Join the online action today against workfare exploiters @SUBWAYUKIreland in solidarity with #fastfoodrights. Tell them what you think on facebook, or for more info go to: http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?p=3436
The Week of Action Against Workfare begins today with actions across the UK and online scheduled over the next seven days.
The week has been called in response to mass unpaid work schemes such as Traineeships and comes in the month that Community Work Placements are set to be launched. These mandatory placements will mean unemployed people forced to work in at charities and in so-called community organisations for a period of six months.
In a huge embarrassment for Iain Duncan Smith, workfare’s biggest supporters The Salvation Army have already announced that this scheme is too exploitative even for them to stomach. The charity had been invited by the DWP to bid for a lucrative sub-contract to administer the placements. Other charities are also rumoured to be pulling out of the scheme – watch this space or keep an eye on Boycott Workfare’s website and twitter feed @boycottworkfare.
Protests and actions are already planned this week in Cardiff (tomorrow and on Friday April 4th) , Edinburgh, Liverpool, Brighton, Swansea and Glasgow. Feel free to post details of additional events in the comments.
Online events will also be taking place throughout the week, I’ll try post them here but visit Boycott Workfare’s website for the latest news and join the facebook page for the week of events.
Please share, blog and tweet details of all events.
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the void 
Yes it’s official: The UK treats the unemployed worse and in a more draconian way than they treat criminals. What message does this send out to society?
Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog and commented:
Although the campaign against workfare goes on, there has been some excellent new: the Salvation Army has refused to bid for placements on this scheme. Here’s hoping that there will be a few more such organisations finding their conscience before too long.
Reblogged this on UNEMPLOYED IN TYNE & WEAR.
I’m fighting in spirit and if I can attend a local demo then I will.
Show the world, not just the rest of the country, just how the vulnerable and unemployed are treated by our so called government!
Reblogged this on Jay's Journal and commented:
Please reblog this so that others can join in in some way. Slave labour has to be stopped!
Pingback: Week Of Action Against Workfare Begins: Please ...
Reblogged this on Christopher John Ball and commented:
We are told that there is widespread support for policies such as Workfare. If you support workfare you may have someone on it working with you – if so, stop and think. If you are happy that the company you work for can get someone to do YOUR job for nothing, why will the company you work for think YOU are worth Zero + your wage to do your job? Why will said company give you overtime when they can get someone to do the job full time for nothing? Why will your company look favourably upon your desire for a wage increase? What bargaining tools do you have for a wage increase when the person next to you is doing your job for nothing? Still support workfare? Workfare is designed to lower your wages, it is designed to scapegoat others in your eyes so you blame them and divert your attention away from the bankers and politicians, the ones who caused the international economic mess.
I urge all to support this week of action against the Coalition workfare programme – it will be in your future interests to do so.
Has, anyone on this blog been sent on work experience by Jobcentre ??
I was sent on four week MWA by the lame JCP fuckers through a Seetec appointment back in Feb 2012. Waste of my time as I asked them to contract me into a charity shop for that period ( I already have 9 years full experience of working in voluntary shops), but did they listen? Did they fairy cakes. They sent me off to something completely out of my league and not where I could have used my vast experience in retail or warehousing.
Shut the fucking work programme down. It has failed me by trying to make me like a criminal and undermined by abilities to better myself on my own terms. They don’t fucking know me or what I can offer to an employer – they just want to be paid money for ‘results’ – not real job prospects.
I did 4 weeks Mandatory Work Activity just before Christmas, shortly after finishing the Work Programme.
I have asked at my local jobcentre the last two occasions I signed and the staff still are not sure what will be available in terms of workfare. All they say is it might be working in a charity shop or something that helps the local community. I’m expecting to be the first one called in where I live to be put on workfare but the way it’s going it is going to be a botched up rush job just to get people on some kind of voluntary work regardless of their experiences or needs. Say no and get a sanction, the staff won’t care.
By now I would have thought an official document somewhere online would be informing us of the procedure and what our options really are. Some people mention a few options but until it’s official we can’t take anything for granted. The Jobcentre might start contacting us on the 1st april and try to bully us into something before we have had time to think it through. So don’t sign up to anything until you have had time.
What is there to think through slavery is slavery, workfare is for profit human trafficking by the DWP to and for the benefit of commercial enterprise (most charities in the UK are de facto commercial enterprises).
The idea that Workfare is going to benefit anyone is pure fantasy. An economic mistake the likes of which we can never forgive.
Meanwhile, more bullshit from Osborne:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26814423
My sister officially cared for someone who was elderly and disabled every day for 13 years… That person sadly died recently of cancer. My sister enquired to the DWP about any courses or ways of getting ex-carers back into work or society: Nothing for ex-carers, but plenty for ex-offenders and criminals, and as we all know real evil bastards who commit evil crimes get treated better than the unemployed…
If you murdered someone (even a little lad: like those bastards, Venables and Thompson!) or knowingly helped a murdering nonce (that Maxine Carr bitch!), you’d be set up for life with permanent privileges and protection, and even a new fucking identity… That sadistic slag, Myra Hindley, got a cosy home from home (not a cell in any way!), a pet dog and a fucking free Open University course. There are murdered kids bodies on those moores still undiscovered, yet Hindley had the life of riley and tea with that cunt, Lord bastard Longford! While an ordinary guy or girl simply seeking work gets treated like dirt… That is the British system in a nutshell…
Rapists, murderers, nonces people who break heads get treated better than normal, decent people who are out of work… Even Lee Rigby’s killers will get treated better than any person visiting a Job Centre. I can guarantee that…
Reblogged this on wslattery.
I got burgled and in the fighting I damaged my knee. I lost my job while they operated on my knee and in the recovery. The criminals got 200 hours community service. I lost my job because of it so if this had been in force I’d have got 6 months. For the same crime.
Robin The Boy Wonder – I’ve just had another operation on my knee ( the 4th ) so I’m as of Jan out of work again. I sold everything last year to make ends meet and this year I tried the ‘assistance’ scheme for help, even just with the cost of buying food.
I was refused because a: I wasn’t leaving prison, b: I wasn’t entering the country C: I wasn’t splitting up from a long term partner d: I wasn’t staying in the community instead of entering a care home.
I’m not complaining that I didnt get anything, I’ve gotten very good at making a loaf of bread last all week, But why then if the country is so broke are ex-prisoners and immigrants treated better ?
I understand that ex-cons will have the skills required to make money through crime so keeping them fed,sheltered and on the straight and narrow is cheaper for society but we still have mass unemployment up north when most big firms and their ancillary firms shut in the recession so why is immigration still open. DC wants full employment. How? Are they going to invent jobs. 0 immigration till we have full employement.
Provide training to fill the skills gaps.
Subsidize employers who take on unemployed sanction them if they just use them like cheap labour ( I did YTS i know some firms give you glowing reports then your gone at end of year and new crop taken on.)
I think subsidize a firm to take an employee on, so firm pays decent wage gets an employee they wouldn’t have taken on for a year or so till economy improves and they cant just get rid when the subsidy drops off, the member of staff is a real member of staff with the same rights and there’s still the formal disciplinary procedure for trouble.
While im writing this i’m on the final interview stages in several jobs round the country so i may be lucky and be in work again when this comes into force. But it’s so wrong, It provides no skills/training in job market, just a good reference and you can volunteer to work for charities at the moment and get the same, though some of the charities don’t have enough work for more volunteers all the time.
Been having a chat with a pensioner down the road on my last food scrounge and she ( not even realizing that technically i’m ‘one of the great unwashed’ she still remembers me last Christmas on crutches begging for food’. ) was saying they should get the unemployed to walk the streets clearing litter.
Wouldn’t that be poetic, Flytipping and litter has increased 100% since council dropped bin collections to once a fortnight and refuse to take a bin if the lid is slightly up. But all those groundskeeper staff will find their jobs downsized in the next council budget cuts. What other council services that are paid for can be farmed out to free labour? I volunteer to sit in the council meetings talking out my arse. Tea and Biscuits would be nice 🙂
That’s some really bad shit, Phil. This country is a disgrace. I once did my entire front and back gardens, and put all the grass, twigs, leaves etc in that brown bin thing…. The bin was full of garden refuse. But some twat walked past while I was out and put a coke can in the bin… Because of one little coke can, those fairies who masquerade as binmen refused to empty it!
They wouldn’t take an extra bin bag for an 80 year old lady up our street either. Yet the cunts who run our council are using our council tax payments to buy these binmen (fucking BINMEN!) iPads! Mind you, I bet some released nonce or murderer gets an iPad, his garden and his bloody bin done…
This country has turned to shit, Phil… As my own late father said: “Were the Sixties for this?!”