Socialist Organiser

The weekly of the fused Workers Socialist League, July 1981 to April 1984

TUC rubber stamp for Tory plans

Socialist Organiser no. 138, 30 June 1983 · scan p. 9 · about 299 words

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Where gramme that treats all schemes alike." By September 1981 the number of unvisited and hence uninspected YOP schemes was admitted by the MSC to total 36,496.

To cope with this growing backlog the MSC adopted the expedient of classifying schemes into those requiring a visit to check suspected abuse within three months of starting and less suspect (?) schemes that could wait 18 months for inspection. The MSC declined to disclose by what criteria schemes were to be classified as more or less hazardous but having established its new classification system the MSC then simply wrote off 36,000 visits from its backlog.

Even then there was no great improvement. Members of the civil service union CPSA calculate that by the beginning of 1982 only a third of the schemes due to be visited under the new criteria were actually visited, and telephone calls to employers were 'counted' as visits. OUT NOW!

36p including postage from Socialist Organiser, 28, Middle Lane, London N8 8PL. within the work experience on employers premises category (WEEP). At least 66% of those are on the premises of employers who employ ten or less workers, offering either one or two YOP places.

Yet the Area Boards have only looked at schemes involving twenty or more places, while the MSC's own recommendation is to examine for approval only those schemes offering forty of more places. Some area boards and giving approval to schemes about which they knew absolutely nothing. As a bemused trade union movement gropes for explanations for the electorate's clear preference for uncompromised and unsweetened Thatcherite medicine it could do a lot worse than start with an examination of its performance on behalf of YOPs, many of whom saw June 9 as their first opportunity to express an opinion on the matter.

← Contents of Socialist Organiser no. 138

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