I was rather heartened to see that local charity Steps to Work is helping out the canal system by sending some of the local unemployed people to clean things up.
How good is that? It’s providing a useful service for the community, and showing that the workers have enough about them to take part, if nothing else. There you go- I’m always having a go about wasters scrounging, but there should be a way to reward these people.
Hmmm, maybe. One tends to think that if there’s a job to be done, somebody should be paid properly to do it.
I can see both sides, but this reminds me of ideas like YTS and workfare.
Best wishes
Bob
I agree completely, but given that BW have had their budgets cut, and people are sat around willing to work, it seems like a positive thing. What I’d really like to see is the people being paid extra over and above their benefits to bo it.
No, actually, what I’d like is for BW to be paid properly and for these people to be paid a decent wage for their work, but I can’t see that happening :-/.
I’d actually like to see the prison population doing this as we are already paying for their accommodation and upkeep. They get paid for stuff like this inside but shouldn’t they be doing this for free as a way of paying back into the community they’ve wronged?
Another thing – can they start on the Wyrley & Essington canal as it’s in a bad state?
I wonder where BW’s priorities lie especially as they are able to spend millions doing up the Droitwich canal recently…..
I had been thinking the prison thing, but I was saving that for later 🙂
Oh, and regarding the W+E, they are going to do the Daw End Branch, which is logically part of the W+E.
The problem I have with the likes of Steps to Work is they’re all about the careers of the people who work there and not for the people they’re meant to serve. Walsall Council was recently shouting about how a job fair had found 80-odd people jobs, but only in the small print did it mention that they were 3 day jobs cleaning up after a pop festival. Careers my arse.
Having seen recently how job fairs work, and knowing folks who’ve been through the likes of STW, it’s all an industry geared to removing people from the dole, into poorly paid jobs or unpaid work experience type stuff, just to be dumped later.
This job-creation-careers lark is a self-serving industry in itself, and stinks to high heaven, along with job agencies, gangmasters and other parasites who prey on those looking for work.
If there’s proper work to be done, undertake it as proper work. Prisoners? Not got a problem with that. NACRO have been working on Staffordshire canals for years, BTW.
Sorry, I needed to get that off my chest.
Bob
No need for sorry, and a valid point.
I have no idea about StW, but I do wonder why we have charities and other bodies involved: I’m still trying to keep a positive view on the outcome, but you have to wonder about people’s motivation.
is there a simple way to connect the following:
1) A need for a job to be done, be that for commercial or social function.
2) An otherwise unemployed person to do it.
3) A fair wage for doing it.
4) A way to maintain that, and prevent exploitation.
Dunno. Sounds nice though.
Bob: Summed up nicely.
I have a friend who writes on my blog and who has had several jobs in industry, on the dole etc. and eventually after much study, got himself a degree and a teaching qualification, as he thought that he would get a good permanent job in something he is good at and he enjoyed doing. Also, he was misled into thinking that there was demand for male primary school teachers but despite about 10 interviews, he has failed to find one. What’s going on here? Isn’t he being let down by the system?
I feel that we have been let down by the politicians here again as they have abandoned what we as a country are good at – i.e. manufacturing, science & Technology etc – and preferred soft stuff like banking that we are crap at.
The current job situation for school and University leavers today reflects my own personal experience – still makes me shudder at the memory.
This story has been featured tonight on Midlands Today, tonight.
It was last week too, I think.