It’s Workfare Week! Tell The Bastards What You Think On #WEWeek2015

snouts

Workfare industry bosses react with delight to news David Cameron intends to attend their next conference.

The vile welfare-to-work sector are teaming up with a DWP controlled front organisation this week to hold a celebration of all the money they are making out of unpaid work.

The inaptly named Fair Train are funded by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, a government body under the control of both the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills and Iain Duncan Smith himself.  Despite their name, this so-called charity exists to promote unpaid Work Experience schemes, by flogging off dubious Quality Standard awards to workfare exploiters.  In 2013 they were paid a whopping £283,000 of tax payer’s money to promote unpaid work schemes.

Week Experience Week is part of this gushing celebration of exploitation, so it is no suprise to see ERSA, the trade body established to lie on behalf on the welfare-to-work sector, joining in the festivities.  Fair Train say that want others to get involved with Work Experience Week, with aim of encouraging as many companies as possible to stop paying wages and start using workfare.  You can let the bastards know what you think on twitter using the hashtag #WEWeek2015.

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123 responses to “It’s Workfare Week! Tell The Bastards What You Think On #WEWeek2015

  1. Stepping Razor Sound Plate System

    Run by charities funded by the Government with Government policies.

  2. All the usual suspects will be in attendance.

    Bet Priti Patel joins in as well saying how great workfare is.

  3. Apart from Twitter, is there another way to tell the arsehole tory twats that they’re all lying, deceitful, oppressive, greedy, heartless, cruel, useless, incompetent bastards and more!

  4. Pingback: It’s Workfare Week! Tell The Bastards What You Think On #WEWeek2015 | perfectlyfadeddelusions

  5. Stepping Razor Sound Plate System

    List of British organisations who have participated in workfare programmes [Wiki]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_organisations_who_have_participated_in_workfare_programmes

    • Part of the problem is that most of the information about organisations using various forms of Workfare is a bit vague, and often not very up to date. I’m sure that movements like Boycott Workfare do their best to keep the information current and valid, but it’s crucial that people on Workfare schemes tell the various local anti-Workfare campaigns about the schemes they have been forced to go on, or just tell Boycott Workfare directly.

      Even better if you want to get involved in the fightback, an effective anti-Workfare picket can be organised and carried out by just a couple of people. You aren’t on your own, and Boycott Workfare can put you in touch with local contacts who can provide you with support and leaflets.

      In Wales, there is Sgint, the Welsh Claimants’ Union, who have a website:

      http://sgint.weebly.com/

      Sgint provides information on how to both avoid and challenge benefit sanctions, and will also help where people claiming benefits need an advocate, or just someone to accompany them to Jobcentre or other interviews.

  6. Pingback: It’s Workfare Week! Tell The Bastards What You Think On #WEWeek2015 | the void | sdbast

  7. Pingback: Work Experience Week: Give Workfare a Warm Welcome! | Ipswich Unemployed Action.

  8. Typo: Fair Trade used by mistake in place of Fair Train. Apologies for correcting otherwise excellent blog post.

  9. So they are commemorating it now and we have, not just content with workfare day, but workfare week. It’s nothing but an advertisement for slavery.

  10. Another Fine Mess

    It’s very good of them to provide a list of their slavefare supporters here: 🙂
    http://www.fairtrain.org/weweek/champions

  11. anyone remember “Laura-Jane Rawlings”? she’s listed too LOL…

    The real cracker is that they have had to rope in a so-called Trustee [Wonder how much money a Trustee makes out of this on the side? – Not that I am suggesting HE would do someting like that, or how ever number of Suckers on workfare] to promote this rubbish. He is a Labour Councillor for Lewisham to boot!

    • Isn’t the fact that he’s a Labour councillor and a trustee for an organisation exploiting unemployed workers enough to damn him? Do the good people of Lewisham know of his connection with a latter day Reichsarbeitsdienst?

  12. Should be ashamed all those companies who have used the unemployed and not even gave them a sandwich for lunch.
    I live in Gloucester and here it was, not sure if these are still running but Army of Angles!!!(yes another charity for the armed forces) Perhaps they should get free labour from the armed forces after all there are loads of then unemployed. Then there is the Riding for the disabled in Cheltenham near the race course. All have one thing in common ..poor us … Oh i know lets get free labour we don’t have to water them or feed them…. yes i am on about the unemployed … Not the Horses!

    • salvo army and b and m stores use them as well in glos i went to army of ass holes and was told to leave and got given 10 quid as i posted on fb that was using slaves on mass at the store like 10 a fkn day in a shop full of shit n not like that pmsl.

      they then slagged me of on face book had my account banned and then tried to get me a sanction for not going pmsl jcp adviser sacked as had proof i did go and went straight to jcp on the day i went to say i was not wanted at the store on way home.

      as all ways do not sign anything on mwa as by law you do not have to and will be ref back to jcp so no workfair 😉

    • That could be made into some great anti-Workfare propaganda – they have to ensure that their horses are fed and watered, but not their forced labourers. ‘Horses more important than people.’

  13. OT: so much for the refugees not taking housing from uk nationals who are homeless AND they are allowed to work
    Social landlords expected to help in refugee crisis

    7 September 2015 | By Heather Spurr

    The National Housing Federation said it expects social landlords will offer support to refugees following a Scottish pledge last week to house migrants.

    Rob Warm, head of member relations at the National Housing Federation (NHF), made the remarks today after Inside Housing revealed on Friday that Scottish housing associations were to meet tomorrow to agree their capacity to help refugees with accommodation.

    Chancellor George Osborne told the BBC yesterday that Britain would use some of its foreign aid budget to help local authorities “with things like housing costs” for refugees.

    Mr Warm said: “We would expect that a number of housing associations across the country will be looking at ways they can work alongside national and local government partners to help.”

    He pointed out that many housing associations were originally founded to house refugees. “In more recent years, we have seen a number of associations supporting previous government programmes to resettle refugees fleeing conflict,” he added.

    It also emerged today that Scotland’s largest social landlord, Wheatley Group, is among the housing associations that are due to meet tomorrow in Glasgow to discuss how they can house those affected by the crisis.

    The 51,000-home landlord said it would identify empty stock across central Scotland suitable for adapting into temporary accommodation.

    Jim Strang, a Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) board member, who will chair tomorrow’s meeting, said: “The social housing sector cannot simply turn its head away from this growing humanitarian crisis.”

    David Cameron said today that the UK would accept 20,000 refugees from Syria.

    The prime minister said: ‘The home secretary and the communities secretary will now work intensively with local authorities and the devolved administrations to put in place the necessary arrangements to house and support the refugees that we resettle.” Mr Cameron said the government will ensure the “full cost” of supporting Syrian refugees will in the first year be met by the government’s international aid spending. Home secretary Theresa May will update the House of Commons on the plan next week.

    UPDATE 08.09.15, 12.04pm

    • Ashford Council agrees to take 250 refugees.

      “We’ve got about 5,000 council properties here that we have people in and we have a council waiting list. Clearly we do not want to compromise that in any way, shape or form.”

      They would be placed in private rented accommodation.

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-34480728

      • enigma – at least ashford isn’t letting the refugees jump the waiting list.

        • overburdenddonkey

          fellow
          the problem is shortage of housing NOT refugees…!
          even worse when ‘delisting’ and localism act is considered…blame govt always..! talk to you @ a later date about it if you like but not on this thread… 🙂

          • obd – shortage means not enough – why then are there enough for refugees?

            • overburdenddonkey

              fellow
              coz politicians won’t openly admit that there is a chronic housing shortage, and where’s there’s human suffering there’s money to be made…the campaign ought to include building millions of new eco-homes…
              people should not be booted out of their homes, but new shelters built and provided for all as a matter of urgency…is that too difficult to weave into your posts man….!

          • Yeah, obd vacating your home to ‘help refugees’ would give you a warm, fuzzy glow… 🙂 as you slept out on a park bench especially with overnight temperatures now hovering around freezing point 😀 And a nice long winter to look forward to… 😀

        • ps enigma – unfortunately in scotland some council houses are now called housing association houses – one way round the issue…

          • Fellow, like you I can see people being evicted because of this, and in Ashford, we’ve seen it happen in Germany. I expect it’s happening all over EU.

            • Too fuck right! These sleazy, corrupt housing fucking associations who would sell their tenants out at the drop of a hat will at this very minute be drawing up a list of tenants whom it will be easiest to ‘remove’ from their homes… just as the DWP do… the most vulnerable, poorest, most isolated, those least able to ‘put up a fight’…. the ‘repossession notices’ will be rolling of the printer… the ‘David Clapsons’ of ‘social housing’ will be out on their arses….

    • “It also emerged today that Scotland’s largest social landlord, Wheatley Group, is among the housing associations that are due to meet tomorrow in Glasgow to discuss how they can house those affected by the crisis.

      The 51,000-home landlord said it would identify empty stock across central Scotland suitable for adapting into temporary accommodation.”

      Yeah, ’empty stock’ after the previous tenants have been ‘asked to leave’…. 😉

  14. Dpac

    Sent from Samsung Mobile

  15. Stepping Razor Sound Plate System

    Migrant crisis: Asylum seekers ‘overwhelm’ village

    BBC – 12th Oct 2015

    Residents of a village near Heathrow Airport say they are being “overwhelmed” by people seeking asylum in the UK.

    Longford in Hillingdon could be demolished if a third runway is built at neighbouring Heathrow Airport.

    A hotel is providing accommodation in houses it has bought for asylum seekers, including those from the so-called “Jungle” in Calais.

    The Home Office said it has tried to address residents’ concerns.

    It has said decisions about the use of hotel accommodation, including which premises are used, are a matter for the contractors who bear the cost.

    It would not say how many asylum seekers were being sent to Longford, but said rooms were used for one or two days before asylum seekers were dispersed into temporary accommodation.

    ‘Getting away from death’

    BBC London filmed two coaches and three van loads arriving in one day carrying people from Iran, Sudan, Eritrea and Syria.

    Many of those on board said they had come from the so-called “Jungle”.

    Three days later, another two coaches were witnessed arriving.

    Read More:
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-34502956

  16. Stepping Razor Sound Plate System

  17. Stepping Razor Sound Plate System

    • What a donation to Leonard Cheshire Foundation might pay for:
    o “A £70,000 salary for a Senior Director whilst a resident of a home has £15 spending money;
    o £4,000,000 a year on Public Relations / Advertising;
    o Private Medical Insurance for Senior Directors whilst Disabled victims of charity wait months/years for medical care;
    o 45 pence per mile travel allowances;
    o Trustee/Staff/Management get-togethers costing £10,000 for a single weekend” (Darke, 2000).

  18. Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog.

  19. CWP is looming and I am full of dread, feeling very depressed about it. 6 fucking months of full-time unpaid community service. I’ll be glad when I’m dead. There is just no end to this shit.

  20. paultheswineherd

    What a total disgrace the ‘world of workfare’ is – the Government handing out millions of pounds of tax-payers money to private ‘workfare’ companies (complete with their overpaid Chief Executives) – ditto for the so-called ‘Charities’ – legalised robbers – not paying tax – and many receiving Government Government handouts of tax-payers money – while also paying their Chief Executives a fortune and both of them employing ‘slaves’ on MWA/Workfare to work for nothing and increase their profits and make them look good.
    Well – none of them should ever look GOOD by doing this – they need to have big and bold posters slapped on over all of their shop windows explaining the shameful things that they are doing – and for paying their JCP ‘forced labour’ slaves absolutely fuck all.
    Shame on all of the bastards.

  21. I wish I could leave the country and escape from this Tory hell-hole, but have no money or passport. Where’s the people smugglers when you need them?

    • why don’t you wait outside the channel tunnel until they bring the next batch of refugees, then you can warn them to turn back because lets face it, its getting as bad as all those places they are coming from, it isn’t as bad yet but give it enough time.

  22. Jesusisanarchist

    claim Asylum in Scotland.

  23. i got a workfare placement. My advisor told me that if i dont my placement i dont have to do the full 8 weeks and i wont be sanctioned if i finish early is this really true ??

    • Ask can you have that in writing and signed or stamped, see what they say to that.

      • i got a chat with employer tomorrow about the placement atm i havnt a clue if tomorrow is just a chat or if ill be exploited but i havnt signed any documents from the jobcentre about the placement so i dont really no what to expect either from the placement or the employer

        • i just realised i should of asked the jobcentre to have that in writing and ask them to sign it before i started placement then it would if made things very interesting

    • Another Fine Mess

      It sounds like it’s voluntary to me, most are but the masses just don’t know.
      i dont have to do the full 8 weeks
      Quite common, some only last 2 days, and another clue that it’s probably voluntary.

      • Sanctioned Jobseeker

        It is easy to tell.

        The Jobcentre use two different referral notices for OPPORTUNITIES.

        A MANDATORY notice contains the words “that failure to avail of the OPPORTUNITY may affect your benefits”; the ‘voluntary’ notice does not.

  24. It’s shocking homeless charities are workfare providers – how many people end up homeless thanks to benefit sanctions?!

  25. Pingback: It’s Workfare Week! Tell The Bastards What You Think On #WEWeek2015 | bluetouchpaper

  26. Th British people pay MPs to act on their behalf – not to turn up at the HoC cocked out of their head!!

  27. GPs will no longer need to issue sick notes for patients off work for longer than four weeks under a new occupational health scheme to be launched in the Spring.

    But the Government has admitted the service will only offer face-to-face consultations with occupational therapists in a ‘minority’ of cases – the majority being dealt with over the phone or online.

    http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/your-practice/practice-topics/employment/new-fit-for-work-scheme-to-assess-patients-by-telephone/20008997.fullarticle

  28. Another Fine Mess

    Question Time 🙂

    How come most of us left school and started work getting paid (at least something) from the first day? Work experience wasn’t even mentioned.

    If having unpaid work experience helps you ‘get ahead of the competition’, then what happens when all of the competition also has unpaid work experience? What’s their plan for the next stage.

    What about the poor hard-working taxpayer (getting up at 5am of course) paying for 10s of millions of hours of unpaid work, and 10s of millions of ££s to administer these schames?

    • overburdenddonkey

      afm
      most work today is far less skilled than it used to be, therefore requires little or no training..all apprentices used be taken on by an experienced interviewer and paid…the only WE we need is pay experience, what they’re actually doing is deskilling, humiliating, and demotivating people….

  29. From: Internal admin user

    22 September 2015

    Dear Department for Work and Pensions,
    Could you tell me and the public why children are being used for
    fraud investigation surveillance and how much they receive while
    working alongside there (FIO) parents, Also could you give the
    amount of hours they are allowed to work.
    Yours faithfully,

    [name removed]

    https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/why_are_children_working_for_the#incoming-715999

    • Stepping Razor Sound Plate System

      Work Programme Live Running Memo
      To: Work Programme Providers
      Cc: Senior Performance Managers
      Performance Managers
      Category Management Team – Labour Market National Provision
      From: Work Programmes Division
      Memo Serial Number: WP LR191
      Date: 19 May 2015
      Subject: New Work Programme Provider guidance chapter 4b – Safeguarding and Vulnerability
      Action: For information and action
      Timing: Immediate
      Background

      It has been identified that providers find the current Work Programme Provider guidance unclear around the actions required to ensure vulnerable ESA claimants understand the consequences of not participating in a mandated activity. This has driven an inconsistent approach to the safeguarding these participants.

      To address this, a review has been undertaken of the guidance and a new chapter developed to provide a single dedicated source of information relating to the treatment of vulnerable ESA participants when they are on the Work Programme.

      A key clarification within the new guidance, is around the ‘face to face’ contact; It clarifies the policy that on every occasion of not participating in a mandated activity – you must attempt to see the vulnerable ESA claimant face to face; which may include a home visit.

      Where every effort has been undertaken to meet the safeguarding process, and the provider has been unable to see the claimant face to face, a sanction referral (WP08) must not be raised.

      Summary and action
      It is important that the key clarification around the ‘face to face’ contact is
      disseminated to all relevant areas of your business.
      It will also give you the opportunity to:
       Reduce nugatory work (e.g. WP08 referrals and the wider
      cancellation rate) because you have clarity on the safeguarding
      process
       Support the introduction of the new style sanction referral form
      (WP08)
       Be in a better position to review how you implement your
      safeguarding and mandation procedures

      The new chapter provides a clearer view of safeguarding – bringing together
      existing guidance and adding more context; linking out from this chapter to the
      relevant actions in the current chapters. Therefore, Chapters 3a, 4, 5, 6 and
      WP08 hints and tips of the Work Programme Provider Guidance (and the
      equivalent CPA18
      Further information contact details
      All enquiries on the subject of this memo should be raised with your
      Performance Manager in the first instance; they will endeavour to provide you
      with an answer as soon as possible.
      Regards
      Work Programme Provision Enquiries Team

      Click to access work-programme-memo-191.pdf

      • Stepping Razor Sound Plate System

        Chapter 4b – Safeguarding and Vulnerability

        Click to access wp-pg-chap-4b-v1.pdf

        • Stepping Razor Sound Plate System

          Definition of a Vulnerable ESA participant

          15. The official definition of a vulnerable ESA participant is:
          “Vulnerable Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) participants are those who have mental health conditions or learning disabilities or conditions affecting communication/cognition”.

          How do they know they ain`t been for a WCA – Perhaps the DWP are now doing WCA`s,

    • “HOW MAXIMUS ROBS THE AUSTRALIAN TAXPAYER”

      There has also been evidence of agencies signing up jobseekers to courses that they had no prospect of starting or completing. A 2009 government investigation found one company MAX Employment had enrolled 141 people into a training course, despite the fact its training room could only fit 15 jobseekers at a time.

      In the four years to 2010 these training courses cost taxpayers nearly $400 million dollars regardless of whether they benefited the jobseeker.

      http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/investigation-exposes-fraud-within-taxpayer-funded-jobs-services-australia/story-fnkgbb3b-1227237512956

  30. Fly the Greek Flag to Say No to Austerity Slavery and Slavery in General

    Forced Labour is Slave Labour so Oppose it

    Yes to Human Rights and Dignity

  31. Stepping Razor Sound Plate System

    DWP

    Responsibilities

    We are responsible for:
    •understanding and dealing with the causes of poverty rather than its symptoms
    •encouraging people to work and making work pay
    •encouraging disabled people and those with ill health to work and be independent
    •providing a decent income for people of pension age and promoting saving for retirement
    •providing value for money and reducing levels of fraud and error
    •reducing work-related death and serious injury in workplaces through the

    Priorities

    Our priorities are:
    •helping to reduce poverty and improve social justice
    •helping people to find and stay in work
    •enabling disabled people to fulfil their potential
    •helping people save more for their retirement through workplace pensions and making the State Pension simpler and fairer
    •recognising the importance of family in providing the foundation of every child’s life
    •improving services to the public by providing value for money and reducing fraud and error

    https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-work-pensions/about

    • Stepping Razor Sound Plate System

      •providing value for money and reducing levels of fraud and error

      That is wrong because the DWP still have not caught me defrauding the disability benefit of £800,000. I have been going on about it for 4 years now & it will be soon that people wake up about disability benefit fraud.

  32. “The terrible immoralities are the cunning ones hiding behind masks of morality, such as exploiting people while pretending to help them.”

    – Vernon Howard

    • Fuck the Sally Army

      That’s what these cunts do though… box you into a position where they are in a position to ‘help’ you when in reality they are exploiting the fuck out of you!

      • Correct. If they can’t use you and exploit you for slave labor then they dob you in to the DWP for sanction.

        So christian, so helpful, so full of the spirit of God. See you out on the streets they would.

  33. Stepping Razor Sound Plate System

    Abbasani – Revelation Time & Dub 1991

  34. Sanctions – no written decisions and uninformative MRNs

  35. Correction:

    OT : BEWARE – DWP Tricks to Sanction Claimants

    “Sanctions – no written decisions and uninformative MRNs”
    http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/8825/

    Read and be aware of this.

  36. Pingback: Workfare Week Gets Worse! Work For Up To A Year Without Getting Paid Says #WEWeek2015 | the void

  37. What Needs to be Opposed as Well is any Diktat pushed by the Tories
    to Require the British Government to Run a Budget Surplus in Times
    outside Recession Regardless of the Need for Proper Funding for
    Public Services

    Better High Public Spending than Heinous Public Suffering

  38. Volunteering on CWP, My Arse!

  39. The 17th of October 2015 AD Mark’s the 70th Anniversary of Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens And All Greece becoming Regent of the Kingdom of the Hellenes in 1945 AD.

    Archbishop of Athens and All Greece from 1941 AD he had Frequent Quarrels with the Nazi Occupiers and the Traitor Puppet Collaborationist Regime .

    He Protested Formally against the Victimisation of Jews in Greece by the Nazis and when the SS Commander JurgenStroop Threatened to Murder Him by Shooting Him he Said ” According to the Traditions of the Greek Orthodox Church, our Prelates are Hanged, Not shot. Please Respect our Traditions ” Referring to the Martyrdom of Saint Gregory V Ecumenical
    Patriarch and Archbishop of Constantinople and New Rome in 1821 AD .

    Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Damaskinos also ordered that Christian Baptismal Certificates being Issued to Jews Fleeing the Evil Nazis .

    An Improvement upon the Cruel and Evil Margaret Thatcher

  40. Thing is with Good Leadership the Country could be Led to becoming a
    Nice Place to Live as Opposed to a Slave Labour Hellhole

    • overburdenddonkey

      noop
      you forget to address your posts; dear santa…
      you can also send your wish list, wants, and desires; freepost, santa claus, lapland, nr north pole…

  41. It would be Nice for Jeremy Corbyn to be a Good Prime Minister and
    Not a Figurehead at the Whims of the Right Wing of the Labour Party

  42. I Notice that Petition For the Resignation of Ian Duncan Smith as
    Leader of the Opposition has over 112,250 Signatures

    Millions more Signatures is a Necessity

  43. It goes get to Me what a Trance of Obliviousness too Many out There
    are in the Frantic and Cock Eyed Pantomime of a ” Modern World ”

    Ignorance is Not Strength Ignorance is Slavery Collaboration

  44. overburdenddonkey

    human being are naturally skilled and our high level of skills are what separate us from other primates…we are born with those skills and we learn naturally and easily how to apply those skills…so basically workfare is calling us sub human…

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