Public Sector Strikes

[jumpy]

Originally Posted by STEED

I believe the unemployed and pensioners are going to get a kick in the teeth next April seeing there rise in benefits & pensions downgraded. As you know this is all done on this September's inflation figures.

And in 2013 all unemployed with be forced to do slave work for nothing!

400,000 jobs..2.5 million unemployed, that's over 100 people chasing ever vacancy.

Quicker than you think... like this year, so it's happening already mate.
I'm soon to be 'referred' as a client to one of these government subsidised private companies to help my chances of employment. Previously these companies got paid regardless of their 'clients' finding work. New rules say they only get paid when they've found the client work. You know what that means... any old rubbish for you so we get government money! Square peg, round hole and all that. I fail to see how it will be anything other than a retrograde step for me - judging by my previous experience over the last 20 years or so with schemes like these, they always cost me something important, whilst the companies involved make a tidy profit. Make no mistake; they have no sense of altruism here, it's all about the money. Their money. Yours too if you're a taxpayer.

I'm not taking warehouse jobs (not the ones in my area anyway) - the last time I did that my shift hours kept getting cut so I'd get sent home along with half the shift of other temps. Of course when you're not clocked in and grafting, you don't get paid. And what's the use of a full time job that doesn't always pay you enough to fulfil all of your ever increasing living costs? Over half of the shift I was on left because they couldn't earn enough to keep themselves going - you'd arrive on site at 6am either to be told to go home we don't need you today, or you'd be sent home at the first break after 3 or 4 hours.
That's an example of one of those private sector companies who the government think (or say) are going to save the economy. Pfaugh, better off trusting it to a banker, at least you know he's going to **** you and not be shy about it.

And here's another example: Not so long back my cousin was made redundant from his full time job at Catapillar, along with over half of their full time staff. CAT took on a load of work scheme young lads from one of these jobcentre contracted private companies I've mentioned already. CAT got paid a subsidy to employ these lads for 6 weeks, the private contractor got paid to 'find the jobs' and the young lads got 6 weeks work at min wage, then let go. Then the whole process was repeated with another group of the unemployed.
It's sheer genius! What a great way for companies to make money, at the expense of their full time salaried and skilled workforce.

I've filled out so many applications for jobs you never hear back from. Hassled agencies who never find you work (parasites that they are). You are either overqualified for menial jobs of under qualified for all of those niche senior manager positions there are always a plethora of.
I used to have a good job with a little prospect for the future. Now I have FA. Can't go back to school and learn something new; it's all too expensive. I'm not even treading water like I was before... Limbo is where it's at for sure.

It's sickening, jim, it really is. Anyone with a job now would be a fool to not stand up and fight for what they've still got left. It's either that or end up with no job at all, or a job that leaves them with practically nothing to show for it.
I know there's many complexities to all of this, but I don't believe we are 'all in it together', not by a very long way indeed. The sort of rhetoric we are spoon-fed all day about the flagging economy and the rising debt is very bitter to swallow when you had no hand in making it come to pass - I worked and saved and lived within my means for the most part, did what I was supposed to do and was as financially responsible as I could be given my then level of income combined with that of my ex. Yet here I am scratching out an existence listening to the very people who were supposed to have oversight of the economy tell me and you and everyone else in this country that we're going to have to pay for something we didn't spend in the first place.

Just goes to show - you're better off doing what you want and stick two fingers up to anyone who tells you otherwise.