Unemployed used as stewards for the Jubilee, unpaid, and made to sleep rough.

Jesus effing wept.

I wonder if they were given some cake.

Massive PR fail for the coalition here.

I'm against this whole "workfare" thing, if you're going to ask people on JSA to work then you could at least have the decency to pay the NMW.

welcome to the future of the UK
and this is only the start ...

i went into a job centre in the east end around the 80's while self employed
job profile driving for the NHS for a contractor taking people home from hospital
£1 an hour as many hours as you want (plus fuel) ... true ...

nice too see history repeating itself ...

I suspect the company were paid for their services and the company themselves chose to do whatever they wanted. If they were paid NMW, would this mean they couldn't claim JSA? I admit I'm not overtly familiar with JSA but my understanding was that you can't claim it if you're doing work.

It sounds very much like slave labour and the company should be heavily fined/shut down/prevented from doing any future work.

You can work up to 16 hours a week whilst claiming JSA.

You can't really blame the company when the whole Workfare scheme is sanctioned by the coalition government.

Yes you can blame the company. They were the ones who left the people without shelter not the government. The company may have been using the workforce scheme but it doesn't excuse them for behaving this way.

All true, but then none of it would have happened if the government didn't sanction this sort of [LIFTED] to begin with.

Can't help thinking someone else would have been exploited and it wouldn't have made the news. I blame the company myself as well.

Very few companies provide shelter for their employees / volunteers / apprentices. There are also quite a few similar on-the-street jobs where toilet facilities are not provided and you have to make-do as the public would.

If they came all the way down to London to work cleaning the pavements, would you expect more of their employers? Perhaps being put up in a hotel with three meals a day provided? It's not realistic.

i would expect any company to provide facilities for there workforce especially if it means an overnight stay

+1

You need to read the article again. The company recruited them elsewhere then bussed them down to London to do the job. If my company moved me half way across the country to do a job for them, I'd damn well expect them to at least provide a roof over my head while I was doing it.

Jon

The time scale isn't entirely clear, but the way I read it there wasn't actually an overnight stay involved. The article states they travelled over night sleeping en route and then a very early start. They were then provided with camping facilities after the days work.

If they hadn't accepted the free transportation, it would simply have been one long days work. For most jobs, employees would have had to pay their own transportation and arrange their own accommodation if they felt they needed to.


They were mostly working outside. They were even provided with boots, combats and waterproofs. Again, few jobs provide you with clothing.

They were working outdoors for which they received appropriate clothing and they were given tents but proper place to erect them. One quote says concrete and one says campsite.