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New coalition welfare policy unveiled

Posted on September 12, 2013 by

We wish we were joking. But we’re not.

“Jobseekers using the government’s new jobs website, Universal JobMatch, have been receiving messages encouraging them to participate in clinical trials.  Users have received multiple messages from the service inviting them to apply for jobs, only to find these ‘employment opportunities’ are actually clinical trials.

The Scriptonite Daily blog was contacted by 37 year old Job Seeker Chris Morgan, of Dartford, Kent – who logged in to Universal Job Search today to find five messages in his Universal JobMatch inbox inviting him to apply for jobs.  These jobs were actually invitations to join a clinical trial.

Mr Morgan lives with his partner and two children aged 9 and 11 and has been seeking work since losing his role in Health and Safety for retail giant Marks and Spencer’s in November 2012.  He had been with the company for five years before being dismissed.  He has subscribed to Universal JobMatch in hopes of finding employment.

He logged in this morning to find five jobs recommended to him by the government’s online job service.  He has been left feeling “sick to my stomach” after realising the government considers partaking in a clinical trial for £100 a day as his best current option of ‘employment’.

He is now concerned that by declining this recommendation he would be considered as turning down an employment opportunity and therefore stand to lose his eligibility to claim social security.”

Backed by an opposition promising to be “tough” on welfare, and actually complaining that some government attacks on the poor aren’t harsh enough, the Better Together Government is creating, at terrifying speed, a system in which anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves unemployed, or inadequately employed, or disabled is now expected to work a near-full-time job for free, move out of their home if their children have a bedroom each, rely on charities for food handouts (while being told it’s all their own fault) or risk prosecution if they scavenge in bins for scraps, and now turn themselves into guinea pigs for experimental drugs.

We’re not sure what else it’s going to take.

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  1. 13 09 13 08:43

    A Few Things to Ponder | laidbackviews
    Ignored

83 to “New coalition welfare policy unveiled”

  1. DMyers
    Ignored
    says:

    Words fail me…

  2. Bubbles
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m also not sure what’s going to make people wake up. I despair at what I read every day. I can only hope that next September sees Scots seizing the day. If they fail to do so I can’t live here, among them.

  3. Seasick Dave
    Ignored
    says:

    If only Mr Morgan had had the foresight to become a Westminster MP, he could have been claiming housing for his pet ducks.
     
     

  4. HoraceSaysYes
    Ignored
    says:

    The big problem is that they can get away with this because, far from opposing these inhumane policies, the opposition spend their time trying to show how if they were in government that be even ‘harder’ on ‘scroungers’.

    It is truly disgusting.

  5. pa_broon74
    Ignored
    says:

    That is actually a bit scary.

  6. Murray McCallum
    Ignored
    says:

    The scapegoating of the unemployed, less well off and vulnerable by the better together alliance parties is truly shocking.  They have nothing to offer – just more of the same. They are, to be fair, very open about that.
    I changed jobs last year. I had zero luck with internet sites. In the end got a job through an advert in a local paper. Just wonder how many real jobs actually exist in these seemingly huge internet sites?

  7. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    A BIT scary???
     
    I’m all for clinical research.  But there is no way in hell the unemployed should be pressurised into “volunteering” for these trials.  it’s unconscionable.

  8. Ghengis
    Ignored
    says:

    “We’re not sure what else it’s going to take.” for what? For Scots to wake up? For Brits to wake up? For England to stop voting Tory, or Labour or Lib dum? For people to bring down the BBC .. sorry, I mean the British government, the British ruling classes. Vive la révolution! Note to GCHQ – I’ll be voting to get rid of you lot, not overturning the barricades any time soon, even though that would be perfectly reasonable.

  9. AlexMci
    Ignored
    says:

    What is frightening is the fact that Mr Morgan won’t entertain doing this for money. But think how many desperate people will feel they have no choice in taking part in these trials for pharmecutical companies, just to keep a roof over their heads or to feed their kids. You can see that it’s soon going to come to the government saying ” we’ll you have two kidneys sir, you really only need one, we can give you this sum of money which will get you through the next few months “. A bit like the bedroom tax but for organs. Truley sickening.

  10. benarmine
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m sure half of these bastards are the result of medical experiments anyway, they just want the rest of us to get involved

  11. Seasick Dave
    Ignored
    says:

    Alex Mci
     
    Labour have already sold their hearts, spines and souls.
     
    Its only husks that are left.

  12. blunttrauma
    Ignored
    says:

    Red pill, blue pill………..who do you sue if it all goes tits up???

  13. The Man in the Jar
    Ignored
    says:

    So this is what it has come to in “Great” Britain. Unbelievable that this could happen in any civilised country. And still there are those that believe that we are better together. WTF?

  14. Geoff Huijer
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ve just done a search for all types of ‘trials’ on the site
    and all I can find are jobs associated with doing clinical trials.
     
    £100 a day; I’m in if I can find them.
     
    Better than £71 a week with £50 fuel bills.

  15. Doug Daniel
    Ignored
    says:

    Arbeit macht frei
    Transports of invalids
    Hartheim Castle breathes us in
    In block 5 we worship malaria
    Lagerstrasse, poplar trees
    Beauty lost, dignity gone
    Rascher surveys us butcher bacteria

  16. CameronB
    Ignored
    says:

    There will be no carrying passengers on the Bankistan express. Next stop, QR3 and Bottom of the Darrel.

  17. BlueTiles
    Ignored
    says:

    I can’t find the words to describe my feelings about the way this country is going. It sometimes feels like we’re living in a fictional nightmare. They can’t get away with things like this ( but they do).
    What right minded, intelligent individual can honestly say, faced with the drastically increasing amount of evidence , that being in this bloody Union is a ‘good thing’? 
    We must to win this thing. 

  18. Bill C
    Ignored
    says:

    What next ‘voluntary’ camps and ‘voluntary’ clinical trials or ‘voluntary experiments’ in ‘voluntary camps’?

  19. CameronB
    Ignored
    says:

    Bottom of the Barrel

  20. Training Day
    Ignored
    says:

    I hear the sound of Scottish MSM hacks scurrying to find ways to portray this, as with the trams and the bedroom tax, as the fault of the Scottish Government..

  21. Breastplate
    Ignored
    says:

    It looks like it’s only a matter of time until the Soylent Green Programme is rolled out to sort the pensions deficit.

  22. Ananurhing
    Ignored
    says:

    What next? Selling blood to a privatised NHS to make ends meet? We’re only a kick in the arse away from that. I despair.

  23. CameronB
    Ignored
    says:

    Help ma boab, QE3.
    I’ll away back to bed and try starting the day again.

  24. Juteman
    Ignored
    says:

    Around 1980, myself and other friends on the broo used to take part in these sort of trials at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee. It’s difficult to turn down when you have nothing.

  25. Geoff Huijer
    Ignored
    says:

    Exactly Juteman, shocking though it may be.

  26. Murray McCallum
    Ignored
    says:

    If they were trialing drugs that made you feel happy, were addictive and reduced your appetite by 75% (but say kept you alive for +2 years) then it could be the ultimate commoditisation of the former working class.
    The future income streams from the drugs could be securitised and sold on global markets – Humanoid Backed Securities.

  27. The Man in the Jar
    Ignored
    says:

    This is getting close to the plot of “V for Vendetta” I am away to watch the last half-hour of the dvd it always gives me hope!

  28. joe kane
    Ignored
    says:

    There is all the signs and symptoms that the U-KOK state and its Better Together Government have now achieved a kind of Third World status, when the victims of its economic policies are being targeted for recruitment into unethical medical experiments otherwise they’ll just get left to starve to death.

    Without consent: how drugs companies exploit Indian ‘guinea pigs’ 
    The Independent
    14 Nov 2011
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/without-consent-how-drugs-companies-exploit-indian-guinea-pigs-6261919.html 

    ps 
    Speaking of the deranged medical ethics now fashionable in the Whitehall-Westminster bubble, from next month new Better Together Government rules will punish disabled people for daring to disagree with the DWP-Atos that they are fit for work. Patients are to be left with no social security money to live on for an indefinite period of time during which the DWP will make up its mind whether it has actually made the correct decision or not. Thus, by deploying a vile bureaucratic trick which is probably illegal, patients will be prevented from automatically going straight into the neutral Appeals Tribunal, which is a long drawn-out, poverty-stricken process itself and no barrel of laughs.

    Reference –
    DWP dismisses talk of ‘fitness for work Catch-22’ 
    Disability in the News 
    The Fed
    06 Sept 2013
    http://www.thefedonline.org.uk/disability-in-the-news/dwp-dismisses-talk-of-fitness-for-work-catch-22

  29. wee jamie
    Ignored
    says:

    Why don’t they just go all the way ,and make the poor sell their teeth and vital organs to better off folks ?, that way  NHS PLC can make a tidy profit for it’s share holders, and the poor will be providing a service for their betters .You know it makes sense !!

  30. Gillie
    Ignored
    says:

    … but people voted for the Tories, the Lib Dems and Labour.
     
    They can’t say they weren’t warned of the consequences of doing so. Since 1979 they have had 18 years of direct Tory rule and 34 years of continuous Tory ideology. What made people think they would not be increasingly treated in this appalling way by Westminster?
     
    Socialism died in 1979 when Thatcher was elected . Social Democracy died in 1997 when Blair was elected. People are fools to think that the established Westminster parties will protect them in the future.  Cameron, Clegg and Miliband have no interest in doing so.
     
    We are lucky in Scotland because we have a SNP that reflects our social attitudes to welfare; and we know that only independence can bring the kind of welfare change that people will support. 
     
    The English, poor bastards, have only nutters like UKIP, BNP, National Front and the EDL to turn to.  England is in serious danger of becoming a rigid unequal and illiberal society.  They are in desperate need of radical political reform to counter those divisive and destructive forces that are present in Westminster politics.

  31. kininvie
    Ignored
    says:

    There’s a further uncomfortable aspect: Many clinical trials, sponsored by the NHS or by charities such as Cancer Research UK (as opposed to big pharma), can’t offer payment, but usually have little difficulty in recruitment, because patients see participation as a way of helping others in the future, or of giving back something to the NHS. Same with blood donation.
    But if it gets to the stage where people start to feel that taking part in a clinical trial is the only way they can earn money, it may become much harder to recruit on a voluntary basis.

  32. `
    Ignored
    says:

    This is truly frightening.
    WAKE UP SCOTLAND

                                     WE HAVE A MUCH BETTER OPTION !

  33. Desimond
    Ignored
    says:

    Film Director Alfred Hitchcock said “I never said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.”

    Seems this ethos can apply to anyone who is not in the Westminster Political Classes these days.
    The media will of course portray this in the best interest of themselves, ie, they will ignore it or bury it beneath stories of Syria and other war zones to show “Hey look, it aint so bad in comparison to this now is it?”

  34. ianbrotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Nationalise cannibalism! You know it makes sense!

  35. Stevie
    Ignored
    says:

    Concentration camps for carrying out scientific experiments on the unemployed will be their next new bright idea.  When I make up pics for FB, I am now using your text almost verbatim for infographics.  This new BritNat manoeuvre is just stunning in its barefaced cruelty coming from FKUOK plc.  It’s literally breathtaking (in a bad way) – WE GOTTA GET OUTTA THIS PLACE 

    Vote YES and get a decent society or vote NO and get what you deserve.

    “”””””””We wish we were joking. But we’re not.
     

    “Jobseekers using the government’s new jobs website, Universal JobMatch, have been receiving messages encouraging them to participate in clinical trials.  Users have received multiple messages from the service inviting them to apply for jobs, only to find these ‘employment opportunities’ are actually clinical trials.
    The Scriptonite Daily blog was contacted by 37 year old Job Seeker Chris Morgan, of Dartford, Kent – who logged in to Universal Job Search today to find five messages in his Universal JobMatch inbox inviting him to apply for jobs.  These jobs were actually invitations to join a clinical trial.“””””””””””

  36. Murray McCallum
    Ignored
    says:

    ianbrotherhood
    Nationalise cannibalism! You know it makes sense!
     
    Ah! You got some inside info on Westminster plans for non-striving pensioners?

  37. CameronB
    Ignored
    says:

    As we are on the subject of medical experiments. That’s the bad kind of experiment, not the good kind.
     
    “At the time of Rockefeller’s endowment, Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a hero in American eugenics circles, functioned as a head of the Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics. Rockefeller funding of that Institute continued both directly and through other research conduits during Verschuer’s early tenure. In 1935, Verschuer left the Institute to form a rival eugenics facility in Frankfurt that was much heralded in the American eugenic press. Research on twins in the Third Reich exploded, backed up by government decrees. Verschuer wrote in Der Erbarzt, a eugenic doctor’s journal he edited, that Germany’s war would yield a “total solution to the Jewish problem.”

    The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics
    http://hnn.us/article/1796
     

  38. Davy
    Ignored
    says:

    Yet again a new level of muck appears, what an age we are living in. To earn a crust you have to undergo a clinical trial, words really fail me, somewhere out there somebody thinks this is ok to advertise for through an online jobs site.
     
    Please, please, please Scotland vote yes next year, lets get away from this type of social shite as quickly as we can. We can be so much better as an independent nation and perhaps others down south will see a better way of living coming from our independence as a way forward for them also.
     
    Incase I have not mentioned it before, l really really hate this Westminster government with its “am alright jack” policies, when making sure their own arse is covered is the first thing they believe in and having an opposition in “Labour” who also refuses to stand up for the disadvantaged, the needy and the helpless. But who would crawl over broken glass to get the middle England vote to get back into power.  AGHHHHHH.
     
    Vote YES, Vote for fairness, Vote Scotland.  

  39. ianbrotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Was going to post Youtube link to the end of that movie ‘Society’, but just watched it and it’s utterly disgusting, as good satire should be.
     
    There’s no option. If we don’t fight these sick bastards, they’ll keep going – they humiliate and hurt us for no other reason than they can.

  40. Dcanmore
    Ignored
    says:

    Just about every nightmare mentioned on here already exists in the USA. People selling their blood so they can eat, or a kidney if they’re already young and healthy enough. Sign up for medical trials because that’s all the ‘work’ you can get. Over the last 20 years (and the next 20) we can see the three conditions of the British State play out.
     
    First is the huge ramping up of the State by New Labour, mass employment in the public sector, members and funds for the unions with short term feel good support for the Party, all on the country’s credit card to create a bureaucratic and expensive nightmare (ala Brazil 1985). Then the ConDems get in and it’s slash and burn policy, demolish benefits and welfare, privatise what public services are left, put the working class into poverty and the middle class into crippling debt, crime goes up, riots in the street and all blamed on minority groups (Children of Men 2006). Finally when people have had enough they seek a saviour from their hellish world. Anything as long as it is better, not an election, people are sick of token elections that that empower the same old same old, no, they desire a revolution to sweep away the crud and stench that ‘society’ has become, a brave new world on the back of firm promises with action (V for Vendetta 2005).
     
    ‘Great’ Britain? You can stuff it! Three-hundred years old and no longer fit for purpose.
     

  41. Gillie
    Ignored
    says:

    To make a link between medical experiments dependent on volunteers and the possibility of cuts to welfare benefits would be unethical.
     
    If that were to happen then medical scientists and doctors involved would be open to disciplinary action by their professional regulating bodies.  Reputational damage could be considerable and career threatening. 
     
    There are clear dangers here for the medical profession as well as those unemployed and on benefit. Expect these offers of employment(?) to be withdrawn post haste. 

  42. velofello
    Ignored
    says:

    AnSa,JaBla,SPe and others – we need to test this and identify a win-win response. Operation code name is ANSWARR. My office midnight tonight, JoLa
    p.s.How does this read:
    “SNP failing to mobilise public involvement in health sciences”.

  43. joe kane
    Ignored
    says:

    With the visiting United Nation’s representative only the other day criticising the human rights record of our U-KOK Better Together Government, I might as well point out our deeply beloved Benefits Fuhrer, Ian Duncan Smith, is probably guilty of breaking the very first principle regarding the ethical guidelines on human experimentation.

    Nuremberg Code
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Code 

    1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential….

  44. dee
    Ignored
    says:

    @joe kane, 10.53am
     I never saw that one coming down the line joe. I think “Catch 22” will be every bit as controversial as the “bedroom tax”.  You think they have reached the bottom and then, surprise surprise, they just keep on going down and down.

  45. sneddon
    Ignored
    says:

    Agree if the claimant is punished for not applying for job is a mad state of affairs but I can think of at least several ways around getting ‘sanctioned’ for not applying or getting your application rejected by the clinical trials company and I hope the gentleman is wise enough to find them out.  Nevertheless non voluntary participation in these trials reeks of evil for so many reasons.

  46. muttley79
    Ignored
    says:

    @Training Day
     
     
    I hear the sound of Scottish MSM hacks scurrying to find ways to portray this, as with the trams and the bedroom tax, as the fault of the Scottish Government..
     
    It is a really bizarre way that the Unionists and their MSM buddies in Scotland have of looking at the shit that comes from Westminster.  The rational way of thinking is to say Westminster is passing legislation which is inhumane, goes against our values, and the political solution is to vote for independence so we can run our own affairs.  Bit no they say the exact opposite, that the SG should help alleviate it by finding the money from somewhere else in the budget.  It makes no sense, and yet they are die hard supporters of the Union.  They are basically admitting that Westminster is passing toxic reforms, and at the same time denying and arguing against the Scottish Parliament taking control over things like welfare.

  47. The Tree of Liberty
    Ignored
    says:

    Get them weans back up them chimneys!

  48. Training Day
    Ignored
    says:

    @Muttley
     
    Yup, the MSM tack is ‘why is the pea shooter that you’re currently – and, by grace of Westminster, kindly – equipped with not more effective against the howitzer it faces?  That must be your fault!’
     
    No wonder our hacks are held in the utmost contempt.

  49. Hetty
    Ignored
    says:

    The sinister aspect of this is the fact that there are no efforts being made and no money being invested to create decent jobs and the con- dems are perfectly happy to leave people on the scrap heap with few prospects if any, so the people left desperate will do anything other than be subjected to a kind of abuse at the job centre and threatened with sanctions to their measily benefit. It’s utterly disgraceful and the libdem con voters should be ashamed of themselves, but many of these people had cosy jobs nice houses plenty cash and now a very comfy retirement, They do not care.

  50. joe kane
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks Dee.
    If you’re interested, here are just a few of the atrocities now in the pipeline and about to be visited on the British population by the U-KOK loonies inside their well-appointed Better Together Westminster-Whitehall bubble.

    Millions of workers on low pay and/or low hours are to be subjected to the DWP sanctions regime – 
    UK’s lowest-paid employees to be classed as ‘not working enough’ 
    Guardian 
    07 Sept 2013
    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/sep/06/uk-lowest-paid-classed-not-working-enough 

    All workers are be subjected to an Atos-style disability denial regime if they dare to try to sign off work sick –
    New support to tackle long-term sickness absence
    gov.uk 
    17 Jan 2013
    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-support-to-tackle-long-term-sickness-absence

  51. sneddon
    Ignored
    says:

    Gillie – These trials sound like those undertaken by large pharma and not charities/research units.  Especially as they are offering payment and not just expenses

  52. Embradon
    Ignored
    says:

    Cash payments to the “idle” for voluntary euthanasia next?
    Additional payment possible if private healthcare providers are authorised to harvest organs?

  53. Fairliered
    Ignored
    says:

    If you signed up for this scheme, imagine the horror if you woke up in the operating theatre and found you had received a brain transplant from a SLAB politician.

  54. faolie
    Ignored
    says:

    This will be another thing that Labour thinks is ‘absolutely terrible’ but “before we make a promise to reverse it we have to prove we can pay for that” (Liam Byrne on repealing the bedroom tax).
     
    The WM parties are slugging it out for the votes of middle England. At least we have a way out next year. Not so if you’re Chris Morgan or if you’re poor in Newcastle, or impoverished in Manchester.

  55. Bugger (the Panda)
    Ignored
    says:

    CameronB
     
    You should read up on the, quietly forgotten about, eugenic programmes of Switzerland and Sweden. As bad as the Nazis but all now brushed under some now nailed-down carpet.

  56. megsmaw06
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ll just be over here in the corner, rocking back and forth whispering “One more year to go. One more year to go.”
    I don’t want my girls to grow up in a society like this, I want something better for them.

  57. Gillie
    Ignored
    says:

     
    Covance, the company concerned, have a Code of Respect for Animals in Research and Development, but not one for human participants.
     
    The company say, “We are committed to social responsibility and integrity”, but again there seems to be no stated position on human participants. 
     
    They do have an ethical code concerning their suppliers, from which they state, “Suppliers are expected to uphold the human rights of their workers and treat them with respect and dignity.  This includes:
     

    Not employing any forced, bonded, indentured, or involuntary labor.


     

    So Universal JobMatch could be construed as a “supplier”.


    Again I would say that linking medical experiments to welfare benefits is profoundly unethical.  Any medical professional or scientist would very wary of being involved in that because they have reputations to protect and careers to pursue. 

  58. Gillie
    Ignored
    says:

     
    If you want a response from Covance on this matter here are their contacts details.
     
    https://uk.testwiththebest.com/contact-us.html
     
    I am sure the company will run a mile from any story that sees them being accused of unethical behaviour. 
     
     

  59. ianbrotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @megsmaw06-
    ‘I don’t want my girls to grow up in a society like this, I want something better for them.
     
    Kin right. There’s no stronger motivation.
     
     
    My weans are on the brink of adulthood, and we’ve done a pretty good job of shielding them from reality so they can enjoy their childhood, but when they finish school/college, reality is going to hit them like a forty-ton truck. When it does, I want it to be in a country where they have a fair chance of living fulfilled, decent lives – a country where they’d be happy to establish their own families without the constant worry and stress that we’re having to endure.
     
    As a lapsed Buddhist, I know all about the notion that suffering comes from desire. Fair do’s. But no-one with any decency can fail to be disgusted by what passes for ‘government’ in the UK. It feels sometimes like a never-ending nightmare. I’m 50 – for all the years I’ve been eligible to vote there has been a succession of Tory and Labour administrations who’ve bent over backwards to accommodate the ‘inevitable’ pragmatism espoused by neo-Liberal fantasists like Leo Strauss, Friedman etc etc. It’s been a total failure and cannot be allowed to continue unless we want to see our children become slaves who go from cradle to grave without ever daring to raise their voices no matter how abominably they’re treated.
     
    Free from desire?
     
    Not yet. What I want, more than anything I’ve ever wanted, or ever will, is to see my weans, my neighbours, my community and friends assert themselves and take full advantage of the opportunity we now have. It’s not about ‘the economy’. It’s about self-respect, dignity, and all those other ‘words’ that allude to values which the market-place has never found a way of commodifying.
     

  60. Semus
    Ignored
    says:

    The UKOK government, Unionist Parties in Scotland, MSM and the hateful  Anglo Saxophone of the state Beobachter BBC make me feel euthanasia would be for me the poor man’s friend, from their vindictive, vicious hatreds,…let us remember all those mentioned above and I include my “fellow” Scots are loving all of this nastiness.They love it.

  61. David Martin
    Ignored
    says:

    I am truly gobsmacked. This is truly the bottom of the barrel.

  62. Spansco
    Ignored
    says:

    Westminster can do what it wants and therein lies the rub. Having a fare and humanity welfare system would be a priority of an Independent Scotland and is just one of many reasons why we should grasp the opportunity.

  63. James S
    Ignored
    says:

    To be fair I read somewhere a while ago that the government site in question was struggling with this problem of job adverts appearing on the site and turning out to be something else once you actually start the application process.

    I’d hesitate before making too much out of this unless someone has actual evidence of someone being withheld benefits for not applying to such job offers.

  64. Gillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Here is the UK government spiel about Universal JobMatch;
     
    Universal Jobmatch is a valuable tool for helping jobseekers find work. We expect the majority of claimants who are genuinely looking for work will want to willingly use the service themselves.
     
    Where this is not the case and where appropriate, we may require some Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) claimants to create a profile and a public CV in Universal Jobmatch.
     
    JSA claimants must do all that can be reasonably expected of them to find work and must apply for any jobs that an adviser deems suitable.
     
    Universal Jobmatch will provide access to a wide range of vacancies, so using the service will be an important part of actively seeking work.
     
    Any company involved in medical testing and using Jobmatch to find volunteers may find that because the way the DWP will respond means they have crossed an ethical line. That means that any professional involved in such medical testing may be open to the accusation that have behaved inappropriately and could themselves be subject to disciplinary action. 
     
    Covance may wish to reconsider using Jobmatch. 

  65. Ellen
    Ignored
    says:

    What did any of you expect from a society content to test the poor, make the poor dance like circus elephants? Employers abuse the unemployed so why wouldn’t the rest of society.  We would much rather argue nothing can be done because the abusers “are only doing their job, they have rent to pay”. Think of all those people making a decent wage out of testing the unemployed who might be lying on their CV.. test their honesty, test them every way you can. Clinical trials are the next step. Why are any of you surprised? 
    It’s repugnant. We have become an repugnant society over the decades. We even make job applicants for retail positions dance like zoo seals for the chance of a job selling batteries and TVs and we pay people to make the applicants dance like zoo seals. We employ human ringmasters. The modern term for ringmasters is Human Resources employees.

  66. joe kane
    Ignored
    says:

    If you’re not already nauseated by the Whitehall-Westminster approach to medical ethics then how about the DWP forcing patients to take medical treatments against their own will and without their consent or else face being sanctioned?

    It goes without saying, sick and disabled patients everywhere are wondering where the UK medical and regulatory governing bodies are (such as the GMC, the Nursing & Midwifey Council and the CQC) which are supposed to protect them from such dangerous practices and iatrogenic professionals such as those who work for Atos who seem to have carte blanche to perpetrate medical horrors with seeming impunity.

    References –

    Get Better …Or Else?
    Where’s the Benefit?
    14 July 2013
    http://wheresthebenefit.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/get-better-or-else.html 

    Help for people on sickness benefits to address barriers to work 
    gov.uk
    08 Jul 2013
    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/help-for-people-on-sickness-benefits-to-address-barriers-to-work

  67. MajorBloodnok
    Ignored
    says:

    Shocked.  Just shocked.

  68. Macandroid
    Ignored
    says:

    Cameron B
    I was hoping to hear more about Darrel’s bottom !

  69. the journeyman
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ellen you are so right there are people with good intention mostly, trying to help long term unemployed back to work, but they have been caught up in Gov spin and propaganda and started tarring more with the “don’t want to wok label”. It is so bad now that they get upset if DWP fails to sanction theedits edits – it’s disgusting.
    Saddest of all they don’t realise who’s dirty work they are doing!

  70. john king
    Ignored
    says:

    Struggling to think of , where next?
     and the only thing I can think of is state brothels 
    where young unemployed women will be (expected) to provide (services) to help maintain their benefits? 

  71. the journeyman
    Ignored
    says:

    Sanction their benefits it should have said – don’t know why edit didn’t work?

  72. Juteman
    Ignored
    says:

    What’s next, said John?
    Food vouchers instead of cash. Only usable at the stores owned by the party faithful.

  73. joe kane
    Ignored
    says:

    “What’s next, said John?”
    – I hear they’re thinking of tattooing barcodes on the forearms of the victims of austerity to save on food stamp paperwork and all the added bureaucracy, confusion and fraud that causes. 

  74. David Smith
    Ignored
    says:

    34 years of neoliberalism in the UK has brought us to Unit 751.
    A Yes vote next year might be the only thing standing between the people of this island and government-sanctioned genocide.
    Something must give.

  75. Fairliered
    Ignored
    says:

    Juteman. That will be the Co-op then.

  76. Red squirrel
    Ignored
    says:

    Shocking as this looks, it is also actually pointless: there are extremely strict criteria for commercial clinical trials, including the selection of patients.  Informed consent is necessary for any clinical procedure or the health professional would be subject to investigation by the fitness to practice committee of the relevant professional body. Likewise the sharing of personal health information without the patient’s consent would also be both illegal and against professional conduct standards.
     
    Of course I wouldn’t put it past the ConDems trying to change this but it might prove a bit tricky.

  77. Titler
    Ignored
    says:

    “Shocking as this looks, it is also actually pointless: there are extremely strict criteria for commercial clinical trials, including the selection of patients.”

    You’re missing the true evil here; And coincidentally, I had a blazing row with my local Jobcentre (to the point the Managing Director was called over) about this on Tuesday. Universal Jobmatch used to be Voluntary; it’s now Mandatory, however the EU law on cookie opt out still applies, so you have to register, but you do not have to apply for a job through UJ nor allow the DWP to track you electronically. But… they get around this by asserting the right to see you log in in person and they can write down notes on what they see on the screen over your shoulder. That means that you at least have to open the description of any job that might be suitable, so it is visibly recorded as looked at, in case an advisor points to it and asks.
     
    It gets worse. If you actually use UJ, you are assumed to have opted in to the data tracking, so EU privacy laws don’t apply. Then, once inside, as the article mentions, based on the skills and CVs you’ve uploaded, it will send you suggested jobs that “Match”. In reality, these are not just positively but negatively-matched, that is, unless there’s something in there marked as essential, such as “Must have own car”, and you’ve specifically flagged somewhere “Don’t have own car”, it will be matched to you…
     
    This is where the Clinical Trials came in, as according to the details submitted, he wasn’t disqualified from them.  And at the very least, you have to consider them, otherwise you’re not looking at every potential source of employment. And here’s where it gets really nasty; the same automation is judging how “lax” you are in looking; you might be able to explain why that suggestion doesn’t show you applied for it, over your shoulder, if you’ve got the courage, and the advisor is sympathetic… but using UJ online is going to flag you automatically, and a computer won’t know what’s reasonable or not, or even if it’s looking at the same job advertised multiple times; Mr Morgan will have been flagged simply as “Did Not Look At 5 Matched Positions”.
     
    And so you see, the real evil is not that the Government expects him to take part in Clinical Trials; it’s to wear him out by making him justify rejecting each and every single possible match. If you’re lucky, and your advisor is still sympathetic, they may remember when you justified it last week; you can quickly skip that one at your next signing. Or they may not, so you’d better have the exact same argument ready again, but updated to this week. As well as one for all the other matches that have been automatically generated in the meantime. And hope that a sanction isn’t generated above Local level where you might address it before the damage is done. Or you could spend hours applying for the Trials anyway, because a well submitted application might be safer… but if they offer it you, and you won’t and can’t actually sacrifice a kidney, you lose all your benefits for at least 6 months on the first sanction, because you rejected an offered position.

    Incidentally, if you did try and take that Clinical Trial… they’d stop your benefits pound for pound if you were under the 16 hours per week anyway. Work just doesn’t pay any more, and the Government has no intention of making it do so. They just want to brutalize and degrade the poor as a means of attacking the wages of those in work; You don’t want to put up with the shit work puts you through? Look at what we do to those who are out of it, and get back to work.

  78. Soda
    Ignored
    says:

    Just a thought but are the British regime using the case for independence and the upcoming referendum as a smoke screen to suggest and push thru the most outlandish of lies and most damaging of policies because they know that a lot of people are simply to ignorant/tribal/entrenched to disagree with anything they say at the moment?

  79. ianbrotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Titler-
     
    Great stuff. Thanks. Very informative.

  80. david pearce
    Ignored
    says:

    sounds like david camoron and his lapdog ids are taking a leaf from their favourite authors book ,’mein kampf’. Bet the nhs will be expected to cover the costs of the side effects. Refusing to take part in a drugs trial suggested by the experts at universal jobs match will be seen as grounds to sanction benefits and while the amount paid may sound good it is not necessarily compensation for death ( does no one remember the controversy from a few years ago with the people who died during a drug trial). Then you have a resting period between trails. Ok so you’ve been on a drug trial for 2 weeks during which you loose all benefit. The trial comes to an end . You have to sign back on to be told no money for 2 weeks. So that £350-400 you earned a week ( what you forgot tax and NI cos the government class it as work now) for 2 weeks has to cover you for 4 weeks. If you happen to have severe life altering side effects from the trial you have no legal recourse to claim compensation, but will have the luxury of being forced to attend atos and prove that you’re unwell

  81. Alison
    Ignored
    says:

    So what they are saying is the unemployed have no rights, and they are no better than guinea Pigs, this is an outrage They seem to enjoy making people sick maybe its part of a cull to get the population down, Like theyU.S. apologizes for STD experiments in Guatemala – Health – Sexual  Do i smell another Hitler Cameron tthe new furor.

     did in America to the unsuspecting public



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