From Boycott Workfare
In the first of our weekly call outs for online workfare action on a Wednesday, it’s time to show Homebase that we won’t settle for their PR guff!
Two weeks ago, it emerged that Homebase is taking on tens of workfare placements in their Haringey store: 750 hours of unpaid work in just one week in just one of Homebase’s 342 shops.
A week later, a Homebase poster was leaked: it showed managers boasting about how they have been able to cut the wages bill with workfare. Then a staff member told us what it had meant for staff: overtime cut for everyone and some people’s hours reduced cut from 48 down to 8.
People’s response has been immense, with loads of online pressure, people pledging to shop elsewhere, and pop-up demos outside their shops.
It’s obviously having an impact.
On Easter weekend, Homebase took their Facebook Page down at least three times because of the scale of response from the public. Since then they have deleted literally hundreds of comments.
Yesterday, Homebase posted a new statement, saying “While we review our local arrangements, we have decided to make no further commitment to the Job Centre work experience programme.” But that still leaves tens of workfare placements in their Haringey store and possibly elsewhere too.
Step up the pressure for every single person working in Homebase to be paid.
At their stores
A week of action has been called against Homebase, culminating in protests, leafleting and pickets at their stores this weekend. Why not print some leaflets and visit a store near you? We’ll post a template flyer here very soon, and let us know if you need help covering printing costs!
So far actions have been called in:
Let us know what you plan and we’ll add it to the list!
Online
On Facebook (if they bring their page back again): facebook.com/homebase
On Twitter: @Homebase_uk
By email: order.enquiries@homebase.co.uk or info@homebase.co.uk or enquiries@homebase.co.uk
By phone: 0845 077 8888 or 0845 601 6911
Or contact the company they are owned by: The Home Retail Group.
By post
A clever project has been set up for people to write or send parcels to workfare users’ Freepost addresses. More info here.
…and if you’re in Liverpool, there’s a whole week of workfare fun planned next week.
Homebase has boasted about workfare reducing paid work. We can’t let them get away with it. After all, “If you exploit us, we will shut you down.”
Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid
the void 
The real achievement, of course, will be to produce the first announcement from a company that they will voluntarily pay back pay to everyone who worked unpaid under duress before they withdrew from the scheme. And for me, that’s the point at which a company should be forgiven; withdrawing from the scheme going forward is only a good first step, not the achievement of absolution.
(Sorry, make that the pinnacle achievement. I don’t mean to detract from the considerable achievement of getting companies to *take* that good first step.)
Please sign this E-Partitian for those against Thatchers funeral being 10 millions £££££’s from tax payers money. Im fuming, please sign. https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/45966/signature/new Sorry Johny Void, just this e-partician was hard to find. sorry its off topic.
I would like to draw attention to this site and organisation
http://www.fecareers.co.uk/welfare-to-work-jobs-work-programme-jobs-and-employability.cms.asp
FE Careers is the largest online job advertising site for Welfare to Work jobs, Work Programme jobs & employability
Browse 1,250 vacancies including welfare work & work programme jobs
“FE Careers has a strong job advertising presence in employability and skills, with advertisers recruiting for employability as far back as 2003.
The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) introduced The Work Programme in October 2010. It replaced previous structures for unemployed people and treats them as individuals, whilst allowing providers greater control over support to individual needs. Programme providers are paid from the benefits saved from getting people into work.
Many of these national work-based training providers advertise their Work Programme jobs through FE Careers and deliver as either Work Programme Prime providers or work very closely with “prime providers”. Click here for a full list of providers.
Our sister site FENews.co.uk tracks the developments and availability of Work Programme jobs, complete with video interviews with Lord Freud (Minister of Welfare Reform DWP) and Chris Grayling Minister of State (Employment), Work and Pensions. ”
“FE News features regular articles from the strategists who have helped shape the Welfare to Work sector, such as Fran Parry of Inclusion. Other providers regularly share their strategies on the Work Programme through the site such as JHP Training’s CEO Jim Chambers and his vision for integrating employability & skills, JHP’s Caroline Groom on how training providers can make a difference in Welfare to Work.”
According to the update on their website they have withdrawn all commitment to workfare projects, then as soon as campaigners stop the action they continue in the same old way.
I would like to see all local government offices and housing associations picketed because not only do they use workfare but they are also the implementers of this governments policies, which makes them even worse than they are.
Workfare is Cameron’s Big Society in action.
Step-1: Make everyone unemployed
Step-2: Put them in Workfare and make people work for their benefits
Step-3: Profit for Cameron’s Corporate chums & MP shareholders
Pingback: Join the Week of Action Against Homebase On Workfare Wednesday | Eye on UK Government
you could have said thanks to tom pride for that info..
This is off topic but I’m sure I’m not the only one enraged by this – http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/04/10/margaret-thatcher-dead-mp-expenses_n_3050438.html
@kittycat surely rupert murdoch should pay for the bloody funeral after all he profited from knowing her..
@kittycat 83% thought those expenses for thatchers funeral was absurd..
against 16% who thought it was..or, as willy hague put it..
“I think that puts money in perspective,” he said.
The bloody woman shouldn’t even be given a funeral at the country’s expense. I believe it’s going to cost 8 million,so there’s plenty of money sloshing around in the government coffers. Personally I’d build a bonfire & burn her on it, with a stake driven through the swinging brick that passes for her heart just to ensure that the bitch is actually dead.
@kittycat tut tut i am afraid i will have to report you to the govt for non compliance with grovelling and subservience act…
58, i don’t think you are off post at all…and living on £53/wk will seem like a blissful memory…some one enlighten me…
will the workfarce “customer” “volunteer” be able to claim back the extra costs ie travel etc…which is going to be at least £30/wk?
We owe Mrs Thatcher a minute’s silence,” Whelan told the BBC. “It is not my decision, it is for the FA to decide, but I would be in favour of wearing an armband out of respect to Mrs Thatcher. We have to say thank you very much for the services the former PM has given us.”
a similar sentiment will be expressed this weekend at celtic park..i’m sure
@donkey we will be wearing armbands with black triangles on..
no! sown on our clothes…with severe penalties…if caught without them….
Police officers are monitoring social media, internet forums and BlackBerry messaging networks in the expectation that Margaret Thatcher’s funeral procession next Wednesday will be targeted by protesters.
The possibility of demonstrations during the funeral has raised concerns that police may adopt the controversial tactic of making pre-emptive arrests.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/disunited-in-mourning-police-fear-thatcher-funeral-may-turn-into-security-nightmare-8566452.html
didn’t tom crusie make a film based on that premise….pre-cognitive crime….i guess…nixon….brought this to the fore….get them before they get us….
The papers also reveal that while Thatcher boldly declared at the Conservative party conference in 1982 that the NHS was “safe with us”, the Iron Lady and her then chancellor Geoffrey Howe were seriously considering proposals for dismantling the welfare state, which would have included “the end of the National Health Service”.
all went according to plan then
@donkey this is nuts because if they pre arrest ppl..then thats like making it illegal not to mourn..
@donkey they used to pay ppl to mourn at funerals ..i see nothing has changed then..this time no doubt they will use claimants on workfare to do it..
professional mourners…well almost…..don’t do as we say….no pay…on vine today one professional mourner…admitted that she ruled us…tommy also had a few choice words to utter in, i think, yesterdays prog…it’s been a long week eh! any how must lie down for a while..too much excitement..they say good news comes in three’s….what’s next..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2306606/Margaret-Thatcher-A-funeral-fit-Peoples-PM.html
A funeral fit for the People’s PM (see that its ‘diana’ in drag)
Of all the myths peddled by the Left since Lady Thatcher’s death, the most fallacious is that she created an unequal society by backing the privileged against the poor.
This is the opposite of the truth. For what drove her was her passionate belief in the capacity of ordinary Britons to achieve the best for their families and country – if only an overbearing State and an elitist Establishment would let them
OH JUST FUCK OFF !!!!!!
one more thing before i clock off….”don’t cry for me argentina…….”
the falklands war was about mining rights at south pole..it had feck all to do with an island of sheep…
You live and learn. All these years I have thought it was to save the Penguins.
Don’t forget all the oil reserves that have been found in the region to, not just mineral rights on New Swabenland.
nope they don;t get any extra help and they lose their benefits if they say no
Those who have (or have jobs) vs those who don’t. How incredible they don’t realise (seemingly) that their taxes now pay for these company’s exploiting people on Workfare. Reduced working hours picked up by the ordinary taxpayer yet where is the protest by those people, those that count, (in the government’s eyes)? Only the benefit claimants get the blame for all societies ills. And 8 million quid to be burnt on a funeral of the architect of our current problems- they can find that no problem. Makes perfect sense?! Mad country we live in!
Labour’s great praise showing their true colours
Parliament TV cuts to David Cameron grinning like a Chingford cat while Ed Miliband exonerates Thatcher. Cameron is smart enough to know that in those words Miliband has committed himself and the Labour opposition to political suicide.
he torygraph talks of a quiet day of dignified mourning..and ive read of compulsory one minute silence..and talk of pre emptive arrests by police trawling the net looking for potential trouble makers
Pre emptive arrests or as IDS would say mandatory volunteer not to express an opinion.
Curiously the next word in the dictionary after mandatory is man–day
noun \ˈman-ˈdā\
: a unit of one day’s work by one person, coincidence?
@workhouse i blame dr johnson .notorious lefty,,,,
bobchewie is a stool pigeon
Pleas explain that, Jean.
Yes, please explain, Jean….. that’s a pretty serious accusation you have levelled at Bob!!
@jean crowther “bobchewie is a stool pigeon” i dont even have a chair and ive not been near trafalgar square in ages..
Quite right! People with stools and opidgeon’s, sorry opinions, should not be allowed in Trafalgar Square, you might spread rational thought! I believe they have a vaccine for that now.
@workhouse can you be interational? interational rescue..
Sorry but Brains Millibandwith, all ready stole that position from me!
International Rescue… thats where the other Marxist traitor David Milliband is going to to help destroy more of the world isn’t it, pocketing a nice 6 figure salary for running a “Charity”!!!!!!
7 pages of anti-Thatcher stuff in this weeks Socialist Worker pdf.
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/public/archive
@lumpenprole but would it all fit on a t shirt??
Homebase is quick to trumpet the donations it gives to the Teenager Cancer Trust. What are its views on teenagers with cancer whose benefits are cut because they didn’t “volunteer” to work for Homebase?
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/at-a-glance/general-news/she-was-the-saviour-of-our-nation-1-5564766
She was the saviour of our nation
maggie saved the nation, for her mates mostly..
“i dont even have a chair and ive not been near trafalgar square in ages..”
bob your so funny, your comment made me laugh
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/45966
No state funeral for Maggie Thatcher
Signed it & put the link on my facebook page
@kittycat they will probably come after you now and accuse you of treason..
Bring it on !!!
@kittycat i posted a link to something called FE Careers..
FE Careers is the largest online job advertising site for Welfare to Work jobs, Work Programme jobs & employability
go figure…
Except they will get out of that petition very easily, it’s not a state funeral, it’s a ceremonial one, look at the wording these vile parasites use, Blair was a master of it to.
An important constitutional event occurred today that most political experts in the U.K. missed, Parliament on this day succumbed to totalitarianism. For an entire day Parliament eulogised one ideology not only that it was recalled to surrender any pretentions democracy.
Well done Glenda Jackson labour mp for telling it like it was and still is under the tories.
PS Glenda, it was not much better when your party was in power either, sanctioning benefits, throwing people into mental institutions for proving public bodies wrong, forcing people onto new deal which was anything but, bailing out employers via the tax credit system.
guy fawkes,
Glenda’s third way radicalism.
In a statement from Downing street last night, it was confirmed that Lady Thatcher would be given a ceremonial funeral with full military honours.
no doubt anyone who complains or insults or protests will be considerd a traitor…
http://www.totalpolitics.com/articles/162112/betraying-the-nation.thtml
From the same website, is this some type of veiled threat? – http://www.totalpolitics.com/blog/366692/thatcher-a-response-to-twitter-vitriol.thtml
@kittyca i dunno but i’m getting pig sick of this deyfication of this harridan from hell…will they make it a criminal offence to protest or even complain?
jeeez this sick making comments on that link and this statement
If we wish to answer the aforementioned tweeted question from a different light, however, we should now look at it from a moral perspective. First, can one ever justify celebrating the death of an 87-year-old woman who has recently died of a stroke? With the removal of the political context, one would of course say that to cheer at the death of a mother, a grandmother and of a woman who has faced ill health for many years would, under all accounts, be categorically wrong.
BUT SHE WASNT JUST A MOTHER SHE WAS A COUNTRIES LEADER A PRIVILDEGED ONE AS WELL..SHE CHAMPIONED PRIVIILEGE NOT EQUALITY…some comments on that thread are stupid as shit..’foreigners coming over here taking our jobs” cliche..
what with the info about police considering pre arresting pppl too..wtf is going on?
That’s a state funeral all but in name.
Anomie shrugs
According to one minister that worked for her, she never liked pomp and ceremony, it’s more to try and boost popularity for this failing government.
LAW CENTRE HAS ISSUED A GUIDE TOOLKIT TO APPEAL AGAINST THE BEDROOM TAX
have a read of this, it is a Scottish law firm, but the same rules apply in england & wales also, great stuff
http://govanlc.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/launch-of-glc-toolkit-guide-calling-for.html
“toolkit” lol … isn’t that what the jokecentre uses? lol
pat
The legal profession have timed that nicely, if they deign to represent the unemployed, any winning claimants will have to pay court and solicitors fees. After putting in your opposition to the council, you would still be liable for the bedroom tax and if you loose you loose your home too if in arrears.
Don’t trust the legal profession, they have also totally ignored those starving and running up bills through sanctions because they refuse to work for nothing or spend 35 hours a week looking for jobs on a site that is putting claimants in danger potentially.
Loose should read lose.
Reblogged this on HUMAN RIGHTS & POLITICAL JOURNAL and commented:
In Solidrity!
Still no reply to my email to Homebase, wonder why?