A whole host of corporate vultures have teamed up with the DWP to launch an online campaign celebrating young people being coerced into working for no pay for some of the richest companies in the UK.
Marks & Spencer, Whitbread, Halfords and shamefully the BBC have all signed up to the #WEcan campaign which aims to encourage even more businesses to provide unpaid work experience positions instead of employing young people properly. The new initiative comes as the Government draws up plans to force all unemployed young people into permanent unpaid work if they are unable to find a job within six months of becoming unemployed. This means they have to find enough grubby companies and so-called charities who are prepared to take part in this shocking exploitation. The #WEcan campaign is part of an attempt to achieve this, so let’s fuck it up.
Already parasites from the welfare-to-work industry are tweeting using the hashtag #WEcan whilst a tumblr page has been set up calling for young people to share their experiences of workfare. The DWP have also posted a host of youtube videos (comments currently enabled) such as this one which says that “whatever you are doing, any experience is good experience”. Gone is any pretence at providing placements which involve real training or a chance of a job at the end. Instead they want young people to mop floors and stack shelves for two months and have the fucking gall to claim they are doing them a favour.
Please help spread the word about this and tweet using the hashtag #WEcan. And let’s make sure everybody knows which companies are using workfare, starting with @marksandspencer, @premierinn, @Halfords_uk, @WhitbreadPLC, @Barclays and @BBC.
For the latest news on fighting back against forced unpaid work visit: http://www.boycottworkfare.org/
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