how do you beat "work for the dole"?

[marsha]

if they have work to be done on the work for the dole programme there is obviouly a need for labour. why dont the tight asses just make that gardening or tidying up an actuall job like a council gardner or something and pay you an award wage for your time and not use you as a slave.

[devance]

There the U.S. every popular slipping on wet pavement, with back injury. 15 thousand

Might help if one had a actual back problem.

45 thousand .

[Darklight]

several ways of avoiding howards slave labour plan but the best would have to be go find/make some work for yourself

It can take a while to do, but so can finding the 'right' job. Both have their advantages, but funnily enough only the latter option is seen as a priority when ou'r going thru the education system

Work for the dole is mostly a scam IMO. I don't see how many of those projects do much more than teach people to accept the shit that they are handed and make them more easily moulded into drones. If anyone here has any positive experiences overall with WFD I'd be very interested to hear them.

I did one years ago, when it was called something else. Whatever my job description was it didn't end up expanding my qualifications one jot, and it had me commuting 70k each way to do it. About half the time I was in charge of an office with four other participants in it, which was entirely inappropriate and most likely illegal under the terms of the scheme.

A few years ago, maybe 6? I was called to help out someone on a similar WFD scheme. Apparantly the people running the program had told every batch of participants that up to 20% of them would be employed at the conclusion of the program if their dedication warranted it. Quite often participants were putting in 40-50 hours a week- not on paper of course, and it only came to light when two of them started to personally diary their hours. There was no time off in leiu for after hours participation. These people wanted jobs, and were in keen competition to work for far less than minimal conditions to get them. They were the fourth batch of participants to be subjected to this treatment.

I was asked to help my mate out because she had been asked to do some paid publicity work for her supervisors, and on conclusion of the work the money had not been forthcoming. She had been told that if she were to agitate for payment and drag the issue on it would completely ruin her chances of employment within that or any linked organisation. For some reason neither she nor any of the participants were familiar with the true structure of such organisations ( what exactly were they being trained for, if not to work in a similar organisation? ) and it only took a face to face meeting with the staff concerned, the witnesses to the verbal contract, and all it took was a quick reminder to the staff members concerned that their management committee and funding bodies might not approve of their staff offering sizeable cash payments from the petty cash tin that weren't publicly honoured to participants at the completion blah blah...

Suffice to say my mate got paid. She didn't get a job, but they only employed two people from four batches of participants long term anyhow. I expect that trained the rest of the overworked and underpaid to understand that 'up to 20%' can also accurately be 1%.

Mutual obligation implies more than poor people putting up with whatever shit they're handed. It implies equality in participation from participants and govt sponsored service providers alike. I've seen far too many people ripped off in these schemes to believe that the govt. is serious about providing quality training and opportunities. It's a case of throwing money at something to hide the unemployment stats. It supports the unemployment industry in such a way that it is almost impossible to determine how much these schemes actually cost taxpayers overall, because funding is so intertwined at federal, state and local levels ( for example local council park programs ) not to mention private sector involvement.

That's not to say mutual obligation can't work, and in appropriate circumstances can be a good thing. But I'm very very very suspicious of it as a blanket solution...

[occidentalis]

Darklight:

If anyone here has any positive experiences overall with WFD I'd be very interested to hear them.

A friend of mine is doing WfD at an organic permaculture garden/community centre/general hippy hangout in subiaco. She doesn't expect to be employed at the end or really gain any skills. But she gets to hang out with good people and contribute to something positive. She loves it.

[waterdragon]

the whole concept of work fr the dole shat me so much that i turned my back on the dole for good, and that was after ten years of dedicated service. even the title shits me - work for the dole ie work because there is no work. now we're seeing work for the disability pension ie work because you can't, what's next? work for us even after you're dead?

slave labour is alive and well, if not via unemployment then via the prison system where you can be locked away for harming nobody and happily slave away for pittance. is this all leading to a u.s style sham where peeps are forced into the military for economic survival?

is this country lacking taxpayers, is it not bad enough that we're taxed when we earn, taxed when we spend, taxed when we save, taxed when we travel, taxed when we just sit there doing nothing at all?

[ 18. May 2005, 11:11: Message edited by: waterdragon ]