Redcar steelworkers facing benefit sanctions two weeks after being sacked.

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An MP revealed the "horrendous" treatment at the hands of Jobcentre staff in Redcar, where 2,200 workers lost their jobs

• An MP revealed the "horrendous" treatment at the hands of Jobcentre staff in
  
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Tragedy: Redcar steelworkers are now being threatened with benefit sanctions

Axed steelworkers have already been threatened with benefit sanctions just two weeks after they lost their jobs.

An MP revealed the "horrendous" treatment at the hands of Jobcentre staff in Redcar, where 2,200 workers lost their jobs when the SSI works closed in October.

Labour's Anna Turley claimed the workers, who have decades of experience, have not been given a 13-week grace period they were promised to apply for jobs needing similar skills.Instead they have been told to apply for work in shops and bars just two weeks into their claims as Britain's steel industry faces collapse.

Ms Turley, who spoke in a Commons debate tonight after Tata axed 1,050 more steel jobs including in Port Talbot, South Wales, said it was the latest in a string of "widespread problems with JobCentre Plus."

Read more: Watch Michael Sheen's emotional plea for Tories to save Port Talbot from Tata Steel job cuts disaster

She added: "A number of constituents have contacted me to raise the dehumanising treatment they feel they have received in Jobcentres.

Anger: The situation was revealed by Redcar MP Anna Turley

"Many of these workers have never been out of work and the experience of being on the dole for many of them, like so many of my constituency, is horrendous.
"Sanctions should not be used as a mechanism to force claimants to apply for jobs which are not relevant in this instance. They should be a last resort."

Business minister Anna Soubry hit back, saying there were 51 apprentices at the SSI steelworks who lost their jobs but new places were found for "every single one of those 51 apprentices, I reckon within a week".But the Redcar MP insisted she met one apprentice with nearly three years' experience who "was told he should get a job in a bar."

Ms Soubry said such a situation was "just not acceptable".

Axed steelworkers are already being threatened with benefit sanctions

On the day unemployment has supposedly fallen 100,000, The Mirror reports on the disgraceful way that the newly unemployed steelworkers are being treated.this is of course how millions have been treated for a number of years now, including the sick and disabled. Good to see labour attacking it though, I hope John McDonnell becomes more vocal again as well.

 

[1%er]

In the UK if you get Severance pay or Redundancy Pay can you go and sign on right away and get the dole (or what ever it is called nowadays)?

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

In the UK if you get Severance pay or Redundancy Pay can you go and sign on right away and get the dole (or what ever it is called nowadays)?

Depends on how much the pay (and the rest of your savings) is: < £6000 and full amount can be claimed, £6000 - £16000 there's a taper, > £16000 nothing. You still need to claim to get your NI stamp paid though - that's independent of finances.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Serves them right for being compulsorily dismissed by their employer and then refusing to take jobs that doesn't exist.

 

[Guineveretoo]

There is a contributions based Job seekers allowance which is paid for 6 months, so long as you go and sign on and show that you are actively looking for work. This can be paid to people who are made redundant, so long as they have paid their stamp. It keeps paying your stamp, too.

 

[Guineveretoo]

Of course, not everyone knows that they are entitled to it, and some can't cope with the stress of being patronised by junior civil servants who insist that you show them all the applications you have submitted since the previous time you signed on.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Depends on how much the pay (and the rest of your savings) is: < £6000 and full amount can be claimed, £6000 - £16000 there's a taper, > £16000 nothing. You still need to claim to get your NI stamp paid though - that's independent of finances.

that's only the income based JSA - and a partner's income (and this is about the only time when the state will recognise a 'common law' partner) will be taken in to account as well.

There is a contributions based Job seekers allowance which is paid for 6 months, so long as you go and sign on and show that you are actively looking for work. This can be paid to people who are made redundant, so long as they have paid their stamp. It keeps paying your stamp, too.

^ that.

contributions based JSA is not affected by a partner's income or by savings etc. Although it can be affected if you get a pension for early retirement

 

[StoneRoad]

And don't try to spend / give away savings to get below the threshold - they still include it if you do that.

But the way the JC+ are treating the Redcar steel people is, sadly, quite typical of the (non-existent) target driven junior staff these days. Astounding that the 13 weeks for "something similar to your skills" is being ignored.
But at this time of year, and before the seasonal jobs come into an already depressed area, there can't be many "bartender or similar jobs" about ...

With that in mind it is no wonder the "number of unemployed" has fallen ... in some strange almost parallel world to this one.

 

[BigTom]

There is a contributions based Job seekers allowance which is paid for 6 months, so long as you go and sign on and show that you are actively looking for work. This can be paid to people who are made redundant, so long as they have paid their stamp. It keeps paying your stamp, too.

That's the words they use but sanctions are regularly used on people who are clearly looking for work by scumfucker advisors at the job centre who are chasing targets, and their even worse managers who push them to do it. As long as you sign on and jump through their increasingly byzantine hoops, are dishonest when you need to be and have a decent level of English, no mental health problems or learning difficulties or anything else that might make one of these advisors think you won't appeal, then you'll keep getting paid, probably - or at least if you get sanctioned you'll successfully appeal.