World In Action - Working For A Pittance
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- čas přidán 12. 09. 2024
- Episode of World In Action from Monday 20th February 1978.
A look into the work, conditions and shockingly low pay of people with physical and mental disabilities employed in council and hospital workshops.
How we need World in Action today!
whirled in acton.
joking aren't you? there is no more actual journalism these days
I was bought up on watching these documentaries... Panorama, World In Action, etc..
From as young as 7, in 1969, I used to beg to be allowed to watch all of them. My parents would draw the line at violence or sexual themes.
The education I received watching these was by far the most valuable of my childhood.
6 years younger but exactly the same .
@@muckle8You started watching them at 1 year old?
@lanodramallama nooo they were on British tv well into the late 70’s
Agreed
How much did your parents pay for you to be "bought up"?
From a time when journalists on mainstream media set out to prove a point of morality and did not just act as a mouthpiece for the establishment response by the programmes end. Unlike the current affairs documentaries of today with their gimmick camera shots and over use of music.
Wish we still had stuff like this on mainstream tv but the money men have taken over.
jasonfury1
You took the words out of my mouth. I was just thinking the same thing.
This kind of pure investigative journalism is gone from British TV.
1991 UK broadcasting act definitely dumbed down British TV...it's a disgrace
Jasonfury1 I couldn't have put it better myself.
Granada tv and World in Action were trendsetters in the day. Real gritty current affairs.
True, too true
My thoughts exactly.
Dear God......how utterly a disgusting way to treat anyone with a disadvantage....
Sounds like a continuation of the workhouse.
rip off zero hour contra to gig economy not seen a person only a number save few £
Great program nothing as changed still people working for a pittance thanks for sharing this video
ITV should have retained World in Action for so many good reasons . Some of the stories were never reported anywhere else.
But can you imagine what utter bullshit they would report on today. Journalism is dead
Just imagine working all week for £400 and then having £100 taken away in tax and then having to pay rent at £1100 a month, vat at 20% and coucil tax at £1500 a year. Then on top of that, having energy bills of £300 a month.
Not happy ? Change your job then.
Get a better job, stop waiting for something to happen, make it happen
@@tonyireland2234 I retired at 50 😀
These old people have probably worked all their lives and should be enjoying their retirement .
It's November 2020 and I just saw medical spatulas being taken out of the original package to be put in a new one... by hand 😂 this wonderful man blowing air in a paper to pack already several times touched wooden "medical" 😂 spatula that then was being used/unpacked as a sterile spatula!!!!
And we're all still alive!!!!
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Hahahaha. I noticed that too. I don’t know why they bothered re-wrapping them, after they’d been handled so much. I suppose the advertising revenue was too tempting for the robber barons.
Shocking on so many levels!!!!!
I've just put a post up about that too, disgusting wasn't it! 😮
And the Tories apparently want disabled people to do this type of work from home saying that disabled people should work for their money. This is appalling treatment.
so what do you want disabled to do. Just sit at home and not work ? No dignity/no involvement with society ? In your world we'd just pay them to watch TV all day.
I'm watching with interest, i see Bert Massie talking at around 10:30. I can't help thinking good for him, more power to you. I looked him up, he died in 2017 but in his life he was knighted, amongst other awards and well educated, living through those old times as a disabled man. That guy was stronger and more motivated than pretty much everyone I know. Our society is so screwed up now, as it was then.
This is blatant slavery. A disgusting way to treat elderly and disabled people; the most vulnerable in society just so the super rich can become even wealthier. I'm saddened and appalled by what I'm seeing in this video.
And the DWP Tory minister wants to get disabled people back into work
I think these types of places used to be called workhouses. I remember by adopted grandmother who was born in 1894 saying,''if you don't pull your socks up you will end up in the workhouse''. And from what I gathered the workhouse was a place of punishment,where social failures ended up etc. There was never any pretence that the workhouse was of any therapeutic value. However,it seems some people believe that this sort of soul destroying work is of therapeutic value. I fail to see any value except to increase the profit margins for companies etc.......
Yes, the workhouse still thrives in different forms.
The workhouse wasn't a punishment it was a place for the poor, today we are looked after by the government but back then you had to rely on charity!
Yes I concur it was mostly due to poverty.
I remember world in action being depressing back in the day. I was 1 of 6 kids and my dad got made redundant. We had nowt. I think we are returning to those poverty levels. Just look at the debt levels. God help us all.
Thnaks for uploading these my mum loves this program
When i was growing up my mum worked in one of these centers.
I used to visit after school most days.
The center was for "mentally handicapped" they all had job like packing pens or stamping doctors' prescription pads.
I suspect they got paid a pittence.
But I think it was seen as someone for them to go, to get the out of the house.
I seem to remember it was a bit like a youth club, and they had parties etc.
I still see a couple of the "kids" as mum used to call them and they remember me.
I have fond memories of those times, but watching this video makes me realise they were exploited horribly.
A quick google search for an inflation calculator, and these wages work out at an average of £12.55 per week in today's money, with a maximum of about £25 a week. Absolutely disgusting.
Yes but now they just sit in there home all day rotting
It's terrible but I assume your calculations include the addition of any benefit payments?
Similar places in Australia know of one place $3 per hour
Who else would give them a job? Their screwed both ways😢
you dont need an effing calculator to know its beyond a p*ss take
All put together with film, not a professional video recorder in sight. It's fantastic what editors and producers of the day could do with the equipment they had. By the 1980s they had BetacamSP and by the 1990s Digital Betacam, making a huge difference to the way programmes were put together.
Makes me want to cry, what a world we live in😢
I'm from England, but have lived in Sacramento, for 40 years. In 1983, I was diagnosed with Epileptic Seizures, as my Seizures got worse. I was evaluated by The California Dept of Rehabilitation. They paid for me too go to school and retrain for an office job. My new job paid enough that I paid my mortgage, taxes and health insurance, without any problem.
I often wonder what ww1 and 2 were all about seeing this. The workhouse is alive and well it appears.
world war 1 was about European elites competing, as they always had, for the supremacy of their own, contrary, interests; not realising mechanisation had changed this game forever. They learned their lesson, and nearly earned their destruction, in the blood of millions. They now organise the exploitation of the poor largely along mutual and rational lines, and use violence only against those who cant afford long range ordinance.
World War 2 was initially about the mindless fanaticism which the poor and exploited revealed, once the old order had been thrown off (after the above); but was ultimately about a change of location for the Money Power: from the City of London to Wall Street, New York. Again, paid for in the blood of millions.
Any talk of democracy, freedom or justice was just pretty words. A lie to make young men think they were heroes for jumping into a meat grinder.
@@Ricky-oi3wv wow. I think that you may have hit the nail on the head. You don't count the dead when god's on your side.
@@madphil69 very wise words. No one more dangerous than the guy who thinks his cause is God's cause.
@@Ricky-oi3wv Well said!
@@Ricky-oi3wvyou are doing 100% correct.
Sadly the majority believe the mainstream lies about those two wars.
These poor people stuffing 100 Concorde wallets a day for rich privileged people flying to New York at a rate of around 26p an hour? .......vile.
this is effectively the workhouses of the Victorian era
This actually made me feel sick to watch. This government is sick. The way they treat the vulnerable is sickening.
God love them it's an outrage that the government allowed this to carry on.
@Addis Ababa human right act employment respect and equality and living wage
This is late 1970s, probably much changed now
@Addis Ababa they are all the same shithouses
@@Keithbarber nothing changed , if any thing mush worst
@@seansands424 do you have a working example?
Christ, don't let the Tories see this 😬
AI will do this now all it wants is WD40! Tories shut Remploy
Jim Callaghan (Labour, Cardiff South East) saw it and it made him semi-erect.
I was thinking the same
Nothing’s changed then.
Nothing mate. Looking at that video just shows even the disabled and the sick being exploited for their labor and typically it's the weakest they prey on as they can't fight back. This is what the multi million £ conglomerates love, getting the cannon fodder in to exploit them daft.
Near smacked the screen when I heard the phrase "Industrial Therapy". Up the Gers, btw.
One thing I noticed they never spoke to any of the workers to see how they felt about it. Sad really.
Makes me think twice now about all the Britain's, Matchbox, Corgi and Dinky toys I had as a little boy in the seventies. I was 7 year's old in 1978.
Why did the parents or guardians allow their loved ones to go to these places if they were taking advantage! I certainly would not!!!
So society shafted the vulnerable. Why am I not surprised?
6:17 - I can see these two guys in a Littlewoods catalogue, proudly sporting their vest & pants, while pointing into the distance! :-)
Lol... mental imagery is running wild
Like the old WORKHOUSES! DISGRACEFUL!
Shocking!!! Absolutely Shocking!!!
it was the basis of REMPLOY now very sadly gone ,, REMPLOY helped me back to work after a large gap due to becoming disabled , looks better on a CV or in an interview than sitting around ,, the type of work i do now i would never have even dreamed of doing if it wasn't for remploy ,,, and yet i'm now in work where i'm the happiest i have been in my working life
You know what I used to put on my CV ? Lies and they never checked I even put on it I got all my GCSES , I only got entered for 2 😂
@@kingkong81icloud🤣🤣🤣🤣
Shocking..now they just outsource it to Chinese kids!
Does anybody think about the African children going underground, to source the lithium and cobolt for their phones and electric cars. Believe me, they don’t have any health and safety protection, or regulation.
People thought things were good bad then, but they can always get worse. Remember the outcry when Remploy was actually shut? Suddenly realising that however exploitative these practices were they were better than absolutely nothing whatsoever. Which is where we are now. At least there was a minibus turning up at someone's door. Some friendly faces to say hello and chat to. People to talk to while you worked,a cooked lunch. There is nothing now. Whether you are ill, elderly, disabled there is absolutely nothing and no-one. People can sit at home and die without anyone to even notice. And this was quite unusually bad..I worked in occupational therapy,we had a garden centre and other areas had them. They were extremely popular, both with clients and the buying public. It breaks my heart when I drive past all those sites now. Either boarded up or built on with horrid little shoebox houses. I hate to think about the people who were once served and what a callous society we've become.
I can’t watch this. This was so wrong. These people are disabled, not worthless. Everyone has worth.....and it’s worth more than this.
Hate people who exploit the vulnerable.
Extraordinary statement from the directors, shows UK wasn't better than East Germany or even Ceaucescus Romania!
Problem then was about greedy unions, unimaginative, class ridden bosses, patronising attitudes all round.
OMG this absolutely disgusting I'm speechless Britain should be ashamed.
Absolutely disgusting. This documentary made my blood boil. Absolute exploitation.
Sad 😢
Not much difference to today for nearly all workers…
I worked in a factory making car seats. A similar repetitive type of work. Even as an able bodied person, my weekly pay was 36 pounds a week. This was clearly exploitation of the disadvantaged.
Shocking !
"The good old days".
A great sense of community
Jesus this is awfull nothing but slavery. So backwards
slavery / workhouse
I always thought day centres were there to help handicapped and elderly people and not to exploit them by making them work for long hours for a pittance. This is a disgusting national disgrace.
Well that was depressing! I think I’d rather be dead than live that miserable existence.
Ah this is rishi sunmak template. Just wait and see.
can you imagine ,friday sorry we have run out of pound notes. You will have to have a jam sandwich and a bag of crisps .
Yuk, handling those spatulas 🤨
Dressed up workhouses!
this is shocking! i hope this has since been abolished in the uk
it is now disguised as a regular job
Yes,and with zero hour contracts :(
This government has cut disability and welfare for these poor people as well as Zero hour contracts
its coming back big time no we are leaving the EU
@Rex makepeace But you have a democratic right to vote n EU elections. So these people are elected. I know I vote in EU elections. To think such ignorance causes folk to vote 'leave'.
i had no idea this was a thing. and i was a small kid when this episode was shown. the music of doom 😁 so you'd think i would have found out about such horrible practices by now. but nooo, i only find out about it today, on youtube...
Bring back World in action
1978, that would have been a Labour government in power then.
Yes ! so no hysterical ranting on the boards about greedy tories. 1978 was also the year the doctors went on strike and put pickets on hospitals (another World in Action doc) so much for our sacred cow NHS.
Yes, they should have been paid more for the work they did. We must consider, however, that being with others, being engaged in some sort of activity, even if it's mundane, is better than sitting and rotting away in a nursing home or in a mental institution. The latter were closed down here in the States and now there are an abundance of of mentally ill people who are homeless or in prison. The nursing home situation is terrible, and the elderly are subjected to neglect and abuse.
correct and if you do wish to try to improve yourself to another job it is better to show you have done something on your CV rather than sitting around which was the idea of remploy , now sadly gone , as they helped me back to work in my happiest work environment since becoming disabled
I agree like you said its better than not being active
and just rotting doing nothing at all some of those people may have gone into
Better work hopefully thay did
Reading the comments, it doesn't seem that anyone appreciates the potential upside of these work programmes. All of the people shown seem to be working in quite pleasant conditions, good lighting, heating and the company of others. The low pay received appears to be topped up by other payments from the local council. Activity of any kind is really important if you don't have a job. Society needs to make the most of the opportunities that commerce can provide. Is it better that people are paid to do nothing?
Profiteering and exploitation of the most vulnerable in society. It could be 2023.
2011 23 quid a week in a sales job, moved on a bit since now getting 400 quid a week 25 hours which is not bad for the hours.
I remember one these when I was young at bottom of our street it was known as the deaf and dumb centre I thought they went to have a good time and be cared for how naive I was when I was young I should have known better
Now using Eastern Europeans (Romanian, Bulgarians). If the minimum wage was much higher, this would not exist. But UK governments no longer intervene in the market. Capitalism in all its glory.
Unbelievable... I had no idea that this (I would say “criminal “) was going on...
bet the tories love this
They love this, cocaine, and pædophilia...
futtocks23 this was under a labour government you fanny
Labour were in power in 1978
such a childish comment
As bad as this looks I would much rather do this than be stuck infront of daytime TV all day. And let's not pretend we are better than this now, we just send the work further afield to the 3rd world where its still being done for pennies by children, elderly and disabled in much worse conditions. It's just we don't see it so we don't care. Atleast when it was here it helped to fund the care system. With a bit of improvement the system could still be good today. There are more ways people can help the country than just paying taxes and with more and more jobs going and the population rising we need to find them.
The government would love to start this slave work up again for the disabled and old ,
Also YTS (Youth Training Schene), AT ( Adult Training) then ET (Employment Training) and earliest one was YOP (Youth Oppertunity Programme) and Manspower Scheme run by 70s Labour.....just ask your mum and dad.
was on yts in 1985 25 pound a week workerd on golf course 0600 till 1600 everyday
France fair and just for all. I have lived here since 1995
bollocks its a mess
should be introduced again...
Nice hygiene with the sticks
World in action fought to help these people…..who are now all living in shop doorways.
"Industrial Therapy Unit"
rip off say them this living wage
Yes thats what they were called. very theraputic ?????
Do you know why we're here? It certainly isnt to pay bills and die!
I know this is still done in the US
Absolutely scandalous what lengths the governments will stretch too when dealing with the people with learning difficulties etc...
Absolutely diabolical and disgusting I was born in the year this was made 1978 how glad am I that the uk of 2024 has moved on in certain areas of prejudice .
Some people here seem to forget the main word that was highlighted at the beginning - "VOLUNTARY" - If they don't want to do it, then don't, if they want a proper job with wages, then let them go and get one, no one is forcing them. Most of these people are glad to get out of their houses and meet friends.
Sour milk and stale bread. Bit over dramatic. Capable of work and and look happy to be working.
@@billybobblogs8553 rubbish.if they work they should be paid properly.
At last- someone who thinks 🤟
Proper jobs for them simply weren’t available due to employee disability discrimination. Voluntary was another way of legitimasing the exploitation. You can’t get away with these practices nowadays.
Even the great investigative Word In Action was terminated by the powers that be AND ARE ...
World in Action and Spitting Image were axed about 6 months after Tony Blair came to power ... so go figure.
They'll be making iPhones if this was now!
no chance of making I Phones. Disabled people in the UK would earn far more than the Chinese doing the I Phones now.
@@saints16o5o87 : Actually if the charity sector picks back up... those kind of iPhone work.. I think this might just uplift UK's economy actually. Now I get why World Action was and had disappeared from the broadcasting and is never on the repeat of programmes. Cos frankly... this does show us how much we have moved forward.
Do you know.. even a "maid " in HK.. who earns around 6000 hk dollars. (Which locals say that it is very low.) Ends up actually around 11 million rupees back in Indonesia. (And they live in beautiful high skyline towers.....) I think people need to wake up a little bit in all honesty.
@@MeiinUK I was told by mother in law to pay our full-time nanny, washing machine, cleaner, cook and dishwasher £25 a month for me and my 4 kids in rural Philippines. I gave her £150 when we left and she first looked overjoyed then begged me not to tell my m-i-l . Thats a sustainable living there though very poor.
Things are far better now. My kids easily find work to suit round college and university. After this TV show though things got far worse for everyone. De industrialisation didn't just ruin lives it destroyed towns and cities. When I left school 1988 there was 0 job's for schooleavers at job centre or careers office even with 8 O levels. If your parents were laid off you had no chance as the only work went to tbose whose parents got them in.
@@saints16o5o87 : You live in the Philippines ? Do you realise that 25 pound back then was a lot of money?
I quote... my mobile phone back in 1998... was around 300 pounds.. but when the currency exchange rates were checked.. it was around 500 000 yuans. And I can tell you that... in the 1940s.... china had "silver rmb"... and some "communists areas" (aka...."imperial elite areas.. and their descendents"....) Had no money. They can live off the land as they wish. And do not need to pay any more taxes, cos their ancestors already worked on the farm and paid off the lands. So no capitalism at all.
"1948 at a rate of 1 Gold Yuan to 3 million Yuan Fǎbì. That same year, the Yuan Renminbi (often called RMB) was introduced as a way to help stabilize the Communist held areas of mainland China. In 1955, a re-evaluation took place and a new Yuan Renminbi was introduced at a rate of 1 new Yuan to 10,000 old Yuan."
@@MeiinUK I live in Scotland. My kids grandma moved to UK mid 70s worked her ass off for 40 years retired and built a Palace for pennies back home. When I go we have a "nanny " a slave in essence giving the money. This comment relates to 2015. 60 pezos to the pound I remember.
bert massey was from liverpool like me i remember him driving a yellow firebird pontiac car i was a child then
05:33 .. I don't believe it! I think the drawing pin company should have been sent packing (no pun intended). Poor sods! My wife worked with the mentally handicapped for decades, ATC was it? ...She never said what she did. I also had no idea this was done in Day Centres. All the same I have respect for what they must have done. I've done big batch repetitive work and it takes focus and application to get thro the day. Respect to you all, at least there is a place with somewhere to go, familiar faces and some chit-chat to get thro the day; whats the alternative nowadays, stuck in some bungalow 'out in the community' watching the telly? And the 'wages' ... as is stated the oh so clever benefits system makes it stupid to pay them any more, their life is structured and have mostly all they need I'm guessing. Easy to criticise but it is not all downside.
Its still a huge con this.taken advantage of people its vile.
Surely a maxium of £4.00 a week was illegal ? I earn more than that in half an hour.
£4 a week would only be worth £21 a week today
good news, children in 3rd world countries do that work now. so we have real progress
Despicable!!!!
I think this happened in a purpose built ‘village’ just outside of Andover in Hampshire starting just after WW1
No gloves on slicing them Lemons!
how things have changed. A 16 year old would make £4.00 an hour now. How hygienic is it for people to put spatulas for health care use in to new sleeves by hand !
I breast fed my baby as i was too lazy to prepare bottles and formula milk. Honestly breast is best and no prep needed. Sooooo easy, once the pain goes, then its fine.
Sickening! 😡
Disgraceful...
It's a great idea, gets them out of the house. Media always trying to destroy the credibility of businesses.
This all still happens in the US
Really
Slave labour and it still goes on today! Found it quite disgusting though what they were doing with them spatulas as the doctor puts that into your mouth to look at your throat and they were handled! Not the workers fault as they were just doing what was asked of them!
Not much has changed and it never will,while the government and business owners are just screaming,more,more,more,while they have many times more than they could imagine ever needing.
Is... is this real?! I'm waiting for the camera to pan to Chris Morris.
Isn't it better for the workers to be doing something rather than being homeless on the street?
cockle picking maybe ?
One minute in and it is obvious why they are lowly paid; poor productivity,...if they were on piece rate they'd be paid in washers as they are too slow. sad.
they were on piece rate
@@raycroal ...and that's why they were so poorly paid.
@@raycroalthey weren’t actually being paid. O suspect that most of them were in receipt of benefits, probably with the disability element, and all the additional benefits.
@@jaijai5250
As the presenter said more than once:
a) they were actually being paid
b) they were on piece rates
c) they were receiving State benefits
d) their pay was capped to keep within the maximum they could earn while claiming State benefits.
absolutely awful 💔
Sickening.