After penalising people for failing to downsize to accommodation which simply (in very many cases) is not available, or is perhaps available at still more cost to the taxpayer, the Government is now considering penalising employees for not taking on extra shifts which may not even exist:
One million of Britain’s lowest paid employees will be classed as “not working enough” and could find themselves pushed with the threat of sanctions to find more income under radical changes to benefits, the Department for Work and Pensions has said.
DWP internal documents seen by the Guardian reveal that people earning between £330 to around £1,050 a month – just under the rate of the national minimum wage for a 35-hour week – could be mandated to attend job centre meetings where their working habits will be examined as part of the universal credit programme.
The demands to jump through various job-seeking hoops are bad enough for those who are not working. If you are in fact working most of the week, getting to the job centre for a meeting may be particularly tricky. And part time jobs don’t always neatly combine into a regular 35 hour week. If you are juggling changing shifts, perhaps on a zero hours contract, it may be almost impossible to commit to a further part time post to take you past £1050.00 a month. (And although not all zero hours contracts include an ‘exclusivity clause’ employees who make themselves unavailable by accepting shifts elsewhere may fall into disfavour.)
As Liam Byrne points out:
“What this out-of-touch government fails to realise is that there simply aren’t that many extra shifts to go around. Millions are locked out of work and millions more are desperate to increase their hours.”
This was a particularly weaselly comment from the DWP:
“Too many people in low-income work have no support to help them earn more and eventually move to independence.”
