UK-wide day of action against workfare – Saturday 3rd March

From Boycott Workfare

In solidarity with Liverpool Uncut’s action against workfare on Saturday 3rd March, Boycott Workfare has called a national day of action against workfare. There’s already actions planned in Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, London, Leeds, Sheffield and Tunbridge Wells (with Glasgow, Lincoln, Notts and others planning!). Why not visit your high street as well?

So many high street stores are involved in taking on forced unpaid labour that there is plenty of choice – Tescos, Asda, Holland & Barrett, Primark, HMV, and Topshop to name but a few. Get a group together, make a plan, and head to the streets.

Workfare means that those who need welfare are forced into unpaid work for multi-million pound companies. Instead of a living wage, they receive only JSA – a tiny £53 a week for the under-25s – far below minimum wage.

Workfare means those in paid positions may see their jobs replaced by this unpaid labour. Why would a company pay for people to do these jobs when they can get free labour from the Job Centre?

We can put a stop to this forced unpaid labour – Waterstones, Sainsburys and TK Maxx have all recently announced that they would no longer take unpaid placements – the other companies just need a bit more encouragement to stop this exploitation.

We demand an end to this exploitation and call for welfare rights and living wages for all!
If you continue to exploit us we WILL shut you down!

Details of actions:

  • Birmingham – 11.30am outside Poundland on Union Street. Facebook event.
  • Brighton - Brighton Benefits Campaign are picketing Tesco in Jubilee Street (opposite Jubilee Square) from 12 noon. See Facebook event. Brighton Youth Fight for Jobs & Education are picketing Tesco in St James’s Street Kemp Town from 11.30am.See Facebook event.
  • Bristol – 12 noon at College Green. More info.
  • Cardiff - 2pm Outside Poundland on Queen Street. See Facebook event.
  • Leeds - See Facebook event. And join the Tesco demo on Monday 20th Feb.
  • Liverpool – Take action with UK Uncut, 1pm until 4pm. Meet Next to Nowhere Social Centre, Bold Street, Liverpool. More info
  • London, Oxford Street – Meet outside BHS on Oxford Street, 11:30am. More info and download a leaflet.
  • London, Hackney – See Facebook event.
  • Sheffield – Meet Devonshire Green, Sheffield, 1pm. We will meet at 1pm and decide on a target. See Facebook event.
  • Tunbridge Wells – Meet at the Millennium clock in Tunbridge Wells at 12 noon.

Let us know what you’re planning. The campaign is UK-wide!

above pic found at: http://theredeyeportal.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/tesco-value-slave-labour/

5 Responses to UK-wide day of action against workfare – Saturday 3rd March

  1. watchdfog looking into ATos

  2. United StereoTypes of Unemploymnet

    The businesses are protected by the law. It’s a bad move.
    You should peacefully protest outside Jobcentre Plus Nationwide,

    Monday to Friday during office hours. Go home when they close, then back when they open. Use the Jobcentre Plus job points and do a jobsearch every hour on the hour. You know it makes sense.

    This is “Actively seeking employment” in the public eye. The Gov will make you the bad guys if you take on the companies. They are all pals.

  3. United StereoTypes of Unemployment (USTU - We also want a piecew of the pie!)

    The businesses are protected by the law. It’s a bad move.
    You should peacefully protest outside Jobcentre Plus Nationwide,

    Monday to Friday during office hours. Go home when they close, then back when they open. Use the Jobcentre Plus job points and do a jobsearch every hour on the hour. You know it makes sense.

    This is “Actively seeking employment” in the public eye. The Gov will make you the bad guys if you take on the companies. They are all pals.

    • United StereoTypes of Unemployment (USTU - We also want a piece of the pie!)

      United StereoTypes of Unemployment
      USTU – We also want a piece of the pie!

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s