Well that shows your ignorance of the jobs that are available in museums. Curators of various collections and so on are highly qualified people. There are other jobs in the educational departments of large museums that require specialist subject knowledge.

Sal Paradise - rlfans no. 1 philistine.

Are suggesting working part time while volunteering elsewhere in order to further ones ambitions for a better career is work-shy and free-loading behaviour? Or is that kind of thing only acceptable for people from wealthy backgrounds funded by rich parents who can therefore afford to work for nothing as interns?

Social mobility? Obviously not allowed in Standee-land.

How is doing 16 hours at Morrisons workshy freeloading?

I understand that workers freeload on a number of things like staff toilets. Why bother using the toilets at home when you can use them at work? Might as well keep your own water bill down

Then of course there's the staff discounts you get for working in a supermarket. Some people work more hours for those discounts which is an outrage!

I'm not up to speed on this one, how does it work?

Do Poundland (etc) claim that they are taking on staff-for-free for positions that they otherwise would not fill? i.e., Extra staff just to give those staff work-experience?
If so, how is that verified?
Or do Poundland (etc) simply rotate staff that they get for free whilst the taxpayer picks up the bill?
If the latter, then IDS has a feckin nerve criticising tax credits (which IMHO should be reduced/abolished and a living wage introduced instead).

This one is not done and dusted. There is still the possibility of an appeal to the Supreme Court. Curious - should said girl lose in Supreme Court who will cover the Government's legal costs?

That regardless, this whole episode has probably done her career prospects no good. She will now be listed as a potential trouble causer who employers will probably choose to avoid.

Still, so long as Phil Shiner and his mates have made a few quid out of it job's a good 'un.

It's the latter though they may try and dress it up as the former. Poundland say that they have slots free to give the unemployed some work experience and the girl in question was given the job for two weeks. The Job Centre tells an unemployed person this opportunity has arisen and that they must accept the post or lose their job seekers allowance. Poundland doesn't pay the employee (or the government) a penny for the persons services.

The case of the older bloke is actually worse as that would have involved him working 30 hours a week for his £71 JSA for six months. Tax payer funded exploitation and nothing less.

I don't know about you, but I *am* an employer and I can tell you with certainty that this young lady has shown exactly the type of intiative and determination that a lot of organisations would value.

In my experience, people who have a history of running to the employment tribunal quickly get blacklisted in the industry they work.

This is not quite the same, but I think you can see the point I am trying to make.

Hand's up who has been waiting for the above tripe from Standee?

She worked for poundland for free because her JSA was not a wage and she recieved no wages from Poundland. It was a benefit provided to help her seek work. If you want to argue her JSA was her pay for working at pound-land then she would have been being paid less than minimum wage which is illegal. Her JSA simply cannot be considered pay in exactly the same way other benefits those on a low income receive are not considered pay. They are benefits.

If you think (as I am sure you do) people should accept work placements like this then when they do get put on such schemes they should be paid the minimum wage and the employer should pay it, not the taxpayer.

Please enlighten us all what you would do for under £80 a week?

I get the impression that you want the unemployed to be overworked for as little money as possible.