Get the Unemployed to do unpaid Community Work

L

Leper

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Just listening to Morning Ireland on RTE Radio 1. Leo Crawford president of IBEC informed us that people need to be working and our unemployed should be engaged in unpaid community work while waiting for a job.

I love these people great at running other peoples lives and they cant run their own. One thing is certain, if Crawford and his ilk ever become unemployed, they wont be painting old peoples homes or cleaning out rivers.

Then the real content of his interview, we need people earning and spending for the improvement of our profits.
 
I think he specifically said long term unemployed should do community work and I have to agree with him.
 
Some of the genuine long term unemployed might actually look forward to this.

I'm sure sitting in the house all day doing nothing is soul destroying to those who really want to work. Might be different for work-shy layabouts though, ot those with a little job on the side.
 
Leper said:
Then the real content of his interview, we need people earning and spending for the improvement of our profits.
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Take the chip off your shoulder. Economic activity is what generated taxes which pay for public services and infrastructure. You should be delighted at the prospect of his members making more money.
 
There were several Fas schemes which cated for long term unemployed by chanelling them in to various community support schemes. Many of the schemes were only 10/15 hours per week but it did get people back into a work eenvironment and even from a social aspect it made people feel that they were contributing to the community. I know a few people who were on such scheems and then did so well that they were offered full time positions not funded by taxpayers
 
Purple said:
Take the chip off your shoulder. Economic activity is what generated taxes which pay for public services and infrastructure. You should be delighted at the prospect of his members making more money.
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+ 1, but it does have a whiff of the unemployed being a blight on the country as if it's the unemployed's fault and their choice. Sort of "set them to work rather than sitting on their backsides". I know a few friends who are unfortunately unemployed now, vast majority are doing everything they can to get back to work, taking any job and also putting themselves through extra education (paid by themselves) and night school, but a couple are content with their redundancy, X Box and a bit of an extended holiday.

There's plenty that could be done as a public service, but we have to be careful we don't make it a chain gang type of operation, we have plenty of prisoners we could use for that.
 
Was at a village in Kerry earlier this week and (unemployed) volunteers were painting the outsides of old houses that had been neglected. Also weeding, planting and watering communal flowers. These people 'worked' about 19 hours per week and their unemployment money was the reward. I spoke to a few. They were enthusiastic and civilly minded and realised that the work that they were doing was important to the village and also for their own mental wellbeing. A great idea according to all.
 
I don't agree with the thought in principle, however I could be persuaded somewhat if the entire (and I mean entire) members of the unemployed would be subject to the exact same rules.

Let's face it, any of the more intelligent posters here know that its the Joe Soaps would be doing the community work and not the darlings of the boom.

Just last week there were discussions concerning people being removed from the Social Welfare payments if they refused PAID jobs. I would love to see some Yuppie unemployed person working in a Take-Away on (or on lessthan) the minimum wage.

But, some of you guys believe you will never see a poor day . . . Then we will see who has chips on their shoulders.
 
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Complainer said:
Did you ask the local painters/decorators what they thought of the idea?
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I'd imagine they're happy. The volunteers were painting neglected houses and weeding communal flowers - this work was obviouisly not being done anyway. The result will be an overall lift to the village and who knows, the other inhabitants might take more pride in their area and contact a painter/decorator to get their own house painted.
 

What a nasty, bitter post.
 
I'd imagine they are not happy. They've certainly lost potential business, and if people are getting work done for free, this will drive down rates for other jobs. Why should one person be getting the dole for painting (simply because they've had the misfortune to lose their job) and another person is getting commercial rates for the same work?

Anyone who wants to do volunteer work can do so without affecting their dole, by arrangement with DSFP. If the work needs to be done, why don't we fund the work properly and pay people a decent day's wage, instead of exploiting their difficult situation to get work done on the cheap?
 
Complainer said:
If the work needs to be done, why don't we fund the work and pay people a decent day's wage?
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“A fair days pay for a fair days work!” shades of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Actually I kind of agree with Complainer on this. I’m not against community work by unemployed people but I don’t think it should be compulsory and the powers that be should be very careful not to undermine an existing commercial sector.
If the work is funded and those doing it are existing contractors I do think the pay should be at the low end of the going rate, if not slightly below it.
 
Everyone should get involved in community work - picking up litter, youth clubs, Scouts, Guides, sports coaching, etc.

There's too much complaining and waiting for someone else to get something done.

In paid employment or not, most of us can spare an hour or two a week or month to leave something looking better than it was.
 

I agree with that. One of the guys in work got into a row with his neighbour because he was cutting the grass on the verge outside his house. The neighbour said he was "doing another mans job". Where I live we have a residents association who pays to have the common areas looked after. We also have a general clean-up a few times a year. I see no reason why tax payers money should be wasted doing things that people can and should do for themselves.
Getting people on welfare to carry out work which is normally done and paid for by the private sector is different.
 
Complainer
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chocks away http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?p=1054419#post1054419
A great idea according to all.

Did you ask the local painters/decorators what they thought of the idea?



" Did you ask the local painters/decorators what they thought of the idea? "


Do you mean the lads who didn't have the courtesy to return calls during the boom or were not interested in small jobs like painting halls/stairs landings when they could get big money looking after their builder contracts ?
 
Purple said:
We also have a general clean-up a few times a year.
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Ditto. The activity in our area was prompted by a US woman who got tired of the state of the common areas and had enough 'get up and go' about her to mobilise others who felt the same, but whose innate inertia was stronger.
 
There are a number of towns around the country organising regular clean ups. I thnk this may have been prompted by the Dirty Town League tables which embarassed concerned citizens in to organising clean ups.
Local Authoprities don't seem to have the funding for this work. It is amazing the amount of rubbish that is dumped on streets and raodways
 
Many local authorities actively support these initiatives;

[broken link removed]
 
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