Thursday 5 December 2013

Boycott Workfare. Week of Action Against Workfare!

We are publishing below the latest statement received from Boycott Workfare.

"It's the week of action against workfare and sanctions. Thank you for all your support giving workfare exploiters a hard time online and on the streets!

If you're in London, come and celebrate a great week of action at our social on Friday. 

Please read on for Thursday's online action too!


Boycott Workfare End of Year Social!
 
From 7pm at LARC, Friday 6th December, 62 Fieldgate Street, Whitechapel, London, E1 1ES. (Nearest tube Aldgate East or Whitechapel).
 
This year we've thrown a good few spanners in the works for workfare.* Now it's time to party and celebrate a great week of action!
 
We'll bring cake, snacks, and tunes - please bring whatever you're drinking! All welcome, especially people new to the campaign and interested in getting involved.

(P.S. If you're outside London, we'd love to see you on 15th February for the gathering instead - http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?p=3031)
 
*Some of the spanners in workfare's works:
  • Wetherspoons, Argos, Shoezone, The Red Cross, and Superdrug have all dropped out since the start of the year. Homebase has scaled back significantly and Homes for Haringey has started paying people.
  • Despite a court ruling, the government is still refusing to publish the list of organisations exploiting people on workfare. It argued “disclosure [of names] would have been likely to have led to the collapse of the MWA [Mandatory Work Activity] scheme”!
  • The government’s plan to send people leaving the Work Programme from June this year on an automatic six month workfare placement could not be rolled out.
  • The government has had to double the amount of money it pays to workfare contractors like Seetec to find Mandatory Work Activity placements because they say it’s got so difficult since organisations started pulling out.

As part of the Week of Action Against Workfare and Sanctions, on Thursday 5th December 2013, we’re focussing on the Charities that will be handing in their tenders today to access unpaid claimant workers through the new Community Work Placements regime.
Community Work Placements, originally announced by George Osborne as “Help to Work” on 30th September 2013, is a set of new measures that will be forced on claimants who have come through the two year Work Programme without securing employment. The scheme is described as an “intensive option” where the providers will “deliver mandatory work placements for claimants for 30 hours a week for up to 26 weeks, alongside supported jobsearch”. Or put another way, it’s a six month sentence to force claimants work for free or lose their benefits.
Typically the 33 companies who have the option of tendering for this new scheme are the very companies who currently run the Work Programme: the companies who failed to assist the claimants back into work over two years are now being given an extra six months to make even more money off the back of the unemployed! These “Employment Related Supported Services Suppliers” include three charities Boycott Workfare has flagged up before.
Take a look at their finances at http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/find-charities/ by inputting their charity number. Then e-mail or contact them on social media to express your distaste at their continued abuse of the benefits system to line their own pockets!
THE CONSERVATION VOLUNTEERS:
a.watmouth@tcv.org.uk (261009)
@tcvtweets
https://www.facebook.com/TheConservationVolunteers
There are also two more charities touting for business as “secondary delivery providers”, seeking to subcontract from the above and the usual suspects such as Ingeus, G4S, A4e and Serco. They are the supposedly christian organisations The Salvation Army and the YMCA. Key in “Salvation Army” or “YMCA” to the web link above to find out how they are profiting in your locality. The details below are for their head offices in London.
Don’t forget to sign the petition calling for an end to all benefit sanctions without exceptions:http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/benefit-sanctions-must-be-stopped-without-exceptions-in-uk "
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Posted by Blanco Posnet at 19:10
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