Olympics

[Tiberius]

Once the contract is made it covered the stewards for both events.

Oh my goodness. You realize the "contracts" that the articles are referring to are the contracts the government had with the company (CPUK) right? When the article mentions the word "contract" it does not mean the contracts of the workers.

To qualify to work at the Olympics workers had to go through the assessment at the jubilee as stated in the reports from the jubilee. So if you were coerced to sign up for the jubilee because the stewards contract covered both events my statement is proven is it not?

If you read the BBC article, you will find the following:

Close Protection said the unpaid roles were a trial for paid positions at the 2012 Games, for which it also has a contract to provide stewarding.

The company, which is based in Wigan, said it paid for meals for all the Jubilee volunteers, accommodation on the night after the event as well as supplying their clothing, equipment and licences to undertake the work.

But Ms Prince said steps had been taken "to ensure that better logistics planning will be in place for the Olympics".

The charity Tomorrow's People, which set up some of the placements at Close Protection UK, said it did not approve of unpaid work but in this case believed that it was valid work experience.

None of this is what you argued, which was:

"the unemployed would have had their benefits removed if they did not 'volunteer'"

There is no mention of the removal of benefits in any of this. The unpaid work was valid work experience, and was done as a trial for paid positions at the Olympics. The deal was, if you wanted a paid job for the Olympics, you had to work for free during the Jubilee. That is hardly coercion; you'll find a lot of companies take on unpaid interns and will employ the ones that perform the best later.