Unemployed are targeted

AT FIRST sight, the proposed ‘Supervised 9 to 5 Jobsearch’ is just another way of punishing people for being in need. It seems very unlikely that spending 35 hours a week for 13 weeks on this will get people into real jobs, but the slightest slip can get them sanctioned, and there’s good reason for creating a climate of desperation among the unemployed. It forces them to grasp at any job, however poorly paid, demeaning or dangerous it might be, when it’s that or starve.

Of course it’s not good for those facing this stark choice, or for the workers whose pay and conditions are being undercut, but then they aren’t the intended beneficiaries.

The Government and the millionaire-owned media would have us believe in a ‘something for nothing culture’ of scroungers who see benefits as a lifestyle choice and have curtains drawn until midday. The truth is most people on benefits are in work, and increasing numbers are in precarious employment, forced into zero-hour and short-term contracts. The vast majority of those out of work are desperately trying to get jobs which are just not there. The whole system has become a method of channelling wealth from the many to the few. Our taxes are in fact being used to fund the ‘something for nothing culture’ of the rich and privileged.

If the Government really wanted to cut public spending and unemployment, it could start by increasing the workforce of HMRC to collect the billions in unpaid tax.

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