JSA & Minimum Wage Jobs.

[Nigel]

I've been put on this BISCOM scheme, which is like the Pens Are Friends Sketch in The League Of Gentlemen,. At the moment I am claiming £549 pcm. Housing benefit, I would have to pay £28 Council tax(if I was working) & £10 a week for electricity.
They are trying to get me to work for less than £200 a week(jobs like working in pizza hut).

Do I have to take this job?
Is there a minimum threshold under which I cannot work?
What action should I take(e.g. good solicitors, claimants unions etc.)
I'm in Unite/TGWU should I get advice off of them?( I can get an hours legal advice I think)

This does'nt really bother me that much as i'll be in work in a couple of weeks.
However it might help other people out.

 

[Greebo]

Nigel, you sound shocked. Where have you been for the last decade - Mars?

If you'd cared about what was being done to unemployed people, you would've done something before you lost your job.

Still luckily for you, I'm in a good mood, even towards somebody who doesn't seem to have done a basic search of this site. http://www.urban75.com/Action/Jsa/jsa1.html

 

[pengaleng]

Nigel, you sound shocked. Where have you been for the last decade - Mars?

ROFL classic.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

Claiming welfare benefits Nigel? You should be ashamed at letting down your class comrades by such curmudgeonly benahviour! Tut tut....

 

[ViolentPanda]

I'll have a laugh at you picking up litter in your bright orange jumpsuit, doley parasite.

Not something I said, but something Nigel himself said on the "Panorama on Welfare Reform" thread in UK P&P.

Hoist by your own petard, cuntlugs.

 

[butchersapron]

I wouldn't worry about Nigel - a man so weird that most UK left groups have a 'don't let this freak join' picture circulated. And i ain't joking.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

he has such a way with words eh VP?

i take it 'cuntlugs' is your own?

 

[ViolentPanda]

I wouldn't worry about Nigel - a man so weird that most UK left groups have a 'don't let this freak join' picture circulated. And i ain't joking.

Doesn't surprise me. He comes across like the smelly right-libertarian you used to find siting at the back of any anti-racist meeting in the 1970s, the one who had a cat in his pocket and smoked rollies made from dog-ends.

 

[ViolentPanda]

he has such a way with words eh VP?

A veritable Johnson, Paulie.
Albert Johnson, the inarticulate sweary postie who used to deliver to me when I lived in Streatham 15 years ago, that is, not Samuel.

i take it 'cuntlugs' is your own?

Yes, I'm quite proud of it. First used it on pbman about 4 years ago.

I'm chuckling at the mo, because Nigel, with his usual degree of political acumen, has called me a "pro-Zionist" on the "Panorama" thread.

 

[Greebo]

I thought these schemes were usually for people who've been out of work for 6 months or more. Have the rules changed, or have you been posing as a worker, Nigel?

 

[baldrick]

They are trying to get me to work for less than £200 a week(jobs like working in pizza hut).

I'm shocked. Less than £200 a week?!

Loads of people in this country earn less than that, willingly.

You're a complete tool, Nigel.

 

[Guruchelles]

. At the moment I am claiming £549 pcm. Housing benefit, I would have to pay £28 Council tax(if I was working) & £10 a week for electricity.

I am jealous of your low living costs.

 

[trevhagl]

work fascism

i think the whole thing is a disgrace , there are middle class people on £30,000 a year whining because they're in debt yet we're expected to work for £200 a week? My dad was on £120 a week in 1979!!!

If the government really wanted to solve unemployment they should make work doing again - double time for bank holidays and Sundays and anti social hours ...compulsory!!!

 

[ViolentPanda]

I've been put on this BISCOM scheme, which is like the Pens Are Friends Sketch in The League Of Gentlemen,. At the moment I am claiming £549 pcm. Housing benefit, I would have to pay £28 Council tax(if I was working) & £10 a week for electricity.
They are trying to get me to work for less than £200 a week(jobs like working in pizza hut).

Do I have to take this job?

Serious answers time:
It'll depend on what you stated was the minimum acceptable wage given your previous salary, back when you were first interviewed, and even then, they'll only tolerate you using "it doesn't pay enough" as a reason for not applying for/taking jobs for a limited period of time, 6 months, I believe.
Once that's up, they expect you to apply for any job that pays minimum wage, and if you "express interest" in any vacancy on display at the job centre, you'll be required to apply for it.

Is there a minimum threshold under which I cannot work?

See above.

What action should I take(e.g. good solicitors, claimants unions etc.)
I'm in Unite/TGWU should I get advice off of them?( I can get an hours legal advice I think)

Just go to a CAB and ask them what your rights are, they'll have VASTLY more experience of the relevant legislation than a solicitor will have, and Claimant Unions are thin on the ground, what with the job centre people habitually harassing Claimant Union officers for not fulfilling their "Jobseeker's Agreement" (along the lines of "if you're helping to run a union, you can't be looking for work. Bosh! We've just stopped your Jobseeker's Allowance!").

This does'nt really bother me that much as i'll be in work in a couple of weeks.
However it might help other people out.

I don't believe you. If you weren't that bothered, you wouldn't have started the thread, you're just not that altruistic.

 

[ViolentPanda]

i think the whole thing is a disgrace , there are middle class people on £30,000 a year whining because they're in debt yet we're expected to work for £200 a week? My dad was on £120 a week in 1979!!!

Ah, but that was when £120 actually went a fuckload further than it does now.

If the government really wanted to solve unemployment they should make work doing again - double time for bank holidays and Sundays and anti social hours ...compulsory!!!

We're about as likely to ever see all that again as you are to get a nosh off of Keeley Hawes, Mr Hagl.

 

[Nigel]

Nigel, you sound shocked. Where have you been for the last decade - Mars?

If you'd cared about what was being done to unemployed people, you would've done something before you lost your job.

Still luckily for you, I'm in a good mood, even towards somebody who doesn't seem to have done a basic search of this site. http://www.urban75.com/Action/Jsa/jsa1.html

#

THANX:
YOUR'RE A GOOD GREEBO

 

[Nigel]

I thought these schemes were usually for people who've been out of work for 6 months or more. Have the rules changed, or have you been posing as a worker, Nigel?

Yeah they can put you on after 3 months now.

 

[Nigel]

Serious answers time:
It'll depend on what you stated was the minimum acceptable wage given your previous salary, back when you were first interviewed, and even then, they'll only tolerate you using "it doesn't pay enough" as a reason for not applying for/taking jobs for a limited period of time, 6 months, I believe.
Once that's up, they expect you to apply for any job that pays minimum wage, and if you "express interest" in any vacancy on display at the job centre, you'll be required to apply for it.

See above.

Just go to a CAB and ask them what your rights are, they'll have VASTLY more experience of the relevant legislation than a solicitor will have, and Claimant Unions are thin on the ground, what with the job centre people habitually harassing Claimant Union officers for not fulfilling their "Jobseeker's Agreement" (along the lines of "if you're helping to run a union, you can't be looking for work. Bosh! We've just stopped your Jobseeker's Allowance!").

I don't believe you. If you weren't that bothered, you wouldn't have started the thread, you're just not that altruistic.

Thats what i've basically done.
I was going to take it through some sort of tribunal or judicial review, which may help people in the future, I would'nt say it was ultruistic, but I have got better things to do.

 

[Nigel]

I wouldn't worry about Nigel - a man so weird that most UK left groups have a 'don't let this freak join' picture circulated. And i ain't joking.

If this is true, then considering the nature of the left in this country,
I'll take it as a compliment