A Word In Our Shells, Like

Just been out for a couple of hours walking in a vain attempt to pretend I'm fit. Getting back I notice a suspiciously brown envelope a-waiting for me on the doormat. I turn it over and, sure enough, there's a return address for the DWP on the back. Now what can this be about. I get that bad boy open and sure enough there's a Jobcentre Plus letter that mentions sanctions, but...

It appears to be a generic letter sent care of 'Manager' (the guy hasn't even signed the thing) from our Beloved Lord and Master, the Secretary of State (that no one elected). This letter seems to be in response to the recent court judgement where the DWP got their knuckles rapped for not properly informing people of the consequences of actions they couldn't decide were mandatory. It reads:

Dear (CUSTOMER)

Work Programme

You are currently participating in the Work Programme. When we first referred you to the WP, we gave/sent you a letter in which we told you about your requirement to participate, set out what you must do as part of the requirement and provided information about the consequences of any failure to take part. I am now writing to you and other participants in the WP to provide more detail of those consequences. All other requirements remain as set out in your initial notification letter.

In your initial notification letter we said that your JSA could stop for up to 26 weeks if you fail, without a good reason, to take part in the WP. This would include failing to complete any activity that your Provider has required you to do.

If you do fail to take part and we decide that your JSA should be sanctioned, your benefit will be stopped and you will lose NI credits for:

Two weeks, for a first failure;

Four weeks, if we have previously decided that your JSA should be sanctioned because you failed without good reason to take part in the WP or any other scheme set up under the JSA (Employment, Skills and Enterprise Scheme) Regulations 2011, and that sanction started within the last 12 months; or

26 weeks, if we decided on two ore more previous occasions that your JSA should be sanctioned because you failed without good reason to take p[art in the WP or any other scheme set up under those Regulations, and the most recent sanction started within the last 12 months.

If your benefit is stopped for 26 weeks, you may have the sanction lifted (after a minimum of 4 weeks) if you:

Fully re-engage with the sanctioned requirement at any time; or

Fully engage with a different requirement notified to you.

This letter is for your information only and you do not need to take any action. If you have any queries please ask at your next appointment at the Jobcentre.

Yours sincerely,

Manager (on behalf of the Secretary of State)

I'm not familiar with the JSA Regulations of 2011, perhaps someone else can explain what schemes fall under those regulations. I seem to recall some dispute as to whether even the WP fell under those regulations. Of course this is deliberately vague in places: "you may have the sanction lifted...", which implies that decision is at least discretionary. But they do seem clear about what constitutes a sanctionable offence (bearing in mind what I've just said about legitimate schemes) and the hierarchy of sanctions. It says quite clearly, if this is your first 'offence', then you get no help for 2 weeks. 

God knows how much it's cost to print all this out. It doesn't specifically mention workfare nor does it address the crux of the problem the judge highlighted in that the mandation process was at fault for not making the consequences clear. This letter just tells you what the sanction regime is; it doesn't say whether or not workfare falls under the aforementioned regs, but one must assume it does. 

I expect many of us will be receiving this letter over the coming days. Good times!

Choice?

Isn't it weird. The Work Programme is supposed to be, as we all know by now, bespoke and tailored toward heloping the 'customer' (I don't remember buying anuything) achieve something meaningful. Not just be funnelled into the first job they happen to make you find by ordering you to search on basic jobsearch websites. As if those were the vacancies fhat needed filling the most.

When I tell them I want to be a writer (I have many interests, as I'm sure most people do; we aren't two dimensaional) they couldn't dismiss that quick enough. That gets classified as a 'long term' job goal; which is to say you get patted on the head for showing some interest in the idea of work. Then they get to use that 'interest' to compel you toward what suits them, not you.

Yet if I'd gone to college/university and become a writer on my own; for example let's imagine i'd gotten a degree in journalism and subsquently found a career accordingly, no one would be telling me I was wasting my time. I wouldn't have the Work Programme dismissing the idea and forcing me to apply for something i'm not interested in. "Well you wouldn't be unemployed", you might think. That's the difference; you can do what you like, but when you're on the 'payroll' of the state then your freewill as to your career amnd how you make money is forfeit.

I find that utterly bizarre.

CAP and WP and Profit

I've been thinking about the Community Action Programme; the government's great scheme that follows 'failure' to get a job on the Work Programme. This scheme is 6 months workfare serving the community in some fashion. Johnny Void has this to say, which is prescient:

Grayling has neglected to ask the voluntary sector whether they want a million full time volunteers, many of whom won’t want to be there. There has been no assessment as to whether the sector can even absorb, supervise and afford this influx of unpaid workers. The more ethical charities such as Oxfam have already stated they will take no part in any workfare style schemes.

Remember Grayling's sales pitch for the Work Programme. He claimed, no I don't have a quote to hand, that the payment scheme would require that a customer find work lasting at least 6 months, amongst other things. He also claimed it would have a bespoke approach, but we all know that's a load of eyewash.

Now, consider that, after the Work Programme, the CAP is a 6 month (if not longer) scheme. It's supposed to be 30 hours a week doing community work. However there is also supposed to be an extra hour each day, after your shift, where you are to undertake your jobsearch responsibility with your provider for an hour. This is the counter put forward by the DWP as to how the CAP doesn't prevent claimants from having time to jobsearch.

What provider though? At this point you will have finished the WP so you won't have a provider?

Or will you. I am wondering if this is actually part of the WP payment model. If you are kept on by your WP provider, who will be the people administering your jobsearch while working on the CAP, then is it possible your placement on the CAP, for 6 months, will trigger payment for the provider, as if they had found you a proper job?

This warrants research I think.

Will To Power

The latest consent.me entry is pretty scary. Universal Credit looks set to enforce a 35 hour a week jobsearch requirement on claimants. This will be monitored online which means claimants will have to sign in to the DWP website so their efforts can be recorded stored and later examined when they go to sign on (which may itself all be done online, I'm not entirely sure). This is a policy straight out of the Policy Exchange playbook. What a surprise.

Now how on earth do they expect people to find 35 hours worth of stuff to look at each week? That's 7 hours of 'jobsearch' a day! Where is this all going to come from? What it really means is that we are going to be dehumanised even further. This is basically treating the unemployed like robots and using the standard of people working against them: 'I work 10 hours a day, therefore looking for work is easy peasy'. Again, divide and rule tactics in play. Anyone found shirking this responsibility will no doubt get sanctioned - and this will all be decided off screen without recourse to a face to face adviser.

I'm not a bloody robot! I can barely read a screen for a couple of hours, never mind expecting me to just get on with whatever demands the DWP lays down. We have to sit there and do all this. No matter how crap these websites are, no matter how little support you will get in all of this (you'll be fucked if your PC goes down), you will have to do all this. 

It's the ease with which demands are placed on the shoulders of the unemployed. The notion that however difficult their lives are, whatever their problems may be at any time, because they don't have a job they can easily be required to do all this. I presume they expect the Work Programme to facilitate this; this may mean that Universal Credit has a component that compels input/approval from the provider each time you go to sign. It's all so easily abused.

What's worse is encapsulated in this link, from the above article. It comes from A4E and seems to be their Little Red Book for the unemployed. It's 180 pages long and is completely over the top. A few ideas and tips is one thing, but this lifestyle guide is insane! This is telling people how to think, how to live their lives, what's correct and what isn't. It has a list of websites that no doubt A4E claimants will be monitored to see if they use for jobsearching. However none of them are particularly helpful (the first is jobs on the Indian Subcontinent!). They are just meta-search sites, collating vacancies from either other websites or from recruitment agencies. 

I find this really difficult. But how seriously will I get taken? Reading off of screens is not easy for me because of ADD and because my eyesight is crap. Having to do that every day for seven fucking hours will send me round the bloody bend! I just cannot process this, but what chance will I have to be believed in the post Olympian era of heroic achievement: after all if a mixed race lass can win a heptathlon then jobsearching is a piece of cake surely!

We really have passed into the era of Will To Power; the Niezstchean ideals that fascists love. We are compelled to be individuals in the manner of John Galt or Alan Sugar. We are to compete with each other because that will strengthen us all (and of course drive down prices/costs etc). We are to be successful financially because money is what matters. If there is any equivocation in the contemplation or execution of these ideals then we are ourselves to blame; we have fallen foul of idleness and malingering. Even the sick can be commanded well by virtue of the WCA, according to that ideal of humankind, 'Christ' Grayling in this extraordinary piece of self delusion.

Conversely welfare dependency, the ideal that the right wing now uses to replace the notion of scrounging, is a bad thing. They can't define what this means of course; we are all dependent surely? Anyone that works for a living is dependent on their income. If that were to dry up they'd soon learn how. So it isn't welfare dependency that's the problem: it's capitalism dependency. Of course the Will To Power hero of the modern age, the champion that thrives in the age of austerity, is someone that is not dependent (IE they happen to have been born into money or been very lucky in managing to make it, or a banker). This is not a lifestyle that is sustainable as we have seen. Nor is it achievable for everyone, in fact it's success depends on quite the opposite. Some have to fail, some have to be the plebs and the poorly paid workbots, for those that succeed to do so.

I don't think I want to live in this kind of world. It's a nastier place mired in indifference and malaise and that's what concerns me the most. We will transcend anger go beyond division to simple callous uncaring indifference. No one will want to know the problems of others and everyone will be too busying looking after number one. Meanwhile those of us that struggle, those of us that can't live up to the Will To Power ideal will be made to feel as failures. It's our fault that we didn't respond: the help was there, through the punitive machinations of the WCA, Universal Credit and the Work Programme, with it's now justified (see this for an astute deconstruction of the DWP's smug and tasteless response to the ruling) workfare component. We just couldn't be bothered. That in turn justifies taking everything away from us and leaving us to our own fate with only ourselves to blame. Meanwhile the politicians play their sad games of tit for tat and corporatism flourishes behind the naive banner of international sport. 

How much longer, Britain?

I also came across this nonsense regarding Salvation Army Employment Plus (which seems to have been born down under). None of the claims and services made in this clip exist as far as I am aware, in fact I was told quite plainly that nothing was on offer, almost with pride! Though I have long questioned the value of such basic 'courses' (caveat: people are different and what are basic skills to some are vitally lacking in others - though such people should be helped properly not exploited for propaganda or profit by the anti-welfare lobby that comprises the WP). Then there's this advert which is even more bizarre, with a Schindler's List colour scheme! Mind you New Zealand, where these people are based, seems to be a much easier environment: less people for starters.

The chief remedy that the Will To Power trainers at the likes of A4E and SAE+ seem to espouse is 'confidence'. This word is bandied about so much that it's lost all meaning. I had this with the Shaw Trust (to whom I self referred a few years back, not that self referrals count for anything in the eyes of the DWP). The guy I saw was friendly enough but he seemed to believe in this idea of confidence. It's not that confidence in oneself isn't important or that it isn't issue, god knows when you're at the mercy of the demonisation of the welfare state your confidence is crushed, but it's so superficial: "do a little bit of confidence building and off you go" seems to be the message. Get the claimants sat round a table to be lectured in superficial ideas of confidence building like baking cakes or drawing flowers with petals listing positive words, or snake oil such as NLP. Just believe in yourself and you'll go far. That's the idea and it's easy work for the kind of fantasists whose lack of self awareness and tact borders on the insane. Courses in confidence building (IE sitting with complete strangers and excoriating yourself in public like some weird cult practise) are the key in this new war on welfare. The weapon is self belief: believe you can not be dying of cancer and you'll get a job. It's the sort of vapid crap that Hayley Taylor, the Fairy Jobmother, espouses; it's soundbite friendly and made for the Youtube generation. This is a war for the psyche of the claimant.

How much longer Britain?

Militarisation?

On the news Lord of the Rings, Seb Coe, praised the heroic efforts of the army that have taken the reigns dropped by the astonishing failure of G4S. He salutes their courage, their indefatigability...oh, wait, wrong person. Nope, he's instead praising their professionalism and their 'grace'. Sounds like a nice advert for British Soldiers; the sort you might use to sell their services...nah, that's just conspiracy thinking!

Whatever. It just strikes me as weird how this played out. These guys are doing this job, ok fine, but they are in full uniform. Why? What reason is there to be seen in full military uniform at a civilian event? Doesn't that send out a particular message? I think it does and I think they knew this. To what end, I am not sure. I don't really want to entertain the mad views that some seem to have about the 'new world order' blowing up the games (they'd better hurry up then, it's all over come Sunday!).

But there is an issue about the creeping militarisation of our society. The level of acceptance by which soldiers are now seen, unquestioningly, as heroes. You cannot question this, you dare not! Anyone that tries tilting at that particular windmill is most certainly in for a world of hurt - especially if they are some schmuck on the dole with a blog! Yet we've got Armed Forces Day, where kids can play on bouncy castles next to recruitment stands and howitzers. Is this really the message we want to send, that we want to glorify what is essentially a dirty job that it seems as appealing to kids as toy guns and cowboy hats? As kids we used to play 'war' in the school fields during breaktime, all young boys do. There came a time when that was frowned upon. Yet fast forward to the here and now and we can't get enough of soldiers and their assumed obvious heroism. These people are the cultural heroes of the age. 

So there they are working the gates as stewards. They seem to need to have their full uniform to do this. Not only that but when asked, these guys are saying they love the job. They say it's exciting and that it's a wonderful opportunity! Seriously? Processing people at a public sporting event is that great? To me that's bizarre. But of course these people aren't going to say otherwise, now are they! 

It all makes me wonder what's going on behind the scenes. There's a battlefield taking place socially; a propaganda war fought in the collective psyche. The people in power wants us to think a certain way. Look at how spectacularly G4S's performance imploded and just how their CEO appeared as a rabbit in the headlights before politicians. He looked like he was sedated, yet he's the head of a big company. In terms of profits and size they aren't a penny ante outfit. 

Oh I'm sure this is all to conspiratorial. Forgive me, I have a cold. It's caused me to forget to put my tinfoil hat on. But in all seriousness the opportunity to have the army take over from G4S seems to have been a gift for the government (Labour would have been the same) in terms of the creeping militarisation of society.

All That Glitters

Gold, gold, golden, gold. Gold of British hope and corporate gold making golden dreams of golden cherubic children raised on golden competition.

I despise competition. I don't think it has helped humanity at all. Correction: I don't think has helped all of humanity. Instead it benefits some at the expense of others. For there to be a winner, there has to be a loser, but it won't be their faces plastered over today's papers. Instead it's the media friendly visage of Olympic poster girl, Jessica Ennis, who has already sold her soul to a particular brand of female skin cream. She obviously knows how the game is really played; you can bet her gold medal, with perfunctory union jack waving, will not be accompanied by any profound insights into the human condition or even the nature of professional sport. That's not to say she's stupid or ill educated, but that these athletes are just puppets. Her career would be over faster than Usain Bolt if she spoke out about Dow Chemicals' controversial involvement in this corporate lovefest. In fact I've no doubt she, or any other athlete, would seek to separate sport from politics. Ironically that's the complete opposite goal of the event's organisers.

So if gold medal winning athletes aren't really in a position to speak out who else can? Us? Try it and see how far you get swimming against the currents of the moment. This year has seen our society take a quantum leap inside itself. We have embraced nationalism on a most unprecedented scale. Flag waving has always been easier in times of austerity but with a domineering media operating in almost every sphere of existence 24/7 we are increasingly led by the nose, reeled in by the marketing arm of big business. Anyone that dares to criticise the 'olympic spirit' will face a barrage of criticism. They will be placed in the 'scrounger' box of the 'saints and scrougners' worldview. They will be a leech on society; a drain on the collective will. Its a view born out of an almost corny view of communism: we should all strive forward, flags in hand, and then Britain will be Great again. It's nightmarish.

'Lord' Pigby Jones, tax avoidance apologist and city stooge, added to this silly notion on the radio by arguing that if more young men specifically) took up sport there'd be less trouble; less antisocial behaviour caused by angry young blokes (never mind the girls of course). Never mind all the trouble young men cause through football (on and off the pitch, I might add). He seemed to ignore that.

The last thing that corporate society wants is more athletes. That means there's less chance of the likes of Jessica Ennis getting picked for a competition in the future as there will be more people to compete against to earn the few places. The Olympics, like all competitions, isn't open to everyone. Ironically the athletics oprganisations don't really care so long as the person they choose can sell the product and win the medal (which is the same thing, ultimately). It's all money to them. And if we're all running and jumping and throwing, who will be left to do the workfare? Who will be left to consume the product that these events have become? If there was no market for the Olympics it wouldn't exist. Perhaps then we wouldn't have that buffoon of a mayor gliding down zip wires with the grace of a tired hippopotamus.

Then you have the nature of these people. These athletes we champion as cultural heroes - icons of the values that corporate society wishes to inculcate within us - have lifestyles that are totally alien to the rest of us. If you saw what Michael Phelps eats just for breakfast you'd think he was a different species altogether (a Gannet perhaps). If you tried to follow his diet you'd probably be in hospital within a week. is there any difference between that and performance enhancing drugs? These people are moulded by their regimens to become tools. They aren't people and so their worth as competitors is lessened. I certainly can't relate to someone that gets paid to eat five roast dinners and swim three hundred hours a day. They are just puppets; people talk about how they sacrifice a lot. But they sacrifice no more than anyone else that does something they enjoy. They are puppets of the corporate masters though: the real power behind these events. The burger joints that sponsor the Olympics, the banks that sponsor golfers, or the anti ageing creams happily sold by golden girls. 

I can't relate to their world, I don't want to be a programmed consumer and I do not respect athletes that are happy to be swallowed by this machine, especially when companies like Dow Chemicals and Rio Tinto are welcomed into that circuitry. The only values that matter are subservience and consumption. True ethics get you nowhere: compete or die. It's not enough to do your best, you have to win. I don't believe that sticking your head in red white and blue coloured sand, blind to corporate reality, will help us at all. It just sets us back while Spandau Ballet enjoy increased royalties from the constant playing of that fuck awful song. 

Gold.

Slamming

I was ten minutes late today. Not that it mattered, the JC is inexplicably short staffed on Fridays. I'm not sure what kind of contract the DWP operates, perhaps they have a four day working week and just don't bother telling the people that do work on Friday. Today was pretty empty, except for the queue of people waiting to be seen so I still had to wait. To be fair it's usually not so bad, although the amount of pointless admin they all seem to have to do in between each signing could I'm sure be reduced to improve things. The system is its own worst enemy. 

Today, for the first time since Christmas, I was seen by 'Sue' (not her real name, though actually it is) who seems to be an officious, target driven, pedant. She was bad back then, not least of all because she lacks tact and subtlety when dealing with claimants and can be heard right across the office, which is always a good trait to have when dealing with particularly sensitive claimants. Sue seems to lack a sense of empathy that might otherwise inform an adviser that she might be dealing with someone that doens't like being treated that way. This attitude sums her approach up completely. I had a premonition of my treatment when I realised it was the Sue I knew from Christmas listening to her quiz the claimant before me. Even the security guard shrugged. I get the impression Sue's approach hasn't really won round all her fellow workers. Certainly hasn't won me around; I think she's ridiculous.

First things first she calls me over with a rather business like tone. There we go, off to a good start. At her request I produce my jobsearch and she produces her metaphorical fine tooth comb. The first entry, from two weeks ago, simply records the fact I looked on the JC website. Now the form has a number of columns for entering one's search efforts: what you did, when, what happened and what you will subsequently do afterwards. The rest of the columns were left blank for obvious reasons: there were no jobs that day to follow up and consequently nothing to follow up on. Essentially the form records what I did, not what I didn't do or the fact that nothing came of it. This wasn't good enough for Sue; she starts forensically picking the form apart as to why I didn't write down that there was nothing to write down. It seems I'm remiss in my approach to jobsearching in that it is better, according to her, to take such an illogical approach that would surely, by lack of expediency, make it harder to process. She needs to be told that nothing was found on that particular day's searching, she can't assume that to be the case from the evidence at hand. This sort of stupid bureacracy helps noone and just makes us all a bit more stupid. Fortunately the futiaility of her position dawns on her in time to give up and just sign off on the search.

Sue's biggest problem is that her attitude is egocentric (a word I'm probably cheerfully misusing). Everything revolves around the claimant because that's the only thing she has any control over despite her exhorting claimants to help her achieve her targets (like I give a fuck). So when she asks me how close I am to getting a job - how long is a piece of string, I might retort - she can't accept the reality of the situation of the labour market. How many interviews have I had? None. Why? Because no one chooses to interview me. Who's fault is that? Obviously not the people responsible for organising interviews, ergo mine. Whatever happens to someone or not happens while they are signing on is always their fault or their responsibility. This is dangerously ignorant in my view; it excuses those actually responsible for hiring and firing and puts the blame on the most vulnerable and most dependent. But Sue is only interested because it makes her performance look better, not because it's in my best interests. She isn't acting for my benefit, she is acting for her own. 

I am asked why I haven't contacted employers for feedback. Why haven't I asked them why I haven't got the job. This is just ridiculous. What does she think they are going to tell me? Does she think that it's all some grand mystery in pursuit of self knowledge? Sartori in the JObcentre? 

Ignoring the fact that most employers don't want to be contacted what does she think they will say? They will just tell you that you weren't good enough/the standard of applicants was too high/you lacked experience - all the stuff that's perfectly obvious to begin with. All stuff that Sue presumes one can work on; that I can take this esoteric knowledge and gain labour market enlightenment. It's an absurd pop psychology approach that completely ignores the reality of the labour market: that there are tons of people unemployed with more experience and less issues than I, and not enough vacancies for just them alone. Nope; instead it's easier to just assume the claimant is lazy and at fault for their own circumstances. 

This simplistic approach is the problem. It's a defencive approach that hasn't the means to really understand or perceive the nature of the problem. It resorts to simple minded psychology and puts far too much of the responsibility in the hands of the claimant. Conditions within the labour market, within society, government policy, the effect of neoliberal capitalism on the economy can all be damned; it's the claimant not doing enough. 

She then exhorts me to register with employment agencies (mainly because I stupidly said that I hadn't, even though that's true!). I point to the jobcsearch record where I had recorded (truthfully, as it goes) visited the websites of all the agencies I could think of. Apparently that's not good enough: inexplicably Sue believes that agencies don't put all their vacancies onto these sites and that instead, through me registering, they would ring me everytime a new vacancy comes up. Really? Like bollocks. What else? That these websites, then, are ineffectual and that presumably I'd be better off spending £7 a day travelling to each agency to see what's come up that day - which is exactly why they archive vacancies online! I don't want to deal with these agencies and I don't want them potentially ringing me up whenever they like. Surfing theit sites I can look at my own leisure and be in control of the situation. This isn't good enough for Sue and so whatever efforts I do make aren't worth a damn. 

It's just something she can say to tell me to do to make her look good. Again it's the attitude of whatever you do is never enough simply because I'm still unemployed. She can't take a more holistic and realistic approach to the situation, she has to behave like an officious twat with an axe to grind. It doesn't occur to her to consider whether I have mental health/anxiety issues. It doesn't occur to her to treat me with any consideration of such. I left with a combination of feeling mortified and angry and managed to slam the door on the way out, not intentionally though I suspect she thought otherwise. The fuck do I care, I managed to sign on for now, though unlike the other advisers she didn't show me the computer screen showing me the money going through. I signed as normal and hope that she puts it through otherwise I really will kick off. 

The problem is the complete lack of understanding: she doesn't consider for a moment what my week has been like, what problems I might have been experiencing. She doesn't consider the uselessness of the Work Programme. Fortunately that wasn't brought up. Life for people on the dole is tough enough, managing money and worrying about whether or not you are going to get sanctioned. Factor in anxiety and mental health issues and it gets tougher (and tougher still if you're dying and ATOS think you can work). Yet not once does any of that register on Sue's radar: I am there simply to help her career.

On the way out I accidentally slammed the door. Consequently Sue probably now thinks I'm a right bolshy sort. I was pretty pissed off with her attitude (though not surprised by it), but the door was lighter than I assumed and I ended up looking like a petulant kid slamming his bedroom door. Oh well, if my money doesn't come through then it'll get a lot worse than a slammed door!