and the sheer amount of capital poured into the banking system that led to the financial crash, hence why we are major shareholders in RBS (still being subsidised and losing money hand over fist), Lloyds and own a worthless Northern Rock.
As a matter of interest the Tories have spent over £5 billion pounds over the last five years on “work programmes ” that haven’t worked most of which has ended up in the pockets of non tax paying companies such as Capita and G4S. £5 billion could have created an awful lot of decent jobs rather than be siphoned off to offshore banks.
Hmmm, you have a low paid job with the same company on the minimum wage that sacked you from a job paying better and you still come out with the absolute bilge that you do? You need to get real, and join a union because soon you won’t have that wonderful minimum wage job that doesn’t pay you enough to live on. You might just find yourself being taken on to the same job as part of the government’s forced labour scheme that could see you homeless and starving.
It’s all very well for Mr Milliband to spout his rubbish about paying workers the living wage but the majority private sector companies simply can’t afford it, my choice was take the job on the minimum wage or no job at all, I would rather work for the minimum wage than live on the dole, sometimes its not all about the money it’s about self esteem and self respect, and no I was banned from joining a union, again unions only really have power in the public sector.
Mr Milliband does indeed spout a lot of dubious stuff, but about the living wage he is not. The living wage should be the mimimum that should be paid, and if anything, the minimum should be nearer £10 an hour, and not the £6.51 pittance it is. Sure, some jobs might go, but on the whole such a move would be more likely to stimulate the economy and create jobs – think, what would you do if you were to get a nice pay rise that made you considerably better off? You’d start to consume more local services etc, which would have a multiplyer effect.
No-one should be forced to work, that would be the act of a fascist society. As for the country not being able to afford it, that is again an outright lie peddled by the right-wing press.There is no need for austerity, and the whole thing about claims that there needs to be austerity merely benefits the 1%, who somehow seem to have become richer, and are paying less in taxes than they were – but then they do have their useful idiots, those who are low paid who can’t see that they are being exploited even whilst they peddle the false rhetoric of their lords and masters. The unemployed need paid work, and there is plenty of work to be done, and there is money to pay for it – how about properly taxing the rich, who either steal the wealth they have, or it was stolen by their ancestors and they inherited it. The only way that capitalists make money or profits, is through exploitation and theft – exploiting consumers and by stealing the difference between what they pay their workers and the value that worker creates.
Don’t talk rubbish about being banned from joining a union. Unless you are a member of the armed forces, or are a police officer you cannot be banned from joining a union, it is one of your fundamental rights. There are companies that will try to dupe you that you cannot join a union, but they are not telling the truth, and more fool you if you believe them. Again, it’s not true that unions only have any influence in the public sector. Memebership might be more widespread in the public sector, but the power of any decent union is decided by how much power the ordinary members wish to yield, and even in the worst case scenario, being a member of a union will give you quite a bit of protection if an employer tries to mess you about over your rights, your pay or even tries to sack you. Most employers, especially the smaller ones, don’t have much of a clue when it comes to respecting worker’s rights, so very often a meeting between a worker, their union representative and their boss results in a much more positive outcome than would otherwise have been the case.
The country can well afford the cost of unemployment, as it is very small fraction of the welfare budget, something like 3%. Take housing benefits, that accounts for a huge sum, largely due to the fact that landlords have been allowed to inflate rents to obscene levels, which in turn has allowed social housing providers to something similar and still justify in strict terms, (however, not in any ethical or moral sense) charging an ‘affordable’ rent of up to 80% of market rents. Don’t forget, it’s not the poor tenant who benefits from that money, but the parasite landlords. Job Seekers Allowance is analagous to what used to be called Unemployment Benefit, and if it was still paid at it’s late 1970s level, the sum per week would be at least £130 indeed, the EU has castigated the UK government for keepin unemployment benefits so low, and rightly so.
You mention dignity and respect, and you make a fair point, but doesn’t that also require an employer to regard you as a worker with enough respect to pay you an adequate wage so that you don’t have to claim housing benefit, or Working Tax Credits, or even Child Allowance – all are benefits, and it is people like you who are in for a rude awakening once Universal Credit really kicks in and you too are subject to conditionality that might see you forced to work on some scheme of dubious community benefit, what probably financially benefits some exploiting capitalist employer,
I reiterate, do think again about what you’re saying about the unemployed, they could, after all, replace you in your job, as they can do it for a lot less than you – can you compete with free? No, I thought not!
If you want to pour bile on any group in society I suggest you divert your attntions away from the poor and unemployed and redirect it to a more fitting target, politicians, the bankers and teh super-rich. It is they who are living a life of luxury on the backs of us all. It is they who are the idel, the scroungers and the parasites.
I live and work in the real world where as I keep stating if my employer was forced to pay me this magical living wage which is going to save the U.K economy I would lose my job as they can’t afford to pay it, plus bringing in this wage would cause chaos with any companies pay scale structure, if you pay the person at the bottom an extra £2 per hour then you have to pay everbody in the company an extra £2 an hour to keep the status quo. Forcing the private sector to pay this living wage can only and will only cause jobs to be lost. Yes I am barred from joining a union, any employee at my company who is a member of a union will soon become an ex employee simple as that, and why would I become a member of an organisation who pull the strings of the loony left. No I am not in for a rude awakening when universal tax credits kick in as I am not eligable to claim them….you’re an intelligent person work it out.
People who have wealth should not have to keep on paying more and more in tax to prop up the shameless underclass who the Labour party have brain washed into believing that it’s not their fault they can’t find a job, or it’s not fair that the bankers are making a fortune whilst they have no money to feed the latest child that they’ve just popped out, well life’s not fair, there will alway be rich and there will always be poor.
Employers will always plead poverty, and only fools will ever believe them. If they can’t afford to pay you a living wage, they simply can’t afford to pay you. You say that you aren’t entitled to Working Tax Credits, yet if you are on the minimum wage it is more or less certain that you are indeed entitled. The only possible exception is if you have full-time employment, or if you work less than 30 hours a week, in which case you will probably be claiming at least council tax benefit, or maybe even housing benefit – both of which are welfare benefits, which will come under Universal Credit. Your logic doesn’t work, as it isn’t absolutely necessary to increase wages across the board to those already earning over a lving wage threshold.
If your employer is indeed as bad as you say they are then you are even more in need of a union. You are not barred from joining a union, that is utter tosh, as you have a legal right, and your employer would be breaking the law if they sacked you for exercising your right to join a union. And not all unions do pull the strings of the loony left, as you claim, The union I am a member of certainly doesn’t, as it has no political affiliations whatsoever. I wonder what you’re going to do when your wonderful employer realises that he can get monkeys that he doesn’t have to pay peanuts to? Under the Community Work Placements, employers can get free labour for up to six months, and when that six months is up, replace them with even more free labour
People who have wealth only came by that wealth by taking it from workers, as it is the workers who create the wealth. There is a question you should always ask of those who claim that they got wealthy through hard work: whose?
Your beloved Labour party aren’t really different from the Tories, and are certainly not my friends. As for people being brain-washed into believing that there are no jobs, well, that is easily demonstrable. It is accepted even by the DWP that there are only some 700,000 vacancies in the UK, and some 2.5 million unemployed, so even if every vancancy were filled that would still mean that 1.8 million people would be without a job – and that doesn’t count the estimated million who are unemployed, but not claiming benefits, nor does is count the very many underemployed who struggle to get enough hours at work so that they can pay their way. And what about those on exploitative exclusive zero hour contracts who don’t know from one day to the next if they will be working, and expected to drop everything and turn up at work when their employer needs them, no matter what they were doing, or had planned?
Again, you focus on the weak and the poor who are blameless. The poor and the unemployed didn’t create the banking crisis, but they’re certainly paying for it. Let’s turn things on their heads a little, shall we, why should the poor prop up the wealthy and the priveliged who have done nothing to justify their wealth, becuase that is exactly what the poor do. And the unemployed are a weapon too, they serve to keep pay levels down, and so that useful idiots can laud it over them because they have a job that doesn’t pay them enough to live on. I would argue that it is far more honourable to remain on the dole than to accept the insult of working for less than I need to live on.
Indeed, life isn’t fair in so many ways, but when it comes to ensuring that every person has a roof over their heads, food in their belly and clothes on their back, AS OF RIGHT, then I am sure that life can be made so much more fair than it is.
I can assure you that although I may only receive the minimum wage I do not qualify for working tax credit or any other type of welfare benefit, there are circumstances where somebody may be working full time on a low wage and not be entitled to claim any benefits whatsoever, I assumed you are an intelligent person and could work it out obviously my assumption was wrong. There are also some people who would rather work for a low wage, perhaps even less than they could claim in benefits because they would rather work for a living than sit on their backsides sponging off the state, so those spongers who are sitting on their backsides watching daytime Sky TV on their Brighthouse telly, farming children, drinking and smoking their benefit money away should be forced to go out and do community work…..it may just teach them some dignity and self respect.
How on earth can forcing people to do menial work in the sense of a punishment ever teach dignity and self respect? That is a form of forced labour.
Again your stereotypes are risible, basically you regurgitate the rubbish spouted by the likes of the Daily Mail, The Daily Express and The Sun – hardly reliable sources, beign as they are the mouthpieces of the Tory elite.
But I guess you are the kind of person who will only see the truth when it affects you personally – and it probably will sooner or later if the present brutal regime continues. Ask yourself this, why would an employer paying your miniscule wages bother if they could get someone for less than they pay you? Free takes a lot of beating! As you are in a job that pays NMW, then it’s likely that it’s unskilled. You could very easily be replaced by one of those people you so despise, but I guess that would be small comfort – heck, you might even be offered your own job back – with your benefits instead of your wage.
I am an ‘intelligent’ person, whatever that is, at least intelligent enough not to believe the rhetoric of the boss class. It is always possible to find isolated examples that prove the rule, but the vast majority of people would much rather be in paid work than unemployed. Many do voluntary work, and that is fine, if they choose to do so, the operative word being ‘choose’.
Forced labour isn’t efficient, even if it is ethically and morally justifiable (which it isn’t). It’s not quite as bad as slavery, but not much better either.
It is obvious that you have swallowed the divide and rule rubbish hook, line and sinker – and now think of yourself as being somehow superior than those claiming benefits – think about it, you regard them as somehow less human than yourself, less deserving of respect. You may not realise that, but that is certainly the way the ruling elite want you to think.
What is it to be next? Labour camps? Such things did exist in the 1930s, and not just in Nazi Germany. And though it is an extreme example, it’s important to remember that many workers from occupied countries were forced to work in German armaments factories against their will. People in the modern day UK perhaps don’t (yet) face that kind of situation, nor perhaps the kinds of physical punishment that would be meted out, but surely enough they will be punished by withdrawl of their only means of support, and that could also mean homelessness as well as it definitely affecting their health. Remember, someone can be sanctioned for between a month and three years now, largely on the whim of someone with proto-fascist views similar to your own. I’m not saying that either they, or you are consciously fascist, but that kind of behaviour most definitely is, and the present regime are engaged in a process of normalising that kind of behaviour. Only a small fraction of the German population between 1933 and 1945 were active Nazis, but the vast majority passively accepted the things done by the Nazis. Okay, it is an extreme parrallel, but we are exactly on that kind of slippery slope.
There are very few really feckless people, yes, they exist, but they are am extreme minority. There may be many more who have lost hope, and realistically the only thing they can look forward to is to be used as free labour for exploitative employers. You know exactly what the work situation in in Caerffili, and the rest of South East Wales. There are few jobs, and those that do exist are usually part-time, zero hour and mimimum wage. If there was anything better I assume that you would have had the sense to have gone for it.
There is dignity in work, but only if it provides the good things in life, and not just a bare existence. We work to live, not the other way round – there are some jobs where the work is a person’s passion, but no minimum wage job is in that category. The UK is one of the richest countries on the planet, and can easily afford to pay decent wages, as they do in Sweden, Denmark and Norway, but then they are all civilsied countries that are forging on with the 21st Century and not attempting to return to some kind of forelock tugging medieval feudalism.
It’s early days, but increasingly we, in our union are being contacted by more and more marginalised workers who are realising that they are being taken for a ride by their employers, and they are motivated to change things. I hope the numbers continue to grow, as then they will be a force to be reckoned with. We are also being approached by more and more unemployed people who are desperate to be in work, and thoroughly sick of the punitive regime that casts them as somehow less than human, almost criminal, for the heinious crime of being without work when there aren’t enough jobs to go around. If decently paid jobs, paying a living wage were available, then there would be plenty of takers, but people are understandably reluctant to take work that won’t cover their living costs. A single person may be able to have a bare existence on the NMW (less than £250 a week @ 37 hours/pw), but not someone with dependents – they would have to claim various benefits, and even the hypothetical single worker earning the NMW would be entitled to just over £1000 extra per annum if their (private sector) rent was £100 a week.
Ordinary people desperately need change, and hopefully that change is on it’s way. All over the world people are realising that the politicians and the 1% don’t give a damn about us, regarding us only as a means to their enrichment. They realise that in Greece, they realise that in Spain. They even realise that in France and the UK, but sadly, and worryingly they are turning to fruitcake right-wing nutters like Front Nationale and UKIP. Scotland realises that too, and I really do hope that they do well in the coming General Election, as it will see the start of things getting better.
Wow, I’m amazed at your erudition! I’m sure you are well set to gain a Masters Degree from the University of Stupidity. I’ll say one thing, I’ve never seen all the usual stereotypes and slurs aimed at the unemployed and poor all in one place until today.
I too remember the mid 70s, and the truth is that getting a job back then was very easy, and unemployment was pretty low throughout the seventies, and even when the Tories produced that infamous poster ‘Labour isn’t working’ immediately prior to the 1979 general election, the unemployment rate was *only* just over a million – two years later it was pretty much 3 million. However, in todays terms I doubt that that figure of a million unemployed would be counted as a million, as the way the figures are counted has been changed, several times, most notably during the Thatcher years to give the lie to the pathologically stupid that that unemployment wasn’t as bad as it really was. And, contrary to what you have said about people being ashamed at being on the dole, they weren’t, as it was a right, paid for by everyone in work, and though blatant abuse was frowned upon, hardly anyone batted an eyelid if someone postponed finding a job for a couple of weeks longer than normal. But that was a very different world, where work was easy to come by, unlike the situation today, where even if every job vacancy were filled there would still be well over a million unemployed people – and if they were all were made to do forced work as you advocate, then there would be even fewer jobs.
I doubt that my words will strike a chord with you, as you seem to be UKIP fodder, but that seems to me to be your only choice barring a candidate for the BNP standing in your area
It’s not unpaid work, the claimants are being paid by the state so it’s reasonable for the state to expect a little something back in return, and it will teach the fickle and the workshy some discipline and show potential employers that they are prepared to work. When I was young folk were ashamed to admit that they claimed benefits, now they shout it from the rooftops likes it’s a badge of honour, make them work or bring back national service.
When you were young, I daresay that the sharp practice of making an employee redundant, then getting in someone (may be even the same person!) on Workfare to do the job, and taking Govt money for the privilege, was something that employers didn’t do. They didn’t do it when I was young. And if you went on a Govt work scheme back then you got more than the basic JSA rate. Incidentally, the armed forces don’t want national service brought back – it lessens the professionalism of the forces.
How do you know people get made redundant? What evidence do you have that shows redundancies lead to people doing those same jobs for free? None I would say. What’s just as bad is hypocritical Labour politicians criticizing zero hours contracts, whilst Labour MPs and Labour councils have been employing people on these same contracts since when Gordon Brown was PM
There’s been have been cases where this happened, and it was reported in the national press. The one I remember best was a man who lives not far from where I am. Was made redundant, and basically offered his own job back, except on Workfare, and at the greatly reduced wage that is the basic JSA payment.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/03/dwp-benefits-electrician-work-placement-labour
The link to a man made redundant and sent back to work for same company on workfare. A skilled man I hasten to add not an inexperienced layabout.
For those who thing everything printed in the Daily Mail is gospel and that the Tories can do no wrong there is this, a right-wing critique of Workfare and such schemes. I am pretty much as far from right-wing as it’s possible to be, but the logic contained in this piece is inescapable. I disagree entirely with the philosophical standpoint of the writer, but entirely agree with his analysis.
http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/why-right-wing-support-workfare.html
For those of you who want a regular, if anarchist leaning opinion piece on the current social security changes there is this blog:
https://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/
If you want to know how you can get involved with opposing these changes, or just want to inform yourself about which companies, charities etc are taking part in forced labour schemes there is this website
http://www.boycottworkfare.org/
If you are being bullied by the DWP at the Jobcentre and would like to know exaclty what your rigths are, check out this website, which when it comes to the regualations can’t be faulted as it always refers back to the DWP’s website that has the regulations, chapter and verse – read all that and it’s likely that you’ll know more than your advisor and maybe even their manager too. A lot of the things they tell you are ‘mandatory’; that you have to do, are in fact not so, and you cannot be sanctioned for refusing – though they might threaten you with a sanction, they are lying. You don’t even have to let them have access to your UJM account, if you have one, that is, as it’s not compulsory to have one, unless they give you a Jobseeker’s Direction, and then it’s only reasonable if you are not already doing enough jobsearch and providing evidence, so if you present them with a sheet of paper with the steps you’ve taken to find work every time you sign on they will have a very hard time forcing you to use UJM if you really don’t want to.
http://refuted.org.uk/
Finally, if you need advice or want to get a little more involved there is this websit, which is good whether you’re
in work or not:
http://walesiww.org.uk/
If you search there are numerous examples where this has happened, the classic one was a couple of years ago when Asda’s regular staff were denied overtime at Christmas because Asda had taken on forced labour that was offered to them by the government for free. Tescos are also exploiting free government labour, though they are being very coy about it. In South Wales there are numerous small enterprises and charities using free press-ganged labour, but they too keep a low profile as they know that it makes them look very bad.
I agree with you 100% over zero hour contracts, but not all such contracts are necessarily bad – so long as they can’t dictate the hours and the worker is allowed to take up other work. Otherwise they are extremely exploitative. I had such a contract a few years ago, and it suited me down to the ground as it was well paid, and I wasn’t obliged to take offered work and could (and did) work for other employers too.
The classic kind of very exploitative contract is like one that Tesco uses a lot. They offer their workers a contract where there are ‘core’ hours, sometimes only about very few hours a week, and can then demand that those workers drop everything and go to work when Tesco needs them. The worker has to accept the work or eventually they will lose their job. If zero hour contracts are banned, or restricted expect exploitative employers to start using these contracts for a very few hours a week to get around the legislation.
What I stated was that when I was young ( mid 1970’s ) people were ashamed to admit that they signed on and claimed welfare payments, now it has become a shameless lifestyle choice of the lazy, workshy and feckless. This has got to be stamped out, why should some lazy toe rag sit on benefits doing nothing, farming children who will grow up to be clones of their useless parents, we now have generations of families who have never worked a day in their lives. If somebody has claimed benefits for more than 12 months then make them do something for it, child benefit should be stopped or paid in vouchers that can’t be exchanged in Brighthouse for a 50inch Television. National service should be brought back, these good for nothing spongers need discipline and respect knocked into them because it’s certainly not coming from their parents or their schools.
If they are putting people into jobs, they should be jobs at a proper wage, and preferably permanent jobs – that was what Job Centres did, once upon a time – they found work for people! If more effort went into creating jobs than demonising and ‘cracking down’ on those claiming benefits, the vast majority of whom have worked and paid their stamp, the economy would be in far better shape. Again, the armed forces don’t want to have to deal with people who are forced to be there. In any case, as they are reducing in size, there is no place for them anyway. They are not there to b e a dumping ground for the feckless, as you describe them. Child benefit is a whole different story, and quite different from ‘signing on’. I prefer it to be paid in cash, as it can be the means by which women can take their kids and leave an abusive spouse. Vouchers won’t help with that.
When you were young (mid 70’s) Jobs were ten a penny. Between 1974 and 1980 I had 13 different jobs finishing each one on a Friday and starting a new one the following Monday.
If you are in Wales ( which given your attitude doesn’t look like) then you know the devastation the mine and steelwork closures brought in the 80’s and many thousands of “too proud for benefits” were forced onto the scrapheap.
Regardless of new technology and businesses Wales has never recovered from these major job losses there has been no business to my mind that opened and employed 30,000 like the steelworks once did or 100,000 like the mines did.
As you must be around the same age as me I presume you will not mind taking a job for £1 an hour until you retire, presuming of course as a freeloading pensioner that will not be beneath you too ?
Yes I am actually in Wales I do a low paid job and also voluntary work for the local community where I live, I just don’t live in the past spending all my time lamenting the closure of the mines and comparing everything in Wales to what goes on across the border in England.
I think Paul is really Kate Hopkins in diguise?
Combative, and antagonistic with very little substance in your comments, and, if you really do hold the views you express so fluently it does say more about you than the topic upon which you comment. Do you really live your life with so much venom in your mind?
Sad if you do Paul.
You have probably actually stated quite a good case in support for the position the Council have taken.
The Welsh Labour utopia of well paid benefit claimants and every public sector worker on £30k a year is only going to bankrupt the country, just like they almost did before the Tories yet again had to clean up the financial mess that Brown and Blair left the country in. Perhaps if Labour hadn’t opened up the borders to the world then the country wouldn’t be over run with immigrants who are the only ones prepared to do the low paid unskilled jobs that the majority of lazy workshy indigenous Brits believe is beneath them, and why should they when they can claim the same money sat on the dole. There is always some pathetic excuse rolled out as to why they refuse to work – the foreigners have taken all the jobs, there’s no jobs where I live, there’s no work since the mines closed, I can’t get free child care to look after the child ( the one that they chose to have ).
I have a low paid job at the moment and I have been made redundant three times and I also went back to work for the minimum wage to the same company who made me redundant from a rather well paid position – so what, it happens a lot in the real world of private sector business. Sadly life can be tough and there is no such thing as equality and there never will be, it is easy for Caerphilly Council to sit in their multi million pound European funded Ivory tower and make these statements to appease the peasants that they rule over, but it’s all complete rubbish – what’s Jobs Growth Wales if not merely temporary low paid work subsidised by the Welsh Assembly, isn’t this also exploitation.
Trefor there is no need for a personal attack on me just because I don’t share the same political views as yourself.
Been there, done it, got the t-shirt then Paul?.
Yep sure, you can tell when somebody has lost the argument, they resort to name calling and sarcasm.
I have done many low paid jobs, from washing dishes to cleaning offices. My lack of a job has nothing to do with being workshy or feckless but physical capability and age.
Along with others in my age group who have worked since 16 I find it appalling that you lump all unemployed as workshy and feckless.
Whilst you may have been fortunate to have been re-employed at a lower wage many are not given that option and end up unemployed not because they are “feckless” but simply not needed.
I have a 62 yr old female friend who has had numerous interviews for jobs which show she is looking for work yet is forced to sign on every day to prove this point. At 62 it is hardly likely she is going to be top of an employers list of possible employees.
With regard to Britain going bankrupt that can never happen. A sovereign state with it’s own currency can never go bankrupt, we can have high inflation but never bankruptcy. Labour did not bankrupt the country it was the banking crisis and the sheer amount of capital poured into the banking system that led to the financial crash, hence why we are major shareholders in RBS (still being subsidised and losing money hand over fist), Lloyds and own a worthless Northern Rock.
As a matter of interest the Tories have spent over £5 billion pounds over the last five years on “work programmes ” that haven’t worked most of which has ended up in the pockets of non tax paying companies such as Capita and G4S. £5 billion could have created an awful lot of decent jobs rather than be siphoned off to offshore banks.
Hmmm, you have a low paid job with the same company on the minimum wage that sacked you from a job paying better and you still come out with the absolute bilge that you do? You need to get real, and join a union because soon you won’t have that wonderful minimum wage job that doesn’t pay you enough to live on. You might just find yourself being taken on to the same job as part of the government’s forced labour scheme that could see you homeless and starving.
It’s all very well for Mr Milliband to spout his rubbish about paying workers the living wage but the majority of private sector companies simply can’t afford it, my choice was take the job on the minimum wage or no job at all, I would rather work for the minimum wage than live on the dole, sometimes its not all about the money it’s about self esteem and self respect, and no I am banned from my employer from joining a union, again unions only have power in the public sector, but this isn’t about my circumstances all I am doing is putting across my piont of view as a working class British national, and my argument is that the long term unemployed and those who have never had a job should be made to do some work in the community, too many are sitting on welfare and the country can’t afford it, welfare is there as a safety net not a lifestyle choice. And forcing companies to pay this so called living wage would only lead to more job losses in the private sector.
Mr Milliband does indeed spout a lot of dubious stuff, but about the living wage he is not. The living wage should be the mimimum that should be paid, and if anything, the minimum should be nearer £10 an hour, and not the £6.51 pittance it is. Sure, some jobs might go, but on the whole such a move would be more likely to stimulate the economy and create jobs – think, what would you do if you were to get a nice pay rise that made you considerably better off? You’d start to consume more local services etc, which would have a multiplyer effect.
No-one should be forced to work, that would be the act of a fascist society. As for the country not being able to afford it, that is again an outright lie peddled by the right-wing press.There is no need for austerity, and the whole thing about claims that there needs to be austerity merely benefits the 1%, who somehow seem to have become richer, and are paying less in taxes than they were – but then they do have their useful idiots, those who are low paid who can’t see that they are being exploited even whilst they peddle the false rhetoric of their lords and masters. The unemployed need paid work, and there is plenty of work to be done, and there is money to pay for it – how about properly taxing the rich, who either steal the wealth they have, or it was stolen by their ancestors and they inherited it. The only way that capitalists make money or profits, is through exploitation and theft – exploiting consumers and by stealing the difference between what they pay their workers and the value that worker creates.
Don’t talk rubbish about being banned from joining a union. Unless you are a member of the armed forces, or are a police officer you cannot be banned from joining a union, it is one of your fundamental rights. There are companies that will try to dupe you that you cannot join a union, but they are not telling the truth, and more fool you if you believe them. Again, it’s not true that unions only have any influence in the public sector. Memebership might be more widespread in the public sector, but the power of any decent union is decided by how much power the ordinary members wish to yield, and even in the worst case scenario, being a member of a union will give you quite a bit of protection if an employer tries to mess you about over your rights, your pay or even tries to sack you. Most employers, especially the smaller ones, don’t have much of a clue when it comes to respecting worker’s rights, so very often a meeting between a worker, their union representative and their boss results in a much more positive outcome than would otherwise have been the case.
The country can well afford the cost of unemployment, as it is very small fraction of the welfare budget, something like 3%. Take housing benefits, that accounts for a huge sum, largely due to the fact that landlords have been allowed to inflate rents to obscene levels, which in turn has allowed social housing providers to something similar and still justify in strict terms, (however, not in any ethical or moral sense) charging an ‘affordable’ rent of up to 80% of market rents. Don’t forget, it’s not the poor tenant who benefits from that money, but the parasite landlords. Job Seekers Allowance is analagous to what used to be called Unemployment Benefit, and if it was still paid at it’s late 1970s level, the sum per week would be at least £130 indeed, the EU has castigated the UK government for keepin unemployment benefits so low, and rightly so.
You mention dignity and respect, and you make a fair point, but doesn’t that also require an employer to regard you as a worker with enough respect to pay you an adequate wage so that you don’t have to claim housing benefit, or Working Tax Credits, or even Child Allowance – all are benefits, and it is people like you who are in for a rude awakening once Universal Credit really kicks in and you too are subject to conditionality that might see you forced to work on some scheme of dubious community benefit, what probably financially benefits some exploiting capitalist employer,
I reiterate, do think again about what you’re saying about the unemployed, they could, after all, replace you in your job, as they can do it for a lot less than you – can you compete with free? No, I thought not!
If you want to pour bile on any group in society I suggest you divert your attntions away from the poor and unemployed and redirect it to a more fitting target, politicians, the bankers and teh super-rich. It is they who are living a life of luxury on the backs of us all. It is they who are the idel, the scroungers and the parasites.
I live and work in the real world where as I keep stating if my employer was forced to pay me this magical living wage which is going to save the U.K economy I would lose my job as they can’t afford to pay it, plus bringing in this wage would cause chaos with any companies pay scale structure, if you pay the person at the bottom an extra £2 per hour then you have to pay everbody in the company an extra £2 an hour to keep the status quo. Forcing the private sector to pay this living wage can only and will only cause jobs to be lost. Yes I am barred from joining a union, any employee at my company who is a member of a union will soon become an ex employee simple as that, and why would I become a member of an organisation who pull the strings of the loony left. No I am not in for a rude awakening when universal tax credits kick in as I am not eligable to claim them….you’re an intelligent person work it out.
People who have wealth should not have to keep on paying more and more in tax to prop up the shameless underclass who the Labour party have brain washed into believing that it’s not their fault they can’t find a job, or it’s not fair that the bankers are making a fortune whilst they have no money to feed the latest child that they’ve just popped out, well life’s not fair, there will alway be rich and there will always be poor.
Employers will always plead poverty, and only fools will ever believe them. If they can’t afford to pay you a living wage, they simply can’t afford to pay you. You say that you aren’t entitled to Working Tax Credits, yet if you are on the minimum wage it is more or less certain that you are indeed entitled. The only possible exception is if you have full-time employment, or if you work less than 30 hours a week, in which case you will probably be claiming at least council tax benefit, or maybe even housing benefit – both of which are welfare benefits, which will come under Universal Credit. Your logic doesn’t work, as it isn’t absolutely necessary to increase wages across the board to those already earning over a lving wage threshold.
If your employer is indeed as bad as you say they are then you are even more in need of a union. You are not barred from joining a union, that is utter tosh, as you have a legal right, and your employer would be breaking the law if they sacked you for exercising your right to join a union. And not all unions do pull the strings of the loony left, as you claim, The union I am a member of certainly doesn’t, as it has no political affiliations whatsoever. I wonder what you’re going to do when your wonderful employer realises that he can get monkeys that he doesn’t have to pay peanuts to? Under the Community Work Placements, employers can get free labour for up to six months, and when that six months is up, replace them with even more free labour
People who have wealth only came by that wealth by taking it from workers, as it is the workers who create the wealth. There is a question you should always ask of those who claim that they got wealthy through hard work: whose?
Your beloved Labour party aren’t really different from the Tories, and are certainly not my friends. As for people being brain-washed into believing that there are no jobs, well, that is easily demonstrable. It is accepted even by the DWP that there are only some 700,000 vacancies in the UK, and some 2.5 million unemployed, so even if every vancancy were filled that would still mean that 1.8 million people would be without a job – and that doesn’t count the estimated million who are unemployed, but not claiming benefits, nor does is count the very many underemployed who struggle to get enough hours at work so that they can pay their way. And what about those on exploitative exclusive zero hour contracts who don’t know from one day to the next if they will be working, and expected to drop everything and turn up at work when their employer needs them, no matter what they were doing, or had planned?
Again, you focus on the weak and the poor who are blameless. The poor and the unemployed didn’t create the banking crisis, but they’re certainly paying for it. Let’s turn things on their heads a little, shall we, why should the poor prop up the wealthy and the priveliged who have done nothing to justify their wealth, becuase that is exactly what the poor do. And the unemployed are a weapon too, they serve to keep pay levels down, and so that useful idiots can laud it over them because they have a job that doesn’t pay them enough to live on. I would argue that it is far more honourable to remain on the dole than to accept the insult of working for less than I need to live on.
Indeed, life isn’t fair in so many ways, but when it comes to ensuring that every person has a roof over their heads, food in their belly and clothes on their back, AS OF RIGHT, then I am sure that life can be made so much more fair than it is.
Everyone should have the basics of what they need for life, regardless of whether they work or not. This may seem like a bit of an alien concept, but the time is almost upon us when most tasks that were once someone’s job are mechanised, or done by computers, thus removing the need for employing workers. However, the flaw in this is that in order to continue, capitalism needs people with enough money to buy the things made, or it collapses, as it periodically does, such as when there is an economic depression or recession. So in order to keep capitalism going, people will need to be paid for doing nothing in order that they have enough money to keep capitalism going. If they have any sense, they will realise that they need the capitalists less than the capitalists need them – which is the way it really is anyway, if people did but realise how much power they really have.
I can assure you that although I may only receive the minimum wage I do not qualify for working tax credit or any other type of welfare benefit, there are circumstances where somebody may be working full time on a low wage and not be entitled to claim any benefits whatsoever, I assumed you are an intelligent person and could work it out obviously my assumption was wrong. There are also some people who would rather work for a low wage, perhaps even less than they could claim in benefits because they would rather work for a living than sit on their backsides sponging off the state, so those spongers who are sitting on their backsides watching daytime Sky TV on their Brighthouse telly, farming children, drinking and smoking their benefit money away should be forced to go out and do community work…..it may just teach them some dignity and self respect.
How on earth can forcing people to do menial work in the sense of a punishment ever teach dignity and self respect? That is a form of forced labour.
Again your stereotypes are risible, basically you regurgitate the rubbish spouted by the likes of the Daily Mail, The Daily Express and The Sun – hardly reliable sources, beign as they are the mouthpieces of the Tory elite.
But I guess you are the kind of person who will only see the truth when it affects you personally – and it probably will sooner or later if the present brutal regime continues. Ask yourself this, why would an employer paying your miniscule wages bother if they could get someone for less than they pay you? Free takes a lot of beating! As you are in a job that pays NMW, then it’s likely that it’s unskilled. You could very easily be replaced by one of those people you so despise, but I guess that would be small comfort – heck, you might even be offered your own job back – with your benefits instead of your wage.
I am an ‘intelligent’ person, whatever that is, at least intelligent enough not to believe the rhetoric of the boss class. It is always possible to find isolated examples that prove the rule, but the vast majority of people would much rather be in paid work than unemployed. Many do voluntary work, and that is fine, if they choose to do so, the operative word being ‘choose’.
Forced labour isn’t efficient, even if it is ethically and morally justifiable (which it isn’t). It’s not quite as bad as slavery, but not much better either.
It is obvious that you have swallowed the divide and rule rubbish hook, line and sinker – and now think of yourself as being somehow superior than those claiming benefits – think about it, you regard them as somehow less human than yourself, less deserving of respect. You may not realise that, but that is certainly the way the ruling elite want you to think.
What is it to be next? Labour camps? Such things did exist in the 1930s, and not just in Nazi Germany. And though it is an extreme example, it’s important to remember that many workers from occupied countries were forced to work in German armaments factories against their will. People in the modern day UK perhaps don’t (yet) face that kind of situation, nor perhaps the kinds of physical punishment that would be meted out, but surely enough they will be punished by withdrawl of their only means of support, and that could also mean homelessness as well as it definitely affecting their health. Remember, someone can be sanctioned for between a month and three years now, largely on the whim of someone with proto-fascist views similar to your own. I’m not saying that either they, or you are consciously fascist, but that kind of behaviour most definitely is, and the present regime are engaged in a process of normalising that kind of behaviour. Only a small fraction of the German population between 1933 and 1945 were active Nazis, but the vast majority passively accepted the things done by the Nazis. Okay, it is an extreme parrallel, but we are exactly on that kind of slippery slope.
There are very few really feckless people, yes, they exist, but they are am extreme minority. There may be many more who have lost hope, and realistically the only thing they can look forward to is to be used as free labour for exploitative employers. You know exactly what the work situation in in Caerffili, and the rest of South East Wales. There are few jobs, and those that do exist are usually part-time, zero hour and mimimum wage. If there was anything better I assume that you would have had the sense to have gone for it.
There is dignity in work, but only if it provides the good things in life, and not just a bare existence. We work to live, not the other way round – there are some jobs where the work is a person’s passion, but no minimum wage job is in that category. The UK is one of the richest countries on the planet, and can easily afford to pay decent wages, as they do in Sweden, Denmark and Norway, but then they are all civilsied countries that are forging on with the 21st Century and not attempting to return to some kind of forelock tugging medieval feudalism.
It’s early days, but increasingly we, in our union are being contacted by more and more marginalised workers who are realising that they are being taken for a ride by their employers, and they are motivated to change things. I hope the numbers continue to grow, as then they will be a force to be reckoned with. We are also being approached by more and more unemployed people who are desperate to be in work, and thoroughly sick of the punitive regime that casts them as somehow less than human, almost criminal, for the heinious crime of being without work when there aren’t enough jobs to go around. If decently paid jobs, paying a living wage were available, then there would be plenty of takers, but people are understandably reluctant to take work that won’t cover their living costs. A single person may be able to have a bare existence on the NMW (less than £250 a week @ 37 hours/pw), but not someone with dependents – they would have to claim various benefits, and even the hypothetical single worker earning the NMW would be entitled to just over £1000 extra per annum if their (private sector) rent was £100 a week.
Ordinary people desperately need change, and hopefully that change is on it’s way. All over the world people are realising that the politicians and the 1% don’t give a damn about us, regarding us only as a means to their enrichment. They realise that in Greece, they realise that in Spain. They even realise that in France and the UK, but sadly, and worryingly they are turning to fruitcake right-wing nutters like Front Nationale and UKIP. Scotland realises that too, and I really do hope that they do well in the coming General Election, as it will see the start of things getting better.
Wow, I’m amazed at your erudition! I’m sure you are well set to gain a Masters Degree from the University of Stupidity. I’ll say one thing, I’ve never seen all the usual stereotypes and slurs aimed at the unemployed and poor all in one place until today.
I too remember the mid 70s, and the truth is that getting a job back then was very easy, and unemployment was pretty low throughout the seventies, and even when the Tories produced that infamous poster ‘Labour isn’t working’ immediately prior to the 1979 general election, the unemployment rate was *only* just over a million – two years later it was pretty much 3 million. However, in todays terms I doubt that that figure of a million unemployed would be counted as a million, as the way the figures are counted has been changed, several times, most notably during the Thatcher years to give the lie to the pathologically stupid that that unemployment wasn’t as bad as it really was. And, contrary to what you have said about people being ashamed at being on the dole, they weren’t, as it was a right, paid for by everyone in work, and though blatant abuse was frowned upon, hardly anyone batted an eyelid if someone postponed finding a job for a couple of weeks longer than normal. But that was a very different world, where work was easy to come by, unlike the situation today, where even if every job vacancy were filled there would still be well over a million unemployed people – and if they were all were made to do forced work as you advocate, then there would be even fewer jobs.
I doubt that my words will strike a chord with you, as you seem to be UKIP fodder, but that seems to me to be your only choice barring a candidate for the BNP standing in your area
The Statements and views of Council leader Councillor Keith Reynolds, and his Deputy Councillor Gerald Jones on this subject will resonate with all fair minded people in the Borough, Councillor Gez Kirby has said it all. Case made.
How very magnanimous of them, Caerphilly’s largest employer is however probably the only employer in Caerphilly who can afford to pay the so called living wage because they don’t have to depend on actually turning a profit in order to pay their staff. The largest employer in Wales the bloated Welsh public sector do not create the wealth they only redistribute it, it is the private sector who create the wealth and if the private sector in Wales were forced to pay this living wage then many people would lose their jobs, myself included.
The Statements and views of Council leader Councillor Keith Reynolds, and his Deputy Councillor Gerald Jones on this subject will resonate with all fair minded people in the Borough, Councillor Gez Kirby has said it all. Case made.
How very magnanimous of them, Caerphilly’s largest employer is however probably the only employer in Caerphilly who can afford to pay the so called living wage because they don’t have to depend on actually turning a profit in order to pay their staff. The largest employer in Wales the bloated Welsh public sector do not create the wealth they only redistribute it, it is the private sector who create the wealth and if the private sector in Wales were forced to pay this living wage then many people would lose their jobs, myself included.