Swheatie pointed out in the original KUWG blog piece on this matter, that this is an excellent time of year for getting a rapid response to enquiries emailed to trade union employees and officials in the form of automated 'out of office' replies. And that has certainly come to pass. Meanwhile, 'Ivy' has written further ruminations on the matter that have reminded Swheatie of an August 2013 article published in the New Statesman by social geographer Danny Dorling.
But first here are the further points from our incisive 'Ivy':
"It strikes me as ageist, discriminatory and patronising to claim that people need training into entry jobs at McDonald's, construction sites & care work just because they're young. Because the truth is - any job requires an induction period where the newcomer gets trained at work whilst getting paid.
"It’s like that for everyone who starts work as unqualified staff at hospitals, canteen, cleaning, waitressing, bar work, supermarkets, etc."But for some reason (and in this country in particular) a culture has developed where young people are being treated like irresponsible children - expected to live with parents and unlike earlier generations, not be allowed to become financially independent (whether they are in or out of work)."If middle aged or senior people were placed in training as soon as they were made redundant then that would be seen as insulting."But for some reason it has become acceptable to attack the least financially stable group - people who haven’t even had the chance to make any money of their own."
Of course, one of the golden rules of analysing false stories or bogus analyses in solution finding is, "If this story is believed, who stands to gain?" And as usual in such matters, where economically vulnerable people are sentenced to a bogus solution without a fair trial, it is usually those most responsible for the problem that stand to gain.
And a New Statesman article from 22 August 2013 argues cogently that while there is record youth unemployment throughout the European Union it is actually the EU's millionaires who are to blame.
At least 26 million unemployed people will be looking for work across Europe this summer, while in Britain, 2,400 bankers are earning over €1m a year — real pounds and euros that should be better spread out.
In the light of what Danny Dorling revealed almost a year ago, perhaps it is time the TUC people responsible for the decision to back workfare for 16-23 year olds should redo their research by consulting Dorling's writings of 12 months ago?
And those TUC people should maybe think: "If I were a 16-23 year old starting out in my career today, what sort of start would workfare be under current legislation?"
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