New Deal
| Legislation in name only? |
| First of
all, let's explode a myth: the older you are the harder it is to get a
job, right? Nearly half of
all unemployment is among young people. During the induction
week
that
I attended a fiftysomething Pertemps employee said that it was easier
for the people sat in front of him, average age early 20s, to get
a
job than it was for him, on the basis of age. If that was
true,
why was the oldest person attending the course only 35 and one of only
3 older than 29? Go and visit your local Jobcentre and count the ratio
of twentysomethings to sixtysomethings. The former figure will be
higher by a long way, I assure you. Do some people
discriminate against people because they are older? Of course. Is it
harder to get a job if you are older? No, it is the complete opposite. Here is an exert from the letter: "The advice from the solicitors concluded that it is justifiable in principle for Government to offer different back-to-back work support to people of different age groups to meet their broadly differing needs." They don't "offer" anything, it is rammed down your throat, it is compulsory. Now let's imagine that I am 18 and interested in being an aeronautical engineer. Do you think that you are meeting my needs by sending me to the Scope shop? Of course not. That is not "support". The above statement is another example of the kind of irrelevant codswallop I have come to expect from Jobcentreplus, along with the "contracts and laws apply to you but not us" attitude. The under 25 provision doesn't tailor itself to meet the needs of a specific age group, it merely restricts the choice available to them. However, that restriction may well serve the needs of Pertemps, giving them a good excuse for having limited placement diversity. Having chatted with an expert on the subject, a full time employment law professional, he doesn't agree with the statement made by Jobcentreplus. I love it when great minds think alike. However, there are issues to take into account when considering legal action against them. I am not personally the true plaintiff, by virtue of the fact that I have been resident on the planet a little longer than some. That doesn't mean I am not interested, after all you do some things out of principle rather than whether it affects you. For example, if I was walking down Westbourne Road Edgbaston and I see Colin Birchall being assaulted I could ignore it, because it doesn't hurt me, but it is possible that it would be a good idea to try to help him. However, it brings about technical issues, not least of which is that my contract with the DWP isn't currently up to paying £100 an hour for the services of a solicitor. It really needs to come from an under 25 participant who has got a real interest in protecting the rights of young people and stopping their exploitation by Providers and Jobcentreplus. Every such New Deal participant is at liberty to get on the phone right now to start a no win no fee action against Jobcentreplus. The tools are available to you if you want to take the opportunity to stop your abusers. After having a government representative tell me that age discrimination is perfectly reasonable, they want to bring in yet another law to make it illegal. Does that mean that the under 25 poverty inflicting discrimination is going out of the window for sure, or will they come up with another excuse? Have these people got any clue at all about anything?  |