Re-education of employers - TV programme comment making the point

Comments from a Channel 4 TV programme about the company with the lucrative contract to "help" get the long-term unemployed back to work.

One poster Simon (28/8/09 16:06) makes the point I've been saying: "Of course we have to educate employers as well, as discrimination is alive and well in this country. You're only punished if you are caught and most employers are good at hiding things."

As an aside following some links I stumbled upon this hilarious photo satire of the company in question.

In the meantime I had my own Flexible New Deal meeting today, can't fault the lady I see for this, she does understand my plight in being such a largely able, well qualified person with this one issue. I've signed up for this admin course with the local college as part of "Stage 3", so not yet having contact with the company in question, though am concerned if I may be by getting to the "Stage 4" point.

Comments on article about moving disabled people to 'jobseeker’ status

This Times article is about the current Opposition drawing up plans to shift 1.5m people who claim disability benefits on to jobseeker’s allowance within 12 months of taking office.

Many of the comments are rightly touching on the unwillingness of employers to take on disabled people. At the time of writing there are 43 comments, the top one when ordered "newest" (default) and one on page 4, really put the point. So many disabled people DO WANT TO WORK, but the EMPLOYERS WON'T take them on.

Being on this "Flexible Routeways" thing showed that there was still such a strong mentality of seeing it as being jobseekers who need to be coached rather than re-educating employers. What good did doing role-playing exercises there do me? In that time could my caseworker not have been talking to some employers?

The benefits system simply can't cope with modern working life

This Guardian article highlights the problem where the system falls apart when it has to respond to fluctuating incomes or rapid changes in people's circumstances. Many benefit claimants are now going into unstable jobs where the income and hours worked can vary wildly from week to week (eg commission-based, or agency work, or zero-hours contracts).

There's a good comment from "Pebb", a Citizen's Advice Bureau adviser, working with people with mental health problems, commenting on their "fight to have their disability recognised as real, finding that the promised 'support' to be provided by yet another private company has been in practice non-existent". Yep, can identify with this

Asperger, crime and the media

Thread on ASD-Forum about the problem of media reporting on criminals who are aspergers or autistic, quite a lot of debate on hacker Garry McKinnon.

I've just added my own comment, as if it wasn't already difficult enough trying to persuade an employer to choose me, without more tarring with the same brush in the media.