boycott workfare (UK)

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Wait..what...the unions exercised a bit of power for once?

There are currently seven billion people on the planet.

Before the industrial revolution the population of planet never went above 250 million.

The only reason the industrial revolution happened in Britain is because with a population of 5 million at the time we had exceeded the carrying capacity of the country and cut down all the trees, lucky for us we had lots of coal in the ground and figured out how to use that instead, the rest is history.

If you want the median lifestyle of everyone on the planet to match that of the US currently AND do so in a world without oil AND do so in a sustainable fashion, the human population needs to drop to about 1 billion.

I would more rather get there by having a global one child per family law for a few generations than get there by breeding ourselves into WW3.

this is good- that sainsburys's has backed down and the unions have said something but i was wondering just how militant is this union? i'm not really familiar with the british trade unions and i was wondering if the unions were intending on entering into more than talks with the bosses? call me a pessimist but i dont see the bosses easily relenquishing the easy slave labour force they currently have. i know if it were the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees union here the workers would have been willingly sold out. possibly the most corrupt union ever.
Minister for Employment Chris Grayling said:


that was in one of the links. i just thought it was particularly disgusting. the way they phrase it like theyre pretending it really will benifit the working class and unemployed.
translation: if an area of industry feels that it can benifit from getting unskilled labour in it's work environement they will happily refer you into a work activity placement. these palcements are all about getting people into a working routine that will crush your soul and mould it into a shape that your boss can more effectively exploit to run their business.
this is benificial to employers as it will allow them to develop a workforce with a more "work oriented mindset" and makes them more appealing to employers looking to fill a vacancy with docile, fearful, desperate and unquestioningly obedient workers. we are determined to break the workless and get those who can work into unpaid jobs. or wage slavery if we really really have to.

and i dont think the problem is the population size. we currently have enough to feed the world, enough housing or enough money to create more housing and provide proper health care for everyone. the problem is how the resources that could solve the problems of the world are used. houses arent made to house people, food isnt made to feed people, health care is only there for those who can afford it. eveything is made for profit and profit is funnelled to that 1%. and the majority don't ravage the environment. i'm sure no one here was responsible for clearing bush land to make way for an opencut mine or mines yellow cake to run nuclear power plants then dumps the waste wherever or drills for oil in ecologically sensitive areas and when a leak happens the response isnt "oops we didnt prepare for this because it wasn't financially viable" and who here pushes back the provision of renweable energy? population growth isn't dangerous by environmental standards either.

unions in the uk generally are pretty impotent and in the pockets of big business, so i wouldn't expect to much.




of course, it is indeed disgusting, unfortunately though it's no worse than we generally expect from politicians serving in successive goevernments in britain from thatcher until now.


quite agree on all of these points.

i would add that what is a large part of the problem is the inherent inequality of opportunity under capitalism and the general level of shittiness and low pay of the only jobs that a large segment of the population have access to. i have to say that in their situation, i'd be very tempted to sign on become part of the "idle jobless".

nice to see emma harrison coming under some fire, even the daily mail are having a go;

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... payer.html


http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2012/02 ... fit-cheat/

Are you volunteering to be one of the unfortunate six billion?

ruveyn

He never suggested killing anyone. Read the second paragraph you quoted.

http://jobcentreplus.jobhits.co.uk/TESC ... -BSD-27442

The long awaited return of Slavery to the United Kingdom

Sponsored by Tesco's

how can that in any way be considered a "job vacancy"??? it would be funny were it not so tragic and for the fact that unemployed people are going to be forced into this.

i'm waiting to see the outcome of this. surely, it has to result in mass refusal...

I take it you are not volunteering for self elimination.

ruveyn

some people might, but ultimately it would likely be viewed as unethical to even allow them to indulge it. the general idea is to slow the growth of the population. it's a long game, rather than an instant solution.

No-one is and that's not what was being discussed. Why are you obsessed with that idea? No-one is calling for mass human culling, not even the most extreme antinatalists.

Wow. Interesting reading. Thanks for the link. I never knew that things were that far gone in the UK. This is one of the most outrageous & offensive things I've ever seen coming from a democratic country. Until now I've never been immersed in the details of this, but to me it all comes down to whether we are free individuals with rights & dignity, or just disposable cogs in the machinery of economic production. Refuse! Resist!

Here in America we've become accustomed to right-wingers & self-styled "libertarians" heaping scorn on anyone who might need to use a government service. But in spite of all this, we've been able to react to the economic crisis with expansionary policies (low interest rates, economic stimulus through increased government spending, extra benefits & wealth transfers, etc.), rather than European-style austerity. And it appears that these policies have started to bear fruit, as things seem to be turning around with our economy, albeit slowly.

In a similar vein, I suppose, the American right are presently trying to push through a law to impose drug-testing as a condition for receiving unemployment benefits. (They are probably going to get it.) Whatever the merits of suspicionless drug-testing in various job situations (I will allow that in certain jobs, safety considerations may have priority), it is always an invasive & degrading procedure. As with any drug-testing regime, a refusal to submit draws the same consequences as a positive test - dismissal from a job, or if this comes to pass, the revocation of unemployment benefits. There is no presumption of innocence, no protection from self-incrimination, no regard for a person's right to privacy.

One purpose of such a law would be to create a new bar to entry. But the larger purpose is to stigmatize, to make the receipt of unemployment benefits as difficult & degrading as possible. But the larger point is this: if the government can require a person to surrender fundamental rights as a condition of receiving a benefit or service, that would be a major lurch toward authoritarianism. But sometimes it seems like we're already halfway there.

The Commercial Workers Union (royal mail workers) are unrepentantly backing workfare. Royal mail staff have have faced a lot of well publicised disputes in recent years and IIRC gone on strike several times. That will not be so easy now with a slave workforce to walk through picket lines.

As if being a slave isnt enough to recieve subsistence benefits - now you will have to be a scab too.

I was watching an old tv show recently where there was drug testing and one person had a lot of problems because they had a false positive. I had a false positive myself once when I was a teenager.

If I'm ever less of a recluse that might someday be a problem for me. I don't want to do drug tests out of principle and if they actually expect to watch me go I'll refuse no matter what. Even locked up as a teenager I wouldn't let them watch me pee.