Government Right to Introduce Forced Labour: Court Rules on Cait Reilly.
The government’s back-to-work schemes, which have been criticised as “forced labour”, are lawful, the High Court ruled on Monday.
The Honourable Mr Justice Foskett saw fit to make this pompous comment,
the scheme is “a very long way removed from the kind of colonial exploitation of labour that led to the formulation of Article 4”.
“Characterising such a scheme as involving or being analogous to “slavery” or “forced labour” seems to me to be a long way from contemporary thinking.”
The judgment was in response to unemployed graduate Cait Reilly’s challenge. The 22-year-old which claimed the scheme breached the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as it “forced” her to work for free.
The DWP also saw fit to make this sinister comment,
A spokesperson for the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) said:
“We are delighted, although not surprised, that the Judge agrees our schemes are not forced labour. Comparing our initiatives to slave labour is not only ridiculous but insulting to people around the world facing real oppression.
“Those who oppose this process are actually opposed to hard work and they are harming the life chances of unemployed young people who are trying to get on.”
Ipswich Unemployed Action. 
he also said: In a decision that has potentially far-reaching consequences the Judge held that the decision to strip our client of his benefits for six months was unlawful because the DWP failed, as required by law, to provide information to him about the consequences of not participating in the scheme.
Mr Wilson received the DWP’s standard form letters requiring his attendance on the Community Action Programme. These letters, which have been sent out to thousands of other people mandating their attendance on such schemes, failed to comply with the basic notice requirements that would allow the DWP to lawfully impose benefit sanctions.
Over the last year, across the country, tens of thousands of people have been stripped of their benefits and must now be entitled to reimbursement by the DWP.
Tessa Gregory of Public Interest Lawyers stated:
“As of January 2012, over 22,000 people[2] had been stripped of their benefits for failing to participate in the Work Programme alone. That figure must now have doubled. Today’s decision should mean that many of those subjected to benefit sanctions will be entitled to reimbursement by the Department of Work and Pensions. It is truly extraordinary that the Government has found itself in this position by failing to provide basic information to those affected.
Berlioz
August 6, 2012 at 10:39 am
Though is some consolation, unfortunately this simply means they will provide the appropriate warning in future.
Andrew Coates
August 6, 2012 at 10:40 am
I’d love to see these people reimbursed, but there’s as much chance of that happening as the mars rover has of finding a little green man. It ain’t going to happen. I wish it were otheriwse, but there is no way this government would pay up. Even if compelled by law they would drag their heels to at least 2015. This whole thing is disgusting.
Ghost Whistler
August 6, 2012 at 10:49 am
I’m interested that those who oppose this process oppose hard work.
Nobody opposes hard work as long as they are sufficiently remunerated for it at a living wage
Antony Webber
August 6, 2012 at 11:04 am
It sounds like what they really think of the opponents of Workfare – after they’ve had a few drinks with their cronies in a Westminster Club.
Andrew Coates
August 6, 2012 at 11:17 am
I couldn’t agree more. It seems to me that as is stated the government believes that hard work should not be rewarded financially and we should indeed all be unwaged serfs at the call of our paymasters.
Antony Webber
August 6, 2012 at 11:41 am
Yeah, you could bet your last bottle of Bollinger that these Neo-Nazis have never down ONE days work in their entire privileged lives, never mind HARD work. Rot in Hell you toff c*unts!
JVoid
August 6, 2012 at 11:55 am
Back-to-work scheme ruled lawful by High Court
A graduate has lost her High Court bid to challenge a government scheme which she says forces people to work without being paid.
Cait Reilly, a University of Birmingham geology graduate, had argued that making her work unpaid at a Poundland store for two weeks or risk losing her benefits was a breach of human rights.
But a judge rejected her assertion.
It was “a long way from contemporary thinking” to call the scheme slavery or forced labour, he said.
The decision means that the government is spared the prospect of having all back-to-work schemes declared invalid.
The Department for Work and Pensions said the comparison with slave labour was “ridiculous”.
“Thousands of young people across the country are taking part in our schemes and gaining the vital skills and experience needed to help them enter the world of work – it is making a real difference to people’s lives.
“Those who oppose this process are actually opposed to hard work and they are harming the life chances of unemployed young people who are trying to get on,” a DWP spokesperson said.
Mistakes made
Miss Reilly, 23, and unemployed heavy goods vehicle driver Jamieson Wilson, 40, from Nottingham, were trying to get their back-to-work schemes declared unlawful under article four of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits both forced labour and slavery.
The judge, Mr Justice Foskett, sitting at the High Court in London, said mistakes had been made in both their cases.
Miss Reilly had been misinformed about the Work Academy Scheme, so she did not realise that it was not mandatory.
For his part, Mr Wilson, who was on the Community Action Programme, had not been given proper notice of the scheme.
However, neither scheme breached the convention and the errors did not invalidate the Jobseeker’s Allowance regulations.
The judge said letters informing jobseekers about what could happen if they fail to take part in schemes should be made clearer.
But the DWP did not accept this and said it would be appealing against this part of the ruling.
Article here.
BBC
August 6, 2012 at 11:34 am
“Opposed to hard work” ?! that is just bloody ridiculous, but not surprising coming an evil scum Nazi organisation called the DWP. On the contrary, I have never known a more hard-working girl than Cait. The scum DWP need to go and wash it’s filthy, fascist mouth out.
Cait's neighbour
August 6, 2012 at 11:45 am
All i would say about these schemes is if you’re coerced onto one i would just take your time with the tasks given to you, as this isn’t illegal, and inform the other employees in the store that you are a mandatory work placement participant and this will undermine the fully paid employees terms and conditions as the company increasingly uses benefit level participants.
Antony Webber
August 6, 2012 at 11:46 am
“HARD WORK – NO PAY”
DWP
August 6, 2012 at 11:50 am
Yes that’s right benefits, and hard work, not hard work and proper pay.
Antony Webber
August 6, 2012 at 11:51 am
🙂
Organisation Todt
Fritz Todt
August 6, 2012 at 11:57 am
I am registered with twitter, if you want to follow me there @owl180. I wrote a piece on “The Fall Of The Roman Empire” a film made in 1964 and the many warnings in the film which Cameron, Clegg, and Osborne should take note of such as the abandonment of young people, the near starvation of the population, slavery which created massive social unrest which i believe we will have in the coming years.
Antony Webber
August 6, 2012 at 12:26 pm
‘justice’ (????!) Foskett and the rest of them should get a life and get proper jobs. The judge, if he doesn’t think it is slavery, he should go and spend a month in Scotland tree-brashing (see video by Stigg of the Skips) in the Work Programme. If they want to say it is fair, then everything they are introducing, they should test it on themselves.
Even better: they should do it (including the miles of walking in the rain) while not having eaten for 3, 4, 5 days. (“See the weight come off!”) Well in order to be a valid study they should accurately reproduce the conditions as closely as possible. Let’s say that it rains for most of the 30 days and the tools are broken, and at the same time the participants are threatened with the loss of their home. And see how they like being referred to as ‘client’ and ‘volunteer’. (Do they mean slave, inmate, prisoner?)
something survived...
August 16, 2012 at 11:15 pm
It is undoubtedly not a normal civic duty to work for nothing. All is not yet lost.
The emphasis thus far seems to focus on the DWP. What about the position of every workfare employer, though?
The focus of attention from now on should be placed on every individual Workfare employer, because, within recent legislation in this country which outlaws “Forced or Compulsory Labour”, the person who commits the offence is the person who requires someone else to perform “Forced or Compulsory Labour”!
It is not possible for a person to be on Workfare without an employer requiring that person to be there!!
If a non-volunteer is mandated onto Workfare schemes under the menace of a penalty, ie, loss of Jobseeker’s Allowance, then a criminal offence is occurring.
Remember, Jobseeker’s Allowance is just that; a subsistence allowance paid to unemployed people who actively seek jobs; it is not intended as proper remuneration for a job.
And don’t forget what The Bible says (do not scoff):
“WOE UNTO HIM THAT BUILDETH HIS HOUSE BY UNRIGHTEOUSNESS, AND HIS CHAMBERS BY WRONG (FRAUD); THAT USETH HIS NEIGHBOUR’S SERVICE WITHOUT WAGES, AND GIVETH HIM NOT FOR HIS WORK” – Jeremiah chapter 22, verse 13.
Tobanem
August 6, 2012 at 12:30 pm
Wise words, indeed from His Honour and some much-needed common sense spoke by the DWP on this issue. This lazy little toe-rag of a Cait Reilly wasn’t “forced” to sign-on, was she? A good dose of hard work and a hard boot up her backside would work wonders for job-snob (well observed The Right Honourable Mr Duncan-Smith) Ms Reilly and likewise for her bone-idle scrounging “comrades”.
Voice of the Work Programme
August 6, 2012 at 12:48 pm
ACHTUNG
“Voice of the Work Programme” sounds more like the voice of an idiot.
No one is forcing you to sign on, therefore no one is forcing you to work – that is the defensive logic of the DWP surrounding conditionality for receipt of JSA. It might get civil servants at Jobcentres off the hook, but it is not going to get greedy corporate employers in the Workfare workplace off the hook when faced with a charge of “Forced or Compulsory Labour”.
Perhaps “Voice of the Work Programme” would endorse the Third Reich Todt Organisation mentioned above with its Zwangsarbeit as a solution. Perhaps he might come up with his own “Endlosung”. Does he know about the “Arbeitsscheu”?
Or maybe he approves of the Nazi “selection” procedure for inmates arriving at Auschwitz? I’ve just remembered the German for that one – it was called the Work Capability Assessment.
Meanwhile, where are all the proper paid jobs for all of the unemployed in this country these days?
Tobanem
August 6, 2012 at 1:23 pm
Zwangsarbeit, Endlosung, Arbeitsscheu… Oh, please you will have “The Voice” wetting her knickers.
Sally
August 6, 2012 at 2:36 pm
Don’t you dare call my good freund Fritz a Nazi. Fritz was a kind man. Through the many opportunities and help he so selflessly gave so many thousands and thousands of the less fortunate gained the skills and experience to enter the world of work. Fritz definitely made a real difference to peoples life. Arbeit Macht Frei
Ilse Koch
August 6, 2012 at 3:02 pm
Come, Ilse, that’s enough of a holiday, a cauldron of flaming pitch awaits you. Lively, now! Run!
Old Nick
August 6, 2012 at 4:05 pm
Voice of the Work Programme is, as usual, entirely right and I wish to thank him/her for those kind words of encouragement. I would add nothing more except to say that those in the scrounging community who have suggested that my head is being used as a landing and launch pad by tiny anarcho-syndicalist aliens who have gained access to my brain via my ears and are controlling my thoughts and actions in an effort to undermine capitalism by pushing its internal contradictions to extremes could not be more wrong. I am my own man. I am a rock. I am steering a steady course. I am about to collapse. Nurse!
ids (aka The Night Crawler)
August 6, 2012 at 1:52 pm
“Thousands of young people across the country are taking part in our schemes and gaining the vital skills and experience needed to help them enter the world of work – it is making a real difference to people’s lives. – don’t you just hate this Orwellian shite!
Orwell
August 6, 2012 at 12:58 pm
“making a real difference to people’s lives” – A4espeak
Orwell
August 6, 2012 at 12:59 pm
but what kind of difference?, what vital skills and experience?… this DWP bullshit makes it sound all so exiting when in reality we all know it is a great big pile of steaming shite!
Sanctioned46monthsbyA4e
August 6, 2012 at 1:06 pm
yeah – making our lives worse
something survived...
August 16, 2012 at 10:49 pm
Have just had my review with SEETEC, Romford, Essex. I turned up for my appointment 10 minutes early and i waited to see my adviser who when my appointment time came, sat chatting, drinking tea and eating. I waited twenty minutes and finally had enough so i walked over sat down, and was ignored until i pointed out my appointment was with her and id sat there waiting twenty minutes.
I was then asked how were things!!!! What amazes me even more is the adviser only had an hour and a quarter to lunch, and was stuffing her face like a farmyard pig.
These “advisers” are just useless, ignorant, and have no interpersonal skills.
Antony Webber
August 17, 2012 at 8:35 am
“Opposed to hard work” these comments are arrogant from an arrogant git,people are treated disgracefully on these schemes.when this started at the high court the argument was “it is reasonable to “ask” someone” to begin this,they are not being asked they are being told to in an environment of uncertainty and confusion.
the job centre don’t care handing paperwork full of threats,its a shame this wasn’t given more consideration as its unfair causing additional stress to the claimant.
its all about demoralising and forcing people off benefits by unfair and foul treatment with ill treatment and attitude.
ken
August 6, 2012 at 1:20 pm
“its all about demoralising and forcing people off benefits by unfair and foul treatment with ill treatment and attitude.”… got in in one, ken. And talking of threats, the “work programme” referral letter contains the word “sanction” no less than 17 times!
Clay Mant
August 6, 2012 at 2:30 pm
From the judgement,.
The most significant point is that the Judge decided it was potentially, or could be considered to be, “a step towards obtaining eventual employment for the person concerned.”
“a “the kind of colonial exploitation of labour that led to the formulation of Article 4. The Convention is, of course, a living instrument, capable of development to meet modern conditions, and views may reasonably differ about the merits of a scheme that requires individuals to “work for their benefits” as a means of assisting them back into the workplace. However, characterising such a scheme as involving or being analogous to “slavery” or “forced labour” seems to me to be a long way from contemporary thinking. Mr Walsh’s first witness statement refers to details of research which it is suggested shows that schemes like the CAP can and do have a beneficial effect in relation to the obtaining of work by the long-term unemployed. It is no part of the court’s function to evaluate that evidence or to comment on its
Judgment Approved by the court for handing down. Reilly & Wilson v DWP
validity. However, if valid, its existence would reinforce the view that a scheme like the CAP does not offend Article 4.” http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Judgments/reilly-wilson-sec-state-work-pensions.pdf
This means that unless schemes cannot reasonably be said to be steps towards obtaining eventual employment and resemble colonial forced labour they cannot be ruled out of order by the Court.
Andrew Coates
August 6, 2012 at 3:25 pm
During the 2000 Presidential campaign the Rev Jesse Jackson said W Bush’s victory didn’t “pass the smell test”. I reckon there was the same kind of odour emanating from the High Court today.
For a start Mr Foskett took no account of the vast number of changes to conditionality of entitlements to benefits that have occurred over the last 60 years. These changes were made on the basis of changes in “contemporary thinking” by politicians and policy makers. As a result, claimants are now being forced to work or else risk losing their entitlements to benefits.
But according to Mr Foskett, the definitions of slavery and forced labour have, ever since the introduction of the welfare state, remained static and frozen in time. The law requires The Human Rights Act to be read a “living instrument which must be interpreted in the light of present-day conditions”.
Mr Foskett did not act even-handedly in this case. Overlooking the gradual chipping away of claimants rights was bad enough; defining the words “slavery” and “forced labour” through a time warp was f***ing outrageous. The lawyers acting for Ms Reilly should to appeal this decision to the Supreme Court and if necessary the European Court of Human Rights.
paul
August 6, 2012 at 6:43 pm
The DWP’s (fall-back) position appears to be that no one is being frogmarched into a Jobcentre and “forced” to sign-on for JSA and if you do take this course of action then you can jolly well do whatever the DWP tells you to. You can be bought and so to whoever at whatever ever price, you have no rights or say, ability to bargain or reason, negotiate terms and conditions or even entitlement to payment for you work for that matter. If you refuse to roll over/neglect to avail of the opportunity then quite simply you will be left to die in destitution. What kind of barbaric system are we living in when the populaces resources are stolen from them and then only doled back to them under acceptance of exploitation and oppression. Something is, indeed rotten in the State of Denmark.
Hobson's Choice
August 6, 2012 at 7:15 pm
Let me quote Mr Justice Foskett:
“…it does have to be said that the sbwa [Sector Based Work Academy] scheme, and indeed the CAP, are a very long way removed from the kind of colonial exploitation of labour that led to the formulation of Article 4. The Convention is, of course, a living instrument, capable of development to meet modern conditions, and views may reasonably differ about the merits of a scheme that requires individuals to “work for their benefits” as a means of assisting them back into the workplace. However, characterising such a scheme as involving or being analogous to “slavery” or “forced labour” seems to me to be a long way from contemporary thinking”.
The comment about “forced labour” seems to make a mockery of the recent (contemporary) legislation namely, Section 71 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 in England, and Section 47 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 – both of which outlaw forced or compulsory labour! Both these Acts grew out of Article 4 – so the latter itself is not “a very long way removed from the kind of colonial expoitation of labour which led to the formulation of Article 4” in the first place!!
Let us concentrate on the position of the employer in every Workfare workplace who uses someone to perform forced or compulsory labour. Remember, it is such an employer who commits a (criminal) offence under the recent (contemporary!) legislation mentioned above.
Moreover, in the Van der Mussele Case referred to by Mr Justice Foskett, the European Court of Human Rights which heard that case, said the International Labour Organisation’s definition of “Forced or Compulsory Labour” is the starting point for interpreting Article 4.
All is not yet lost – the victims of contemporary Government work schemes do not think Workfare is “a long way from contemporary thought”!!!
Tobanem
August 6, 2012 at 9:05 pm
Indeed the contemporary thinking the judge was listening to was that of the government, not that of the victims. Whether a scheme is oppressive and therefore full fills one of the requirements of ‘forced labour’ should be interpreted from the victims point of view (as is the case with racially aggravated offences). The situation here is very little different from the criminal case of slavery.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jul/11/four-face-jail-slavery-law-convictions
Anton
August 7, 2012 at 9:29 pm
yeah it is equivalent to redefining all sex as consensual, ignoring that some sex is rape. BTW under discrimination and hate crime laws, the person offended or making the complaint, does not necessarily have to be the victim or in the group discriminated against. So you can legally say another group of people, for example the unemployed, even
if you have a job, are being discriminated against.
something survived...
August 16, 2012 at 10:57 pm
I’d suggest the government is more relieved in the fact that the true unemployment figures remain masked under these schemes . I have just finished a CAP 6 month. I saw the provider once at the beginning. No further contact. I’ve now been put on a WP for two years. Now to receive benefits I’m required to fill in a coupon at the job centre go outside and post it through the letter box. Sounds to me like I’ve been contracted out on a lower than minimum wage figure. It’s apparently mandatory so I’ve been informed.
Freewillman
August 7, 2012 at 8:15 am
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/aug/06/unpaid-work-scheme-benefits-rebate
Tens of thousands of jobseekers have had their benefits stripped unlawfully and are likely to be entitled to a rebate following a high court ruling on Monday, lawyers have said.
IIn a judicial review, claims by two jobseekers that the government’s back-to-work schemes amounted to “forced labour” were rejected. They also failed to persuade a judge that the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) had failed to publish enough official information about the schemes for them to be lawful.
However, in a 50-page ruling, Mr Justice Foskett said that a letter sent out by the DWP to a 41-year-old benefit claimant did not conform to its own rules on providing clear information, making his six-month benefit sanction for failing to work unpaid for 26 weeks unlawful.
Lawyers acting for Jamieson Wilson, an unemployed lorry driver who was forced to live on handouts from family and friends after the DWP stripped him of all benefits, say the ruling will affect tens of thousands of jobseekers who have been sanctioned after being sent the same or similar letters and many should therefore be entitled to a rebate.
Following the ruling, the DWP confirmed that it had changed its sanction letters but denied any fault, and said it would be appealing against the judgment and contest any rebate claims.
The DWP said: “We don’t think there’s anything wrong with our letters, and believe they are both clear and concise.
“We will appeal this decision. However, given the judgment we have revised the wording of our standard letters.”
The Guardian
August 7, 2012 at 11:27 am
The only hard work our capitalist masters are keen on is ramming the Protestant work ethic as far down our collective throats as they can possibly manage.
After all, as some wag once wisely commented, if work was so wonderful the ruling class would have monopolised it for themselves years’ ago.
Trevor
August 7, 2012 at 12:54 pm
You workshy cnuts! Get real! The party and freeloading is over. Why shoould I have to subsidize you lot on MY ****ing taxes!!!???!!!???
God, you guys are really doing yourselfs no favours at all! I wonder who pays for the upkeep of this rotten site? I think Ill report the owner of this site to the DWP for earning money whilst sining on!
flibbert
August 8, 2012 at 1:17 pm
Long-haired preachers come out every night,
Try to tell you what’s wrong and what’s right;
But when asked how ’bout something to eat
They will answer in voices so sweet
You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay
You’ll get pie in the sky when you die
http://www.enotes.com/topic/The_Preacher_and_the_Slave
and
Joe Hill
August 8, 2012 at 7:46 pm
An all-time favourite.
Andrew Coates
August 9, 2012 at 10:25 am
The ruling against Cait Riley and Jamieson Wilson (Unpaid work schemes ruled lawful as high court rejects Poundland case, 6 August) that the government’s workfare schemes are legal sets a dark precedent for unemployed and working people. Whatever the courts say, workfare is a violation of human rights. Judge Foskett said in his ruling that “characterising such a scheme as involving or being analogous to ‘slavery’ or ‘forced labour’ seems to me to be a long way from contemporary thinking”. This is of course the case if by “contemporary thinking” you mean the thinking of the 1%, of the government and big business.
Workfare isn’t just bad for the unemployed, it’s bad for all of us. There’s no incentive to take people on with existing pay, terms and conditions. This will only accelerate the race to the bottom, where we are all forced to accept worse standards to compete in the labour market. But the campaign against workfare has already won victories. Many companies have dropped out of the scheme and the government has already made a climbdown over sanctions. We achieved this without the help of the courts. We will continue to build a mass campaign of unemployed people and trade unionists to bring these schemes down. The economic crisis was caused by the bankers and super-rich. Yet the government now uses this as a cover to unleash a brutal austerity programme to cut our jobs and services.
We will also continue to fight for genuine solutions to the scourge of unemployment. Big business has around £800bn in its vaults. That money should be used for job creation. We call for investment in the public sector, including a programme of public works to create training and socially useful jobs that offer a living wage.
Paul Callanan Youth Fight for Jobs and Education, Bob Crow Rail Maritime and Transport union, Matt Wrack Fire Brigades Union, Steve Hedley Rail Maritime and Transport union, Billy Hayes Communication Workers Union, Gerry Morrissey Broadcast Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/aug/08/workfare-schemes-bad-for-all
The Guardian
August 9, 2012 at 3:03 pm
Public Interest Lawyers and the DWP both granted permission to appeal:
Click to access reilly-wilson-rulings-on-costs.pdf
JBS
August 9, 2012 at 3:21 pm
Seem the c*unty DWP are writing to “participants” on the “work programme” reminding them of the “consequences” “if you fail, without a good reason, to take part in the Work Programme”. This wouldn’t have anything to do with the recent High Court case. It just seems a bit of a coincidence. DWP covering their slimy backs?
Warhead
August 10, 2012 at 1:24 pm
Just got my letter. Great to get a threatening letter out of the blue! I think it is to do with the recent case and it is the DWP covering their backs.
Gissajob
August 10, 2012 at 3:14 pm
I must say, its awfully nice and jolly decent of them, old chap how they say: “I am now writing to you and other participants. Gosh, I thought for a mistaken minute and most dreadful moment that this particular threatogram was for one’s sole consumption.
Rupert
August 10, 2012 at 3:53 pm
Gosh, Rupert and right at the very end in bold: “This letter is for information only and you do not need to take any action.. What a relief; one thought at first one had received a sanction out the blue.
Felicity
August 10, 2012 at 3:59 pm
We got a little lecture, for a group of about 8, at the Job Centre, and not just a letter.
Obviously more cost-cutting.
Andrew Coates
August 10, 2012 at 4:34 pm
lol …. half expected to see on this letter: WP Version 1.0 (March 2011) lol
Tracy
August 10, 2012 at 5:16 pm
And you thought you’d escape all the benefit cuts when you retire! Just read this latest attack on the eldery:
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron-ally-says-all-benefits-1166473
Tobanem
August 11, 2012 at 1:46 pm
Wont happen yet as theirs still coffers in the jar but who knows. Whats shocking is that these pensioners are exwar fighters or children who may i add rebuilt britain after world war 2 so to desert them just proves citizenship is dead.
If thats the case then i have nothing to aspire to and as such think well if we are not a group then why dont i take this country for myself,why not declare war on this nations government and followers,why not have our own arab spring.
gaia
August 17, 2012 at 8:07 am
It appears letters are being sent from job centre plus regarding the work programme to people who are participating.it basically contains a clearer indication of the sanction regime,the time scale of such sanction and an attempt to clarify matters.
i
ken
August 13, 2012 at 9:12 am
I got one on Saturday morning.
Andrew Coates
August 13, 2012 at 11:44 am
had my letter today saying if i don’t take part ect ect
so what sanction do they get then? been over a year now n still don’t have to go.
cant even get in without a letter from them cos they lock the front door lol
super ted
August 13, 2012 at 12:50 pm
I’ve never seen such fatties as W2W “advisers”. And never seen women with such huge arses dripping with lard. My “adviser” is so fat if the lift is broken I have to meet the fat pig in the foyer. Yeah, and she always stuffs her face through the “appointment”: “Just finishing my lunch”. What, at like 3 o’clock?! Make them useful – melt them down and give the fat to the chippy. Disgusting!
Napolean
August 17, 2012 at 9:51 am
I hate to say it but I expected this would be the verdict of our unjust justice system and don’t hold out much hope for human rights to be upheld in the European courts either, look what they did to women’s pensions, deferred them for five years instead of allowing men to retire at 60 – corruption reigns.
wendybaker
September 7, 2012 at 1:05 pm
This decision sends a message that sanctions cannot be used as a stick to effectively force people into accepting jobs that are not commensurate with the ability, skills, qualifications or indeed experience, which were not strictly addressed in this case, but nonetheless is as important as a legal duty to give correct notices, in particular that their is a duty to ensure applicants are given the opportunities they have been promised by the DWP of providing ‘jobs people want to do’.
This duty is also embedded in the legislation to ensure that each case is to be judged on their respective circumstance, in particular ensuring that the best prospect of securing employment takes into account a persons skills, physical and ‘mental limitations’ to use the words of the 1995 Act. Thus, in short where the applicant is failed by an advisor or the DWP by its failure to securing best employment, for example by causing applicant’s mental stress through unsuitable work or activities, applicant’s in such cases may well have case for damages either individually or by vicarious liability.
frednach
November 2, 2012 at 10:15 am
Who are the employers that are making you work for nothing?
Judy
March 9, 2013 at 10:18 pm