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January 11th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda - Cait Reilly has been looking for work since graduating in the summer
- She volunteered at a museum until ordered to accept two-week placement
- Her lawyer says the ‘forced labour’ breaches her human rights
By
Emily Allen
Last updated at 5:27 PM on 11th January 2012
A university graduate yesterday issued a landmark judicial review proceedings against the Government after she was forced to stack shelves at Poundland.
Cait Reilly, 22, has been looking for work since she left Birmingham University and has been volunteering on an unpaid basis until ordered to accept a two-week placement in the retail sector.
This involved her sweeping up and filling the shelves at the Poundland store in Kings Heath, Birmingham, also on an unpaid basis.
Work experience: Cait Reilly said she had to sweep up and fill the shelves at the Poundland store in Kings Heath, Birmingham
Now lawyers acting for the geology graduate have launched proceedings claiming that she had been made to carry out ‘forced labour’ or lose her benefits.
She had been looking for work in the museum sector and had undertaken unpaid voluntary work at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
Her solicitor Jim Duffy claims this is against the European Convention on Human Rights.
He said yesterday: ‘This Government has created – without Parliamentary authority – a complex array of schemes that allow Job Centres to force people into futile, unpaid labour for weeks or months at a time.
‘By doing so it worsens rather than
alleviates the cycle of unemployment that is such a significant barrier
to addressing the economic crisis.’
Graduate: Miss Reilly has been looking for work since she left Birmingham University (pictured) and had been volunteering on an unpaid basis
Through
her lawyers, Miss Reilly is asking the High Court to quash the
controversial regulations under which long-term unemployed people can be
required to undertake up to six months of unpaid work.
She wants to challenge the Jobseeker’s Allowance (Employment, Skills and
Enterprise) Regulations 2011.
JOBSEEKER’S ALLOWANCE BENEFIT
In order to meet the criteria to
receive the Jobseeker’s Allowance benefit, claimants are required to
participate in Employment, Skills and Enterprise Scheme.
The scheme offers work placements
with companies, working in conjunction with the government, designed to
give claimants practical work experience to improve their chances of
employment.
If claimants refuse to take part in the work placements they risk losing their benefits.
The
scheme is intended to lead to full-time jobs but in Miss Reilly’s case
she claimed staff at Poundland did not know what she should be doing and, despite promises of an interview, it never materialised.
In an earlier interview, she told the BBC: ‘I think it’s a form of manual labour in that they’re forcing people to
do jobs that are in no way related to what they want to do and giving
them no experience for their careers.’
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson said: ‘Our priority is to help people off benefits and into work. We are looking to help people get practical experience that will give them a better chance of getting into work.
‘It is simply absurd to suggest that we should not be providing this support and effectively leaving people at home doing nothing.’
In a statement Poundland said its work experience was designed to help people find work in the retail sector.
It said: ‘We work in partnership with JobCentre Plus and other
government funded organisations to implement a comprehensive work
placement programme designed to provide on-the-job training for those
looking to retail as a career opportunity.
‘Our
partnership with JobCentre Plus is a positive step to get people back
into work. It doesn’t replace our recruitment activity, but adds to the
number of colleagues we have working with us.’
Dannie Grufferty, NUS Vice-President (Society Citizenship) said: ‘Driven young people are facing a bleak time as youth and graduate unemployment rise along with the cost of living and continued training and education.
‘It is outrageous that companies are allowed to exploit free unskilled labour which has no benefit for the job-seeker or the Government.’
OVERSUBSCRIBED: 1,300 APPLY FOR 16 JOBS AT NEW FURNITURE STORE
A furniture store has received more
than 1,300 applications for just 16 jobs at its new branch – just under
87 candidates for each post at the DFS sofa centre in Llandudno, Wales.
The company said it had been
‘inundated’ with 1,385 applications for the 16 advertised positions at
the new store, which opens on February 18.
Greg Robbins, Llandudno’s Mayor,
welcomed the store and called for other companies to invest in the
resort, adding: ‘It’s a very positive
thing for the town that a national company is coming here.
‘I don’t know if desperation is the
word. It shows there’s a massive shortage of long-term employment jobs
and that we need further inward investment.’
He added that he expected vacancies
at the proposed Travelodge in Llandudno to be similarly oversubscribed.
It is expected to create 60 permanent jobs when it opens an 83-bed
hotel.
Latest figures from the Office for
National Statistics show that 9.1 per cent of Wales’ workforce were
unemployed in the period of August to October 2011 – up from 8.4 per
cent between May and July last year.
DFS area sales manager Adam Hankinson
said: ‘I have been amazed by both the number of applications we’ve
received but also the high quality of the candidates.
‘We’ve recruited a great bunch of
people and I’m really excited about creating a new local team who will
open the store within weeks.’
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if the government are going to have people on benefits taking unpaid work surely it should be community based, giving these placements to stores is filling up a space which would have been a paid position
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I swear to god if she wins the case I’m leaving the country
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Well, since her ” degree” didl’t make her employable and she wants to claim benefits paid for by taxpayers, she’ll have to do as she’s told. When she gets a job abd can keep herself she can do as she likes. And since when did she or anyone have a human right to love off others while picking and choosing what they felt like doing?
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It’s against my human rights for her to take my tax money and of course no doubt taking more taxpayers’ money to issue her judicial review. I am amazed that she should be required to work for Poundland – a commercial enterprise – while accepting benefits she should be required to work for the community, not commercial enterprises, and for a period well in excess of 2 weeks. This young lady was not forced to work for Poundland, If she didn’t want to do the work, she shouldn’t seek benefits
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– Greg, London, 11/1/2012 17:45 “”This article should read: Woman would prefer to do nothing for benefits, than make a contribution to society! “” Read the 2nd para’ down you’ll see that she has already been doing unpaid voluntary work – so she’s not been doing nothing as you suggest. Not quite the sterotype unemployed lazy benefits scrounger the DM some of its readers seem to like commenting on. The disabled are next on the list for this governments ‘forced labour program’.
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Why not make them work for there benifits, get some experience, get out of the house, Oh I forgot she’s entitled to the Job seekers allowance, maybe she should go to the doctor and get a disability rating then she can stay of work for the rest of her life and complain about that. England is in trouble because of all the handout and the EEU, get a grip on both Stop the handout and quit the EEU. My question is do people really want to work or is it just so easy to calim benefits and get over the enetitlement mind set.
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Incapable of work, sad and an ambulance chaser. Not a great cv!
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So when she eventually finds her dream job and that prospective employer googles her name and finds this story….? – iain, Manchester, 12/1/2012 1:47 If the employer can be categorised as a living feeling and thinking Being then s/he may well admire her. I certainly would employ her anyday over grovelling Brits snapping at the scraps of the trough who believe in forced labour as a way of life at less than minimum wages. Go down. Go down
– The Alien has Landed, Reality, 11/1/2012 17:58 +++++++++++ Bet you’ve got a great job hey?
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Extra, Extra Read All About It!! Graduates Come And Carry The Nations Debt From Thru Your Degrees With No Salary! Free Work Available For Those Who Want It On Benefits!……….Come on you know you want to Vote for the Lovely Conservatives Plan. There’s £40,000 In Debt To Be Had For Each of You! Come On, You Love Us! You Know You Want It!
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Too many people want to go to university, It’s a big con.
The only people who do well from going to universities are the staff.
So unless you have a post grad degree or you manage to get a degree from one of the Oxbridge colleges, an ordinary degree is just another bit of paper. They were cheapened when the old Technical colleges were given university status. A lot of these people would do better to learn a trade (don’t laugh) but it’s true.
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