Name and Shame Job Bridge

Jesus wept....Why am I NOT surprised by this???

JohnMarston wrote: »

Last week i was at a party in sligo. My mate who organised it is on a jobbridge scheme up there.

His boss, or mentor i should say was making him write out an internship description for the fas job bank to advertise for the internship he is currently on so someone can immeadiately replace him. Seeing as they cannot take someone on for the same role right after him, he needed to re-word his job title.

Jaysus, no recession with the parties i Sligeach!

ABajaninCork wrote: »

I just saw This thread here which has since been closed. It seems that if you do a Jobbridge, then you may not be eligible for Fuel Allowance.

Something to be aware of.

3. Will participants keep their secondary benefits (e.g. medical card, rent supplement, mortgage interest supplement, fuel allowance, etc) while participating in JobBridge?
Yes, participants will keep any additional benefits that they were receiving immediately prior to taking up an internship.


http://www.welfare.ie/EN/Press/PressReleases/2011/Pages/pr290611.aspx

I don't understand the problem??

If I do a college course and come out of it and don't qualify for the fuel allowance is that fair?

It's the same scenario. I could easily say "well if I hadn't done the course, I could have claimed for the last four years and I'd get it now"

ABajaninCork wrote: »

It's not the same. A college course and UB are like chalk & cheese. So it's silly to say that.

If you're long-term unemployed, then in order to qualify for the E23 Fuel Allowance, you have to be unemployed for 390 days (15 mths). This makes a big difference in the winter months.

Now. If you take a JB position, having been unemployed for say 300 days. The days that you are on the JB DO NOT count as time unemployed as you are taken off the Live Register. Which means that as you only have 300 qualifying days, you will not be able to claim FA, until the remaining 90 days are 'made up'

That is why it could potentially be a problem if you're not already claiming FA. I suspect it might also be a problem claiming Rent Allowance as well, but stand to be corrected on that.

Does the 390 days have a finite life? If someone is only just starting on the dole and they take a jobsbridge, they are prolonging their wait until they get fuel allowance...but aren't they also prolonging their entitlement to JSA?

If a wife loses her job, she is entitled to one of them for a year or whatever regardless of her husbands salary. After that time is up, she goes under the other scheme and is assessed on her husbands income. If she does an internship/course, it prolongs her own entitlement. If you want the scheme to count as being on the dole, it will fu$k those people over.

ABajaninCork wrote: »

You can't just start the dole and then take a JB. You have to be unemployed at least 3 months before you're considered for one. Whether you're on JSB (if you're lucky) or JSA (if you're unfortunate enough to have the stamps run out) doesn't matter.

When the JB ends, and you haven't been taken on by the host organisation or found alternative employment, you simply sign back on. That's it. So yes, the clock then starts 'running' again.

Sorry, I wasn't sure which was which - JSA/JSB

But my point is valid. Stopping the clock is hugely beneficial for those people who would be assessed on their partners income when their own entitlement runs out. I wouldn't say it's fair to screw them out of maybe 6 months payments for the sake of an odd person who has to wait a few months extra for a fuel allowance!

yore wrote: »

Sorry. My edits messed up the flow

This is my scenario.

Woman works for years, loses job on 1st Jan. Her husband has a good job so she won't get much at all, if anything, on JSA. Her stamps will run out on Dec 31st but on 1st June she gets a 9 month internship. She finishes this on 31st March and unfortunately has to sign on again. But as far as I'm aware, she will still have 6 months entitlements left whereas if you count the jobsbridge scheme as dole, she'd go for JSA and get feck all

I am the person who missed out on Fuel Allowance.

I am single and once my stamps ran out was put on JSA at the same rate. There is no other income to take into account and never was. Moving to JA was a simple procedure for me once I was means tested and I knew it would be.

Am not letting this go though. This is wrong no matter which way you look at it or try and dress it up.

So you would rather work on the Jobbridge in the summer, and struggle to pay the winter bills then as you can't claim FA if you haven't already? No, I didn't think so. And NO sunflower's case is NOT rare if you bothered to read the other thread. This will be happening more and more. Welfare haven't exactly made this clear if you read up about it.

In what case is are these people getting something for nothing? They've paid tax and paid stamps. What are you talking about??

I just hope you'll never be in this sorry position...

I replied, but rapidly got bored. Thread is being derailed by nonsense.

micromary wrote: »

Just think that Yore is one of those people who does not live in the real world. They live in cloud cuckoo land as far as i can make out.

Yeah you might be right.

You should write a heartwarming struggle of your story of survival against all odds in the real world. I'll send it over to some starving kids. It doesn't matter where, there are no shortage of them around the world. I just hope it makes them realise how lucky they are in their little bubbles of starvation and disease.

sunflower it's best to just ignore posts from people like yore who are of the opinion that all of the half a million people on the dole in this country are all scroungers and who does a dance of joy when he hears of a struggling person being denied an entitlement to help they need. Anyone who says things like 'i would just work jobbridge in the summer and get a job after and not be worrying about handouts' obviously has no idea of what the unemployed are facing. the fact that you are doing an internship shows you are not one who is happy to sponge and most would agree you should be entitled to fuel allowance since you are unable to find full time paid work (thanks in part, to the jobbridge free labour scheme).

The fact is that many people like sunflower and myself have been denied a 20 euro fuel allowance that they would otherwise be entitled to if they didn't do jobbridge. a large portion of people on jobbridge are in their first year of unemployment, ie: recent graduates, or people who have just been made redundant. they are not layabouts so they are doing something that they think is going to help them become more employable. And there's no way a person shouldn't be punished for that by being denied a fuel entitlement - after all, it's not a 'fun and games' entitlement, it's for heating your home, a basic need. Of course some people will think we just want the extra 20 for fags and booze but most of us don't.
In any case, when you consider that you earn 50 euro from the scheme but are simultaneously denied 20 euro because of the scheme, you are effectively working full time for euro a week or 6 euro a day. that is unacceptable to any sane person.

Also, the fact that this information is nowhere on their website or in the contract is a major concern. I believe it was most likely left off on purpose so that interns wouldn't know about it until it was too late and were faced with either leaving the internship and losing the fifty euro and on top of that still having to wait months until they qualified for fuel allowance, or stay on the scheme because they can't afford to heat our homes otherwise. I have contacted them and they said they intend to make the information more visible but have not done so yet.

The thread about interns not being able to get fuel allowance was closed, don't know why it was as it is obviously still a talking point, and this thread was more about name and shaming companies taking advantage of free labour which is very important because the government won't do scrap the scheme and companies will use it unless it hurts their bottom line, for example, if all of us who are unemployed or have family who are unemployed stop doing business with them. Tesco pulled out of the scheme we need to try and get other companies to do the same. Like Centra.

Finally getting around to what Ireally came to do: was post this link http://bit.ly/RBnYP4

This exact ad for a jobbridge intern was on the fas website two weeks ago as a paid position and has now changed into an internship. I guess someone must have sent Centra a memo about the free labour available on jobbridge.

Surely not even yore can defend the fact that large chain stores like Centra with a turnover of over half a billion a year are taking entry level jobs like working in shops out of the economy and replacing them with unpaid internships. That position would clearly be a job for someone in the community as working in a shop traditionally is.

In fact, if you do a search in my area (sligo) for jobs on the FAS website and for type enter the value: Jobs, you get 28 (a good portion of which are part time temporary, etc). When you enter Interns, you get 31. CE scheme =13. Says it all really about where this country is headed if schemes like Jobbridge are allowed to continue. It's either work for free or emigrate. And if you can't afford to emigrate and don't want to work for free, then you will be at the mercy of the government's crusade against welfare payments.

Well as a 36 year old with a degree in electronic engineering the only job I could find relevant to my degree and experience is now an internship in design wtf! it doesn't get more specialised than that.

As my wife is working when my stamps run out I'd get about €70 per week, childcare €280 per week + travel costs €30 so I'm down €240 per week.

And this for a position that would have been €22-€26k euro starting with no experience 5 years ago.

Another example my friend works for a specialised building services company his colleague who had the most experience in the company left for a job in England and was replaced with two interns straight out of school. Which basically means that my friend is doing both jobs and training in two numbnuts at the same time.

Some contract work I have been doing privately on and off for 3 years has also been given to an intern leaving me 5000-16000 euro out of pocket. This internship may be great for employers but its putting skilled people on the dole. I think its time to setup a company and hire some interns.

People. Things are about to get an awful lot worse!

See here

And here

Not content with trying to humiliate the unemployed, they're now trying to criminalise us!

Be afraid. Be very afraid.