The post you are reporting:
Ross, you might be right that some people on JSA go to have a drink now and then, but their spending capacity is by nature limited, as benefits need to cover shopping too, and barely suffice even for this.
You mention that there are households where people are permanently unemployed.
Now I do agree that the State ought to help out with discipline, equally for those who are long-term unemployed and for people who are earnestly trying to find work.
I have myself expressed my view on this in the past on the Forum, we need a kind of regimentalism for people in need of training in factories and on farms an in other spheres of work.
Essentially it would mean joining a company, agreeing to some basic principles (comradeship, self-discipline, no swearing while on duty etc.), listening to some speeches on the virtues of working and living for a cause, doing some cross-country walking, some exercise at the gym, learning to be up at 6 AM during the training period, and then entering a factory with the company, accompanied by the trainers, learning the job, and then getting the job, either part-time or full-time.
However, in our present system of affairs, this is where it ends, namely as a dream. Because then the laws of the State come in and say: ah no! the private employer can employ who they want, not who they are told to employ!
And the anti-discrimination advocates chime in, saying that all people from 27 EU countries have the right to work here.
Hence we end up back at base 1: the news-papers keep complaining that 90% of jobs go to foreign workers, Labour MPs make a study and come to the same conclusion, and confront the Govenment with it, pointing out that they are no better than the last Labour government in this respect.
The Government then underlines the fact that about 5 million people in Britain are on out-of-work related benefits, and that youth unemployment (age16-24) is at over 20%.
Ross, I really don't know what else to say or write, because many of us seem to say the same thing, really, that we need some sort of discipline to get our unemployed to work, whether they are lazy or not, but no-one seems to have the courage to just go and do it.
I don't bring up threads on this topic, because I've been through it all already, and said everything.
However, going back to post 1, may I ask a question: Does anyone here have an idea what to do about it?
I mean, about the fact that unemployment here in Britain involves millions of people, and is particularly high among the young people.
I've seen many times, here in Dover, young eastern Europeans crowded around a lap-top, looking for vacant jobs.
I've heard them complaining, telling me that the agency lies to them, and that they only work one week and not the other, or three days a week and not five, and that they can't afford to pay the rent, that they have families in the East...
I feel sorry for them too, and at least I KNOW their reality, and don't live in a cloud cukko land, and don't paint pictures through black/white descriptions, where everyone is either "lazy" or "works".
Equally, many unemployed British people are desparate to work and earn a decent wage.
If I look on an eastern European jobsite, I see that over there, in the East, there are not near enough vacant jobs for the local people, and that those vacant are at a salary of about 300-400 euros a month for full time(factory/cleaning etc.).
So many come here or to other western countries, and quite a few end up being frustrated, as work agencies often find them work for employers who will use them to their own ends, namely when they need them, and not when they don't need them.
The very reasons for which many such private-sector employers will not even TRY employing British people.
In fact, some people here on the Forum, I have noticed, have no idea of what signing on means and implies, yet talk as if they KNEW everything!
You cannot sign off and work for two weeks in a factory, renouncing your JSA and houing benefits, and then, after 2 weeks, when the factory tells you to stay at home and wait... 1 day...2 days...3 days.. a week... with NO pay, pretend it is NORMAL.
In fact, by then, you'll find that you cannot pay your rent, do your shopping, so you MUST sign on again, and wait a whole month before your JSA and housing benefits start coming in.
So, the private sector employer who wants cheap random labour, who also knows all this, will only look for eastern Europeans who are accustomed to 1 euro or 2 euros an hour, offering them £5.93 an hour, but on an AGENCY contract, which means they can tell them when and if to come to work, and lay them off at a moment's notice without any redundancy.
Sickpay: NOTHING!
No matter what the "know-alls" come out with, or how much they claim to "know" everything about "lazy people claimimng benefits", I'm a little tired of it all.
Usually I say nothing, but sometimes one must put a word in.
