Bus arrives 2 hours early BBC goes into overdrive

[miniman]

vonuber said:

I thought the point was that they were not volunteers but people on jobseekers being made to do it unpaid or they had their benefit cut?

Not at all, they were doing it as part of training / apprenticeships and were given a year's SIA license (£250) which means that they can do other paid security work.

[Happy82]

miniman said:

vonuber said:

I thought the point was that they were not volunteers but people on jobseekers being made to do it unpaid or they had their benefit cut?

Not at all, they were doing it as part of training / apprenticeships and were given a year's SIA license (£250) which means that they can do other paid security work.

The grauniad aka lefty daily mail, reported them as akin to slave Labour

[B Huey]

The deal was that if they worked for nothing on this job it "improved" their chance of getting paid work at the olympics.

Or put another way, if they didn't do this for nothing they would have no chance of getting any Olympics work.

Hardly fair is it?

[bp1]

chris watton said:

- I just bought some sandwiches (with bread so hard it ripped the inside of my mouth apart..), a coffee and got stuck into the third Game of Thrones book...

After book 3 the whole game of thrones thing goes rapidly into the crapper, I wouldn't bother with 4 and 5 to be honest. 1-3 excellent twist on the whole sword & sorcery/medieval genre, 4-5 some of the most turgid drivel I have ever read.

[sleep envy]

No access to toilets? there were thousands of them dotted about London.

Needing a place to change? All they were wearing were yellow 'Showcase' anoraks.

TBH one guy I walked passed was being berated by his superivsor for taking his anorak off and hanging around smoking.

A non-news story if ever there was one.

[miniman]

B Huey said:

The deal was that if they worked for nothing on this job it "improved" their chance of getting paid work at the olympics.

Or put another way, if they didn't do this for nothing they would have no chance of getting any Olympics work.

Hardly fair is it?

Why? Perhaps if they had a better attitude they wouldn't be out of work in the first place. I have an excellent developer working for me - he approached us with "I need a job, I will work for you for free for a week to show you how good I am". He was excellent, so we hired him. My point being - lots of people would jump at the opportunity to get free travel to London, plus a great view of the events, plus an opportunity to get paid to do the same at the Olympics.

[mph1977]

and the working conditions described seem to match those that I have seen and heard from the paid ( on a daily rate which works out below NMW when you take into account the periods of directed time even if they aren't actually 'working' ) for the 'paid' stewarding staff events - especially the 'none -Badged'( i.e. doesn't need an SIA licence) roles ...

In my volunteer work , there are a number of events where we now choose to stay off site due to the lack of facilities provided at on site 'staff' areas ...

[Pesty]

Cookie172 said:

"it was impossible to pitch a tent due to the concrete surface"

Note to self: drag mind out of gutter

Don't know if it mentions it where you read that but apparently it was only a couple of people brought tents for the evening.

Accomodation was laid on at night, nice and warm and cosey but it was multiple occupancy and a couple of people wanted to be on their own fair enough but then they complained it was wet and swampy.

the tent was their idea and they were advised against it.

Also they were not paid for the day but they did get a licence to work at security jobs which would have cost them £250 so actually they did get paid. I think they were also given clothes safety boots etc etc.

[Hackney]

Pesty said:

Cookie172 said:

"it was impossible to pitch a tent due to the concrete surface"

Note to self: drag mind out of gutter

Don't know if it mentions it where you read that but apparently it was only a couple of people brought tents for the evening.

Accomodation was laid on at night, nice and warm and cosey but it was multiple occupancy and a couple of people wanted to be on their own fair enough but then they complained it was wet and swampy.

the tent was their idea and they were advised against it.

Also they were not paid for the day but they did get a licence to work at security jobs which would have cost them £250 so actually they did get paid. I think they were also given clothes safety boots etc etc.

And the accomodation was provided *after* doing a day's work, they couldn't just go to their hotel / board / lodgings at 3am on the day of for a couple of hours.

And to the guy at Frankfurt airport, I assume you had access to warmth, light, food while there and then several hours on a plane to sleep should you desire, not two hours on a street in London before a 14 hour shift of... standing on a street in London?

[Pesty]

I'm not defending it.

I was out early this morning. the stories on TV were very one sided. The interview in Radio 4 made it a little more clear.

[Mr Sparkle]

Hackney said:

...two hours on a street in London before a 14 hour shift of... standing on a street in London?

And that had been made into a national news story, what a bunch of limp wristed pussys, back on the dole.

Edited by Mr Sparkle on Thursday 7th June 00:31

[Happy82]

Mr Sparkle said:

Hackney said:

...two hours on a street in London before a 14 hour shift of... standing on a street in London?

And that had been made into a national news story, what a bunch of limp wristed pussy's, back on the dole.

This nation needs to grow a backbone if this is considered so evil. When managing pubs and clubs I would regularly be working in excess of 14hours on my feet without a break.

[welsh blackbird]

Every time I heard this story on the radio, I was reminded of the Simpson's episode where they are about to lose their house and Homer says "We're going to lose our house and end up living under a bridge like common trolls".

I just couldn't take it seriously after that. (Or before, come to that).

[martin84]

I see PH is on fine bash-the-unemployed form again. Apparently not wanting to be forced to do work for free or left outside for two hours constitutes a 'bad attitude.' I'd be seriously worried about anybody who jumped up and down to do that, to be fair.

miniman said:

vonuber said:

I thought the point was that they were not volunteers but people on jobseekers being made to do it unpaid or they had their benefit cut?

Not at all, they were doing it as part of training / apprenticeships and were given a year's SIA license (£250) which means that they can do other paid security work.

A bit of both actually. If they're on the work programme then essentially yes they did have to do it, because the only alternative was having benefits cut and being thrown out on the street - which is highly ironic in itself.

Ones who were there on an apprenticeship would've been paid £2.60 but jobseekers claiming JSA who were not on an apprenticeship mostly refused payment because the benefits office deduct any money you earn from your benefits, making the whole exercise pointless. Although they should've accepted payment because in my experience of working for the DWP, 50% of the time they never actually deduct the money from the benefits because the form just gets stuffed in a cupboard and forgotten about. True story.

They were not given a years SIA licence just for doing this event, the SIA test may be basic but its not that basic. The Job Centre has been funding SIA courses for quite some time. Its pointless really because most of those who got the SIA licences are still on benefits because of a drop in demand for manned security, increased demand for remote monitoring and the fact the industry barely pays above minimum wage. If you do get a job in security you usually have to go to obscure places - most commonly at night - which means you need a car, and most long term unemployed people in their early 20s have no means of acquiring one, or a licence to drive it.

As for the story itself, Prescott does have a point when he talks about 'policing done on the cheap' which is essentially what this is. I dont share the PH view that its a massive story thrown about by a liberal media because the first I heard of it was on here

[WhoseGeneration]

martin84 said:

Prescott does have a point

No, for me, Prescott will never have a point, fornicating traitor to the working class that he claims to represent.

[0a]

The Guardian has been desperately trying to make this into a story knocking the jubilee as CIF readers cannot cope with the fact most people rather enjoyed the weekend and bank holiday.

At one point it was the number 1 story on the website. According to CIF posters it's Tory slavery and a return to the dark ages (no exaggeration).

[martin84]

0a said:

The Guardian has been desperately trying to make this into a story knocking the jubilee as CIF readers cannot cope with the fact most people rather enjoyed the weekend and bank holiday.

To be honest I didn't care about the Jubilee and care even less about the newspapers. Personally I got bored of the whole thing by the middle of Saturday. You cannot really blame the Guardian for not plastering the Queen over the front page like the Daily Mail, the Guardian is generally anti-monarchy and must feel it cannot show all out support for a hereditary monarchy when it was so strongly opposed to the hereditary Peers.

0a said:

At one point it was the number 1 story on the website. According to CIF posters it's Tory slavery and a return to the dark ages (no exaggeration).

Well theres an argument for facets of the work programme in its current form to be slavery, personally I object to my taxes paying for Poundland to be stocked with free staff, I think Poundland should pay for Poundlands staff, not me. Who's the one with the biggest problem though, the Guardian doing its thing or you for reading it?

[0a]

martin84 said:

Well theres an argument for facets of the work programme in its current form to be slavery, personally I object to my taxes paying for Poundland to be stocked with free staff, I think Poundland should pay for Poundlands staff, not me. Who's the one with the biggest problem though, the Guardian doing its thing or you for reading it?

They did plaster the Queen on the front page every day, hence the need to 'balance up' their coverage by finding and PRing some negative story about nothing.

I like reading and posting on The Guardian's website on exactly this kind of issue where they are wrong - far more rewarding than posting on PH where I generally agree with people. The 'recommends' you get indicate that many CIF readers agree even if it's fashionable not to.

I have some reservations on the workfare scheme, however in this case it does seem they were volunteers (ie they applied for the scheme with full knowledge of what is required) and the benefits they would gain for their CV for future event management jobs.

We can't all be multiple directors or earn £115k for a part time newspaper column (Toynbee), there is massive snobbishness over this kind of experience in the press at the moment.

[martin84]

0a said:

They did plaster the Queen on the front page every day

I wouldn't know. I dont buy newspapers.

0a said:

I have some reservations on the workfare scheme, however in this case it does seem they were volunteers (ie they applied for the scheme with full knowledge of what is required) and the benefits they would gain for their CV for future event management jobs.

Well the non-apprenticeship ones aren't quite volunteers. Its easy do the thing or lose your benefits and become homeless. If I try and imagine myself in their position I can understand why they'd feel disheartened and probably completely cynical about everything.

0a said:

We can't all be multiple directors or earn £115k for a part time newspaper column (Toynbee), there is massive snobbishness over this kind of experience in the press at the moment.

Well of course we can't all do that but I dont think the bad press is due to the type of work. Its rooted in the fact the Government are making them do it and providing a cost-free solution for struggling retail trades looking for staff. Its incredibly easy to put a 'rich Tory helps out business by giving them free job seeker threatened with homelessness' spin on it, like I just did there.

Forcing them to do voluntary work (a contradiction in itself) ignores the fact the charity sector don't want reluctant volunteers, they're looking for a very specific type of person. I just think they've got ther whole work programme thing completely wrong to be honest, it might be useful for a few people - indeed it has been - but they could've done so much better with a bit of thought. Giving them 'retail experience' is quite pointless generally because retail is a dying business. This idea is 20 years out of date.

[davepoth]

I'm mightily pissed off about it - I'm on the dole in Bath and they never asked me if I wanted a free trip to London with an anorak thrown in...