Work for dole

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Coil

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#2021653 24-May-2018 10:05

MikeAqua:

Coil:

I and most people here know a lot of stonners, The ones I know work in construction, electrical and bars. One goes to work stonned.
Not one of them has had an accident that you could attribute to being stonned over or stonned at work.

You can engage is risky behaviour and get away with it for quite long period of time - until the day you don't. Like the way my generation drove in our 20s. Most of us got away with it.

The employer is liable, so they can reasonably require workplace testing if they have a safety sensitive workplace. But it has to be in the employment agreement.

That is because you're dealing with a risk, Anything can happen. I have seen builders shoot their fingers with nail guns and those guys were not drug users. I do not know of a single builder personally that has shot themselves with their gun who is a drug user... I am not proclaiming drugs are fine but more to the fact that people like to blame something. People also crash cars when they are not drunk. Going back around to the fact we live in a society where a blame must be given.

Hammerer

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#2021689 24-May-2018 11:11

MikeB4:

I simply will not accept that someone is unemployable. As for the subject of Benefit abuse is a whole different topic and again very complex, nothing is a simple as it may seem.

I think that there are always options for usefully employing people but there is a line beyond which some people cannot work. People on life support or similarly incapacitated are the obvious example which I expect everyone would agree upon. But for those we cannot agree upon much of the arguments are about where that line is and how the system should treat those over the line.

I think that someone can be economically unemployable because there is no way to get a positive economic return from employing them. Until the mid-1980s many such people had "lifetime" jobs in the public sector working for NZ Rail, NZ Post Office and IRD. While I still consider it a reasonable socio-economic cost to subsidise their employment, the dominant political-economic policy of the time did not and current policies don't really consider going back to such widespread subsidisation of full-time employment.

MikeB4:

Works for alms has been tried many times and many times it has failed

By the way, you cannot have "work for alms" because, by definition, alms are freely given. If they are contingent upon work then the money moves into a different category.

My view of the social welfare mess is that the different goals work against each other: we want people in work but we are penalising them for taking on risky work with low-pay, no security/tenure, or that is seasonal; we want people to live in dignity but we don't want them to avoid work that they are able to do; and so on.

We currently move everyone into benefit categories that cover many circumstances and have big steps (i.e. one week paid full benefit, next week paid nothing). This over-simplification or over-rationalisation produces all sorts of difficulties when it comes to delivering specific policy goals. So I wonder if it could be better to have multiple benefits that each match specific goals so people received payments for specific purposes, the steps are not so big, and people can easily see how their economic circumstances can be improved by incremental changes in their behaviours and circumstances.

It would be more complicated but the application of each individual benefit would be clearer. The complexity could be handled using computer technology. Perhaps we end up with a menu of benefits that can be applied. We could also have tapering at the start and end of each benefit as the current steep cut-offs are a problem:
To reduce the impact of losing a job: Benefit for transition out of short-term or long-term employment.
To assist with the higher costs of moving into a new job: Benefit for transition out of short-term or long-term unemployment.
To cover the basic costs of running a household: Rental/household support.
To reduce child poverty: Resident child support benefit.
To encourage people to look after sick relatives/friends: Resident invalid support.
etc.

frankv

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#2021812 24-May-2018 13:20

Coil:

That is because you're dealing with a risk, Anything can happen. I have seen builders shoot their fingers with nail guns and those guys were not drug users. I do not know of a single builder personally that has shot themselves with their gun who is a drug user... I am not proclaiming drugs are fine but more to the fact that people like to blame something. People also crash cars when they are not drunk. Going back around to the fact we live in a society where a blame must be given.

I don't think there's any doubt that drugs or alcohol increases the risk of accidents. They reduce the ability to think rationally and assess risks, and some also slow down reaction times. A few anecdotes about drunk or stoned people who didn't injure themselves on some occasions doesn't outweigh the peer-reviewed research that says that they are more likely to.

I don't see it as blaming the drugs; they are inanimate objects, after all. It is the responsibility of the person taking the drugs.

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