When bullying is OK

We all agree it is clear cut, if you are told do what I say, do it now or else. If that else is a clear an unambiguous something far worse that is going make you endure emotional stress and or financial hard ship, you have unequivocally been subjected to bullying. Right? Wrong, not if it is carried out by the State. Now the State has to pursue ten of thousands of miscreants who are trying to evade the law of the land. It is only right and proper that they can stop these miscreant in their unlawful tracks swiftly and efficiently. We don't want to be wasting our time and resources on these repeat offenders. Swift efficient restitution and compliance with the law of the land is what we all want. Particularly if those miscreants are the unemployed. It has entered into our unquestioning social psyche, as our political leaders have told us often enough, all unemployed are shirkers, time waster only in it for easy money living off the State. It is therefore entirely reasonable that they should be subjected to coercion, real and implied threats and official harassment. Got to make them work irrespective. Entirely reasonable that they should be made to forego searching for a real job and be made, under duress, to commit to a job that offers nothing other than promises. Harassment from over-stretched officials, who have heard it all before so many, many times and in anycase have their own performance targets to meet else they too might receive an unfavourable report. Apply the department instructions to the letter, no deviation, no pause for thought, no scope for discretion, just the tick box, onto the next. Yours is not to reason why or to feel any compassion.

Not just the unemployed, naturally, anyone who has the misfortune to depend on the State can be a prime target for State bullying. These are the unwashed masses beneath contempt so it is perfectly alright. Brought up a family now living in a home too big for you, out on the streets or pay a rent increase way beyond your already stretched finances. Do not bleed broken here to us, the smug comfortable, about lack of alternate choice, having to move away from a work/family support network to a distant strange town or your pathetic special caring needs. Get over it. Greater needs must. The greater need is that untouchable Ministry, the Treasury, beyond any reason or argument. When they say 20% budget reduction. Jump to it, comply. When they say reduce welfare costs, cut, slash, importune what the hell it is only the unwashed masses that no one cares a fig about. When they say increase income, turf out lifelong sitting tenants so the now vacant property can be sold at a premium prices to ex-yuppies. Never mind that these same properties were bequeathed to the Nation for the Nation's custodianship of its cultural heritage. Nope, Treasury says raise money, compliance is the only acceptable response.

Just keep in mind that the Government's tactic for the past decade or more is it to defuse blame to some lower level quango's, pseudo government offices or other administrative functions whilst retaining the moral high ground of making decision for the good of the people. Look at us see what we have decided, then failing to make money available to properly implement that decision. Then they can look down at those diffused lower administrations, tut, and say what failure, how under resourced, making such bad judgements calls, a disgrace. It is called a Government WinWin. What ever results comes out of their short sighted policies, they are Teflon coated, nothing sticks on them!

Of course if manner by the Government conducts its affairs is right and proper for them, so it is also for those large conglomerates set up to provide us with essential services. They too have huge numbers of users all out to defraud them, they too need to use fast effective methods to maintain their income stream, irrespective of consequence. Good enough for the Government, good enough for them to. No doubt you will have received those peremptory notices warning you have breached some terms of supply, that requires immediate compliance  within some short timescale else some variant threat of bailiffs to seize goods, your life essentials, or of a court appearance where there will be a fine added to any amount owing together with their court costs estimated at some ridiculous eye watering number. It is just state endorsed bullying, no matter what way you look at it. The usual expectations of fairness and justice are unilaterally set aside by a superior organisation who consider that they are above such niceties. The simple niceties such as no prior presumption of guilt, of a right to offer a defence against an alleged offence and an impartial body, representing those twelve decent men on Clapham Bus, to adjudicate an outcome when disputed and on the appropriate retribution, cash or kind. That is our birth right.

Next time a political leader stands before you pontificating on the horrors of child bullying demand they ensure that all legislation they endorse enshrines the principle of fairness to all with no bullying no matter what age, creed, race or social status.

Unemployed

Am I the only one to remember that the Government decided not to count the unemployed some ten years or more back. They changed the rules and would only count the compliant unemployed. To be compliant you had to surrender yourself to their programme of harassment and cohesion, to prove within their narrowly focused rules, that you really were trying to look for work. For anyone dependant on the Government through Benefit Allowances or anyone tied into a Insurance scheme where signing on was obligatory, there was no option but to submit to the ritualised weekly humiliation. An uncounted number of people are unemployed but simply no longer counted by the government of the day. We simply do not know or try to find out. They are not counted.

What is wrong with this Government initiative, just making sure, the scroungers off the State, were making some effort to get a job? So the sanctimonious headline is crystal clear Government, good, scroungers, bad, find work, good, fail to find employment, bad. If only real life was as simple and easily separated into black and white issues! Everyone's expectation is to earn a decent living and contribute, to the fullest extent of their capabilities, to the welfare of their family, taking the fullest advantage of the rich rewards of this consumer driven society we are part of. So where does it all go wrong?

The downward spiral of any recessions, ultimately government manipulated or a consequences of government decisions, leaves a trail of redundant people. People in work with aspirations, suddenly without work or hope. Job opportunities evaporated. Looking globally across the nation and all work sectors there is still work to be had. The government can make its point by stating the number of unfilled job vacancies. Vacancies, but not necessarily available to the unemployed in specific locations, commitments and their work expectations.

There are a huge number of social concerns riding on the back of a job. In a fair and equitable society it just is not any job at any wage. Employers do take advantage of pressure on people to get a job, offering the least wage conditions and security they can get away with. Is it right that government should collude with the worst employers and force the unemployed to take a job no matter what conditions? Clearly not. Some employers consider the labour they take on simply as a means to squeeze as much profit out of these labour units as they can. Cutting vegetable outdoors in the fields in freezing conditions all weather is not a career option or even a work option of choice. It is work and has to be done. What does it say of our society when the unemployed are made to take on such work, because it is the only work available? Take meat packing factories, long shifts in chilled environments, monotonous work with no scope for skill. It has to be done. What about the recycling vans, out all weathers picking up the street edge boxes and selectively throwing the contents into the van. Nothing there to aspire you to a career or get satisfaction from a job well done. But it has to be done.

So there is the first issue. Employer have got to change and not regard their captive labour force simply as a unit to be exploited for their personal maximum benefit. They have to come to regard their workforce as their biggest longterm investment and find ways to incentivize them, win loyalty and proactively seek their employees contribution to improve the profit margins. The workforce is not the problem, it actually is the source of solutions, if only employers cast off the old feudal them and us attitude.

Work cannot be isolated from lifetime aspirations. The repercussions of your last employment carries forward with you to the next interview. You cannot shake off your employment past. That lowly salary you were coerced to accept become the new bench mark for all new opportunities. There is no such thing as intrinsic worth. The salary you get tomorrow depends and is directly related to the last salary you earn. If through no fault of yours you have to seek employment in a collapsed labour market your lifestyle and all hopes of where you might eventually rise to will depend on that next job you take. If you foregoe too soon on a skill and settle for something lesser but available, there is no easy going back. Sure if you are in a dying industry there are no forward options and you have to look sideways to what you might be able capitalise on. But if your industry is only in a temporary decline you have to hold on. Yet the government is forcing you to accept jobs well below your parity, blighting you and your families future.

Not an easy position to be put in. Glib for the government to demonise all those people out of work, those shiftless scroungers avoiding doing a decent days work and living off the state. Hits easy targets, but it conceals the personal tragedies that their reckless financial policies has brought about. So next time the government announces the 'unemployment' figures, shout back, no that is only the compliant few, count all those suffering.

Disposable crutches

In a caring society we help and look after those amongst us that get into difficulties and we support the weak that are unable to look after themselves. That's the minimum. Of course what we do not want to do is for these self same people to become dependant on us for ever more, and there is the rub. It is a fact of life that when offered a crutch we quickly adapt to it and become dependant on it and fearful if there is any suggestion they are going to be taken away. As a Nation we just cannot afford to provide comfortable reassuring crutches to who so ever needs them. But we do want to be caring.

There are no simple answers and several aspects to this particular conundrum. First we all have to accept that a utopia where everyone can have their expected three bedroom detached house in the countryside, yet close to family and friends, and free of pollution just is not attainable. As a bottom live we have to come to terms that as a constrained Nation, as we are, without a vibrant growing commerce or industry, we just cannot afford anything like that utopia as a minimum standard for all our citizens. A more realistic scenario has to prevail, shelter from the weather extremes, basic sanitation perhaps short of a personal bath or shower, basic cooking facilities perhaps no more than a microwave and a sink, a room where families can keep together again short of separate bedrooms and maybe having to share in communal living spaces. Grim compared to the vision of what we expect as our birth right but sufficient to keep us together, warm safe and hygienic.

The difficulty is in giving generous support for sufficient time to let a person or family in crisis recoup and recover yet not undermine the need for them to take stock of their new circumstance and find a path out of their difficulties for themselves. No reliance on those crutches so easily given. First off the support has to be immediate and untainted with labels of scroungers, cheats or fraudsters, so loved of government departments. Given but implicit of payback of any assistance given in cash or kind. We help you so you can help others is the deal. Given but with the support, encouragement and finally judge and jury of a mentor, to coax, advise, offer special training or group sessions, whatever to assist during that recovery period. A period that does have a finite future end date, but constantly adjusted and redefined according to the mentors assessment of the efforts being made.

Yes our citizens must stand on their own two feet, be confident and independent and not constantly nagged, bullied and harassed into submission by government policy. However that is true for those successfully finding their own way, when you have to ask for help, help is ring fenced and bring some loss of personal freedom and other compliance with others jurisdictions. So the mentor is an individual volunteer not some anonymous official concerned with throughput, formal procedural documentation and statistical targets. As individuals there will be great variety in the way mentors see their role and the support their people need. So mentors must be subject to monitoring and receive day to day updates in best practises and comparators from their local patch. I have greater faith in any citizen to see through a bleeding heart pitch than some official having the sense to understand the blatantly obvious. That is the safety net for me. On a one to one mentor to person in need basis, better targeted necessary help and an living overview of all the ups and downs progress made. Mentors making life or death judgements to scale down the help if recovery falters or is not happening, extend it if the prospects are bright or there is a temproary setback to be overcome and a slowing taper off after when recovery is in place to let the person/family recover before the claw back begins.

Not perfect, open to abuse, yes, but that person on top of the clapham common bus has a lot more nounce about try-ons, tales of woe and unfairness than all the official organisations put together.The stumbling block for all persons in crisis comes down to employment. If only they could get an appropriate job, there would be income to buy answers and their self-esteem would shoot up. Employers have a right to expect self-discipline and performance. Employees have aspirations to sustain a life-style, follow a particular skill or interest and to hang on until that cushy job everyone else has turns up for them. The employment market is rife with mismatched expectations. A mentor is better placed than any other organisation to best see and understand the opportunities and needs for those they are directly involved with. If there is no employment to be had, full stop, there are no options left. Then the bottom line is, if they do not, cannot help themselves out of the crisis then bit by bit their claims on 'normal' living standards are whittled away until they are left with just the bottom line. We as a society still need to care for them and we still need to help them as best as can with the utmost skill we can bring to bear. No person is beyond hope but it may be a long and costly road to retrain a broken life lived over many many years back into a useful citizen. That is our ultimate challenge as a society. To care enough to make it happen.

If there is no employment then this Nation is broken and there is no help available to anyone no matter how needy. I doubt this is or ever will be the case. More usually it is a matter of coming to terms with the adjustments necessary before that only job that is on offer is acceptable and is better than other options. But any job without hidden claw-back penalties where it is better to take state aid than to work, we have to move well away from that. Employers also have to face up to their social responsibilities too. Paying the minimum wage or less may get them cheap labour but that is only short term gain. They need to invest into people, not just as grunts to perform on command but really motivated to help the industry they are working in to grow and prosper, as a partnership, not some archaic lord and servant relationship. Ah well Nirvana come tomorrow.