Cait Reilly 'Forced' To Work for free

Cait Reilly who is suing the Government for 'Forced Labour'

Graduate Cait Reilly has been all over the news this week for taking the Government to court over 'forcing' her to give up a voluntary post at a museum to do a two week stint of unpaid unskilled work at Poundland. If she didn't do the unskilled work placement she would lose her job seekers allowance. Cait's story has caught the nations attention and she is being splashed across the press and being demonised for this.

Unless you have been through unemployment you really cannot understand what it is like. I have been there three times, just after I graduated in 2000, in 2009 when the recession hammered the construction sector that I work in to oblivion and in 2011 when I was no longer in the world of law. I have empathy with Cait because:

She had the get up and go to find and commit to voluntary work 
Lots of long term unemployed do not want to work and often with low level skills and no work ethic.  Cait was a graduate who found a voluntary placement in an area that interested her.  She should be commended for having the gumption to do that not vilified.  She already had retail experience so actually how would Poundland two week unpaid placement have advanced her skills?  I don't think they would have done so logically as long as she wasn't just sitting on her arse at home doing nothing she should have been allowed to continue with her voluntary week.


She would still have had to sign on and go to the job centre every fortnight
Only once you have gone through the horrible rigmarole that is attending your signing on day and that general sinking feeling that you get at that precise moment that you realise you are heading there, please don't assume that this is a walk in the park.  There are so many people who sign on who have no get up and go, do the bear minimum to receive JSA and have no educational skills often not even being able to read and write.  They do not want to work and our jobcentres are not actually geared up to deal with these people who are actually the ones who need the 'big boot' from big brother more than people like Cait.

Signing on is not a walk in the park for scroungers
As a professional person who has contributed to society through my taxes for over 10 years I have the right to claim JSA and shouldn't be made to feel bad about doing so.  For certain professions including architects and sectors such as construction, the recession has hammered them hard so saying that there are jobs out there may well be stretching the truth a tad.   If there are jobs they are often unpaid or employers have dropped salary levels so far you would end up living in abject poverty so what god would that do?

The one thing that does rile me about Cait though is:
The fact that she has chosen to take the Government to court
Is she the victim of an unscrupulous lawyer out to make a name for themselves through advising her her to sue?  It's not their reputation and future employment prospects that are being tainted as the case has evoked so much negative exposure for Cait. Or is this something that she has dreamed up herself as she is so aggrieved by something that is undoubtedly unfair?

Either way she should have raised it with the people at the Job centre. She is articulate enough to complain to the people in charge of the job centre. Believe me,  I know that many people there are plebs but there are also some who do have common sense and would have seen the merits of her argument and done the sensible thing and let her continue at the museum.

Govt to announce £1bn Youth Contract

The Government has announced a new £1bn pot of cash to get young people into work called the 'Youth Contract'.  The idea is that they pay half the salary of someone doing an apprenticeship scheme.  So far so good.  As a country with young unemployment now topping at about 1 million people something must be done.  We can't have a generation that are so dejected with life, the world and society that they effectively drop out of view. We can't risk exasperating the gap between rich and the poor by condemning many to a life of benefits and having to be wheeling and dealing to survive.

The idea of this scheme sounds good by effectively encouraging employers to take a chance on hiring the young. But there are a few things about the scheme that do worry me:

- Where are the safeguards that the training will be up to an adequate standard - internships, apprenticeships and the like do sometimes have a reputation for effectively offering employers cheap labour that they can flog to death for a certain period. Once that person is burnt out bring they  can simply bring in the next ones.  Don't get me wrong though, there are good schemes and firms out there and people who move onto fulfilling roles.

- If you drop out we stop benefits, if you do such and such we stop benefits - Taking my point first point above. If through no fault of yours you end up with a bad placement and for legitimate reasons decide to quit you would not be entitled to benefits.  This again smacks of the Government  using what in many ways seems like a good scheme as a way to massage the job figures down.  If you sign up and then discover it's not working for you you are well and truly scuppered.  I do admit that there are work shy people out there who do not want to work so making sure that they do not just drop out as they can't be bothered is important too.

I have two nephews aged 26 and 24.  I have helped them rewrite CVs and shared my knowledge about job hunting. The thing that struck me was that no one was helping them.  No one said what was best practice  or showed them how to draft a captivating CV that hits an employers button.  A CV with one word bullet points tells me nothing about what you can do for an employer.  With my tips my nephew started to get lots more interviews and he got a job. 

Our job centres are a mere box ticking exercise and they do not have staff with the skills to advise people properly, schemes for young people such as Connexions which helped them to find jobs in an increasingly tough market have been cut so it's no wonder youth unemployment is rising and will continue to do so. Good advice and support will help young people compete.

Why Are We Waiting

One thing I can't abide is people wasting my time.  I've never been known for my patience. So if I'm due to sign on at a certain time, I expect not to be hanging around for almost an hour.  Last week I was given a piece of paper with a different time to sign on at yesterday due to the Bank Holiday.  

Off I trotted to the Jobcentre for 11.40 not my usual 12.45 signing on slot. If I'm late at the Jobcentre I would basically be given a warning and if it happens a few times have my benefits stopped.  All just another way to improve jobless stats ultimately. So by rights if the Jobcentre keeps me waiting shouldn't I get a pay rise due to their incompetence?! Nice theory but sadly this does not work in practice - obviously waste the time of the under employed is not deemed to be of any significance. 

The man who should have been seeing me seemed to be doing other things.  Work related but form filling as opposed to signing people on.  In the end up I sat there for 40 mins. Man was I getting annoyed - I even went up to check that he had my book which he did. My general exasperation was compounded by the fact that I had things to sort out with regards to my dad's estate which meant trekking across town plus I had an interview to prepare for the next day too. 

When I was seen a good hour later, the first thing he said was that I was too early and that my time is 1245.  He even showed me his computer screen to back up his statement.  I said that he'd given me a piece of paper with a different time on last time I signed on. He said there was no record of this - admin is obviously not a strong point for the Jobcentre maybe we should introduce fining for their screw ups. 

Anyway, he said that for next time I would have to attend a one-to-one interview to help me find work.  It is due to last at least half an hour.  The letter I had referred to a back to work workshop which I asked him about as I had not done that part.  He said "that workshop is not for people like me as I don't come across as someone looking to stack shelves at Sainsbury's so I would not need to do that part and the one-2-one would be better for me".  Then I asked if I needed to bring my CV.  Turns out he had a copy on file which he read in awe.  Wow - maybe all the under employed aren't no hopers :)

Jobcentre = Pleasant Experience

Well, I have to admit that I was dreading the rigmarole of having to do the deed of signing on again.  I had resisted as much as I could but now the time had sadly come. Anyway,  I went online and filled in those lovely forms then had a phone call saying when to head to Streatham Jobcentre for an interview where I needed to produce a million bits of paper to prove my credentials.

Anyway, firstly Streatham jobcentre for what it was actually seemed to have a pleasant décor.  It was no way near as worn out as Wood Green Jobcentre Plus and the staff were actually polite.  I had had heard a horror story about Streatham so I was a bit worried that I would have to deal with some battleaxe but I was pleasantly surprised.

Both ladies I spoke to were lovely and friendly.  They took all my identification and it was good to see that they had improved some of their systems since the last time that I signed on in light of the increasing numbers of jobless professionals that now darken their doors. Wow they actually now know what some of us do and I think may even have a few relevant jobs on their systems.  A big improvement from 2009.

The sad thing was that when I asked about training etc as I figured this down time would be an ideal time for me to sharpen up my skills.  I had the response that the only courses on offer were basic literacy skills.  Other training and workshops had now been cut due to cuts.  That's a crying shame in my eyes as the Government's ultimate aim should be to help up-skill the unemployed, build their confidence and help revive the economy so that they can get back into work.

Are Job centres the most depressing place on earth?

The answer is yes they are. The fact that entering a new job centre now feels as if you're entering a closely guarded fortress doesn't do much to enhance the user experience.

It's been 2 full weeks since I have been officially looking for a job. One thing for sure is that it is a lot harder than it seems. There are still jobs out there but competition is fierce and it really is a case of having to put the hours in.

The last time I had the pleasure of signing on was 8 years ago when I was a young fresh faced marketing grad looking for her first proper job. It would have been nice to say that in those 8 intermittent years that our job centre service had grown and continuously developed but that would be lying. What we have, in the main, is a creaking system that is quite frankly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of people now looking for work and a series of people who are just there to tick boxes. My first time of signing on was on Weds and I obviously didn't know what to do. Was there anyone to help me - oh no. So I ended up standing around like a lemon for quite some time until the man behind the desk told me that I was supposed to put my signing on book onto his desk.

In the end I waited around for half an hour to be seen. The man behind the desk had been quite rude to most people prior to me but when I got there he began to flirt with me. I was slightly taken aback, "where's your name from?" - he enquired. He even made a joke about the date being 2010 then called me "sharp" when I said "I think you mean it's 2009!". Anyway, I signed and left as soon as I could. Till next time.