{"id":24157,"date":"2020-10-09T12:18:25","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T11:18:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=24157"},"modified":"2020-10-09T16:08:34","modified_gmt":"2020-10-09T15:08:34","slug":"crass-and-insensitive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=24157","title":{"rendered":"‘Crass and insensitive’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When work and pensions and secretary Therese Coffey said in an interview this week<\/a> that her relative anonymity meant she was doing her job well, she may not have anticipated how her shocking comments in the very same interview would thrust her straight into the spotlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coffey is now facing a massive backlash after she told the Spectator<\/em><\/a>that cabin crew members who lose their jobs amid the coronavirus crisis should simply retrain to be care workers or nurses instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0098How do we help draw out of [workers like cabin crew] the transferable skills that they have and that could be working in social care?\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt may not be their dream job for the rest of their lives. But it may well be very useful: they get more money coming in than if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re on benefits and it can also provide something really valuable and rewarding so there are those sorts of things where we are going to try and help people think through what it is they can do, even if it is only for the next two to three years.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coffey also added, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure other cabin crew as well who are male could make equally good nurses. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just whether or not people want that as a complete lifestyle change.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her comments were met withfury by cabin crew who face the destruction of their entire careers after the government has failed to deliver on its promise to grant the aviation industry sector-specific support as other countries in Europe and globally have done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The social care industry in particular is rife with exploitation. Despite its vital importance especially amid a pandemic, it is among the lowest paid sectors in the UK \u00e2\u20ac\u201c care workers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 average wage is a mere \u00c2\u01418.10 an hour. More than half of social care workers earn less than the real living wage<\/a> and are four times more likely to be on zero-hours contracts than the average worker. \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And contrary to Coffey’s claims that cabin crew who have retrained as care workers would have “more money coming in than if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re on benefits”, the typical care worker’s wage is so low that many of them have to claim Universal Credit just to survive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But instead of calling to fix the broken care system where low pay and exploitation dominates \u00e2\u20ac\u201c or press her government to ensure a future for aviation — Coffey instead has blithely suggested cabin crew accept a fate of poverty pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the first time Coffey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tone-deaf comments have sparked anger \u00e2\u20ac\u201c earlier this week, Coffey said that there was a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098silver lining\u00e2\u20ac\u2122  to the coronavirus pandemic<\/a> that the Tory party \u00e2\u20ac\u0098can take advantage of\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 to deliver on a manifesto promise of \u00e2\u20ac\u0098levelling-up\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the summer, Coffey again publicly demonstrated her crassness after responding to a tweet by footballer Marcus Rashford,<\/a> who was then pressing the government to extend free school meal vouchers throughout the summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rashford tweeted, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bwhen you head to the fridge to grab the milk, stop and recognise that parents of at least 200,000 children across the country this morning are waking up to empty shelving.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also wrote, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhen you wake up this morning and run your shower, take a second to think about parents who have had their water turned off during lockdown.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coffey then responded to Rashford\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tweets, noting that \u00e2\u20ac\u015bwater cannot be disconnected though\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 to which she faced a barrage of criticism. She later her deleted her tweet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Responding to Coffey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s latest comments on the suggestion that cabin crew should retrain as care workers, Unite national officer for civil air transport Oliver Richardson said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bTherese Coffey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s comments are just crass. They are as insensitive as they are ill informed and only serve to show how out of touch government is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAviation workers throughout the UK are worried sick about their future and quite literally don’t know if they’ll have a job next week,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bTens of thousands of aviation workers have already lost their jobs. Her focus as minister of work should be on saving as many jobs as possible, not throwing in the towel on a vitally important sector of the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The real problem is that the aviation industry is still waiting for the support package promised by the chancellor seven months ago,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he went on to say. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt is this delay and the failure to echo the support that other countries have provided for their aviation sectors that is seeing UK jobs go at an alarming rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If the minister really wants to help aviation workers she should speak to her colleague the chancellor and get him to deliver the financial support he promised way back in March.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Hajera Blagg<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When work and pensions and secretary Therese Coffey said in an interview this week that her relative anonymity meant she was doing her job well, she may not have anticipated how her shocking comments in the very same interview would thrust her straight into the spotlight. Coffey is now facing a massive backlash after she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24158,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1308,17],"tags":[626,1322,511,1295,1082,595,1446],"wps_subtitle":"Cabin crew should retrain as care workers? This isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the first time DWP secretary Therese Coffey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s comments have sparked fury","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24157"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24157"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24179,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24157\/revisions\/24179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}