Know your rights! Read more here.

Job Centre Advisors routinely ignore their own rules; the process for challenging bad decisions is sometimes so obscure and long-winded that someone’s time on a placement is served before they get far enough to have the decision overturned. This person’s story highlights what a deeply frustrating process this can be.

I was referred to Mandatory Work Activity in March 2013 by an adviser who, until the day I was referred, I had never met before. No adviser told me I was being considered for MWA, nor were any concerns about my job search raised, and the reason given was the period of time that I had been unemployed and needed work experience.

Having been referred I researched what MWA entailed and found that this adviser had failed to follow several of the guidelines set by the DWP for referral (failure to use the Customer Assessment Tool, the rule about the referral never coming as a surprise to a claimant and eligibility amongst other things) so made a phone call the next day to express my displeasure at this. I raised these concerns with the adviser who referred me, who fairly flippantly told me that they could refer me to it whenever they liked.

A week passed before I received a letter in the mail from the workfare provider, who despite all of my previous work experience coming in administrative/office positions, saw fit to refer me to four weeks at a Cancer Research UK shop. When I arrived at the shop the following Monday to start my placement, the people working there seemed to know as much about my placement as I did (i.e. nothing) and were obviously massively overstaffed and sent me home after two hours. To date I am yet to complete a six-hour day there.

I sent a lengthy written complaint to the Jobcentre, outlining my grievances and asking for the documents they held on me and my referral to be sent to me (something I had already done over the phone), and was given a meeting with the building manager. The meeting was unproductive; the building manager entirely supported the referral, told me that my dispute was based on technicalities (that technicality being the failure of the adviser to use a tool that determines a claimant’s eligibility for the programme) and that it “wasn’t difficult” to find employment in my line of work and that if I had been carrying out my job search properly I wouldn’t still be unemployed. I found him to be generally quite rude and condescending (e.g. rhetorically asking if I was going to complain “when you’re referred to Work Programme”) and seriously resented the thinly-veiled implication that my unemployment was my own fault. I’ve worked in customer service and HR positions, and probably would’ve been severely reprimanded or sacked if I had acted in the same way as the Jobcentre employees I’ve dealt with.

I’m currently in the process of referring my complaint to the Director General of Operations at the DWP, as per their website, as well as wasting my time folding clothes at Cancer Research UK. I still haven’t received the documents I asked them for three weeks ago.

The government must now reveal the list of workfare exploiters, which it fears mean the schemes will ‘collapse’. But it praised Salvation Army for ‘holding the line’. [Photo: Sinister Pics]

Some great news: The government has lost its appeal and must reveal the organisations that have used Mandatory Work Activity, Work Experience, and Work Programme placements. That means we’re going to be able to show those organisations what we think of them profiting from free labour!

The evidence the government submitted reveals what a huge impact your actions have had. They argued:

“The activities of campaign groups and the results of negative publicity meant that… “a great many placement organisations” had ceased to offer placements. That in turn reduced the numbers of opportunities available across both programmes with a loss of many placements and prospective new placements being at risk.” (Point 109)

This adds to the evidence that emerged earlier in the week that numbers of people on “Government employment schemes” (read ‘workfare’) have dropped by 16,000 this quarter. We also heard that Seetec were complaining at an industry conference last week how difficult it is to find placements nowadays because employers are worried about protest. The DWP’s appeal revealed that one subcontractor has complained about a loss of 100 placements per week in its area alone (point 93).

That is your actions – whether building pressure online, spreading the word, withholding donations, boycotting shops, joining a picket or staging an occupation – helping push back forced unpaid work in the UK.

The government feared that “Put simply, disclosure [of names] would have been likely to have led to the collapse of the MWA [Mandatory Work Activity] scheme”. Let’s do our best to make sure it does! Keep your eyes peeled for the release of the names and get ready to step up the pressure on those profiting from forced labour.

Special congratulations go to Frank Zola for pursuing this to the Information Tribunal. The full decision can be enjoyed here. (Of particular note are points 28, 29, 67, 70-75, 93, 94, 96, 99, 100, 103, 109, 127, 133, 176, 196)

Since the Salvation Army gets a special mention from the DWP for ‘holding the line’ (point 196), you may like to take this opportunity to remind them why this position is just so inconsistent with their Christian values. The Salvation Army UK can be contacted on facebook, by phone (020 7367 4500), by email (info@salvationarmy.org.uk). More background on their involvement and contact details can be found here, or you can tweet at them:
Tweet to @salvationarmyuk

On 16th May, three protesters sneaked into an industry conference to make sure employment minister Mark Hoban’s lies didn’t go unchallenged. In the week where it was revealed that he has profited over £100,000 from the sale of his taxpayer-funded second home, we thought we should remind him about the £130 million he robbed from the poorest when he rewrote history so that unlawful sanctions didn’t have to be repaid.

GovKnow’s Employment, Apprenticeships & Skills conference was about using welfare reforms to create incentives to work. It aimed to show employers where to look for cheap, compliant and mandated workers and to show educators and recovery organisations how to create those workers.  It showed all those attending how to rebrand unpaid work as training, learning and recovery.

One protester spoke for five minutes until Mark Hoban had to leave the room; she was then evicted. When Hoban returned to the stage, another protester took up where she had left off. As he was evicted another one popped up again!

This is not the first time that industry conferences have been challenged. Others have been invaded, relocated and disrupted too. These events are all about the money to be made out of unemployment and out of the unemployed. It’s clear there’s no money to be made by the unemployed in the form of employment.

Demo outside conference venue at workfare conference last year. Photo: Howard Jones

Employment, Apprenticeships & Skills Conference 2013 16th May 2013

This conference is about the use of welfare reform to create incentives to work. The conference planning committee has already ruled out the option of well paid work.

Instead, the focus is on stepping up efforts to force people to work longer, harder, with greater insecurity and fewer rights, for very much less money.

The conference is also about ‘creating employees that business needs’ – in other words compliant, frightened, non unionised, isolated, grateful, desperate, aspirational, eager to please and above all, endlessly cheerful, positive and upbeat workers – no matter how exploited.

You can find details of the agenda here. Special highlights include:

• how to pay low wages and still get highly skilled workers
• government incentives for taking on those who are too sick to work
• finding disabled people who are especially willing to work for nothing
• diversity pays! Watch your wage bill plummet as disadvantaged groups clamour for zero hour contracts
• focus on recovery: people who are hungry and homeless are a real bargain

In addition to DWP’s very own Mark Hoban, Minister for Workfare, collaborators at this festival of exploitation include the Work Foundation and NIACE.

The Work Foundation has long lost any pretensions it might once have had to original thinking about the nature of work in advanced capitalist societies. It is now a reliable source of homilies on the benefits of work, work, work and exclusive videos with titles like ‘wellbeing and high performance culture’. Based at Lancaster University, it’s awash with features like the Big Innovation Centre and aspirations to make the UK a ‘global innovation eco-hub’.

It’s sad to see NIACE taking part. They’ve done good work to support access to adult learning. Someone should remind them ‘if you sup with the devil, you need a long spoon’.

If anyone wants to join the conference debate, no doubt https://twitter.com/WorkFoundation will be twittering away. Ditto https://twitter.com/GovKnow.

Free postage donated by Salvation Army, ink donated by Barclays – Priceless. (Photo & caption courtesy of @cliffjamester)

Have you seen the Million Freepost Letter Project yet? If not check it out!

Its purpose is clear: “This is a Anti-Workfare page set up to use all legal means to stop organisations using the unemployed for free labour, these unscrupulous organisations understand one thing only, and that is profit, so that is where I aim to encourage people to target.”

Its method is simple: Write your complaint about workfare to an organisation’s freepost address, thus costing the organisation money as well.

Here are some of the addresses compiled so far…

Homebase
Freepost RSTK-ERCB-ZKJT,
PO BOX 16283,
Birmingham, B2 2XJ

Y.M.C.A.
Freepost
England

Tesco
Freepost SCO2298
Dundee
DD1 9NF

Poundland
Freepost RSLU-EBHC-HJEL
Ancer Spa Limted,
Royal Oak Business Centre,
4 Lancashire Way,
Daventry,
NN11 8PH

The Salvation Army
Freepost KE3466
LONDON
SE1 6BP

Age UK
Freepost,
London
N1 9BR

So please freepost away with letters, postcards and parcels, please keep messages polite and mailings legal! (You may also be interested to note that some people have taken to sending workfare exploiter Argos’ catalogues since the heavier the item, the more it costs.)

Thanks to the Million Freepost Letter Project for the great idea and the research!

The fantastic and v. useful infographic that Occupied Times have put together, working with Boycott Workfare. Click on it to see it full size!

There are different rules for each of the workfare schemes, and the job centre and work programme don’t seem too bothered about following them, so it’s important to know your rights! We hear stories every week of people who have managed to avoid workfare by asserting their rights. This great new infographic, put together by Occupied Times (who also published this article about Boycott Workfare), is a very useful summary of some of our key rights. For more detail, check out this page too.

Please help spread the word! Pass the infographic onto people you know who are signing on, or download and print leaflets (with the infographic formatted for A4) to give out at your local library, work programme provider or job centre. (We can help with printing costs – so let us know if that would help!)

Boycott Workfare call on the PCS to take action on conditionality, workfare and sanctions

Public sector workers, including at the DWP, will soon face sanctions under Universal Credit unless we take action now.

The PCS conference takes place in Brighton later this month. Join a rally urging delegates to support a position of non-cooperation with sanctions against welfare claimants at 12.30pm on 21st May.

We are extremely disappointed that PCS leadership have decided not to allow debate at their conference on two motions which called for the union to move from theoretical to practical unity with claimants in challenging sanctions.

Current welfare policies and reforms represent an unprecedented attack on claimants and on the welfare state itself. Conditionality, workfare and the huge rise in sanctions are driving claimants further into poverty and destitution. At the same time a vicious campaign of hatred driven by the media and political classes has stigmatised those on benefits and poisoned public debate.

Workfare forces claimants to work without wages under the threat of sanctions. Those on workfare are exempted from legislation that protects the rights of people at work and denied access to union membership and representation. Sick and disabled people claiming ESA can now be forced onto workfare. Workfare drives down wages and conditions for all workers and it is in all our interests to end it completely. Between 2009 and 2011 the number of sanctions handed out to claimants tripled to reach over half a million. In January this year 85,000 people were sanctioned, suggesting that the number of sanctions could reach one million this year. People are now having benefits withdrawn for up to three years (including for failure to participate in workfare). As the PCS have said this increase in the number and severity of sanctions is purely a political decision.

As conditionality and sanctions have increased and become more severe so the range of claimants subject to them has been extended. Sick and disabled people found “fit for work” by the hated Work Capability Assessment are now subject to this regime as are single parents with young children. Plans for in-work conditionality will see sanctions applied to part time workers and the self employed. The introduction of Universal Jobmatch and a requirement for claimants to spend 35 hour each week on jobsearch or workfare will inevitably lead to more sanctions and is intended to do so. Plans to make hardship payments a recoverable loan will force those who are sanctioned into debt. Housing benefit is increasingly being suspended where people are sanctioned. This systematic removal of welfare support is causing sharp increases in homelessness and the use of food banks.

Boycott Workfare welcome the fact that the PCS have spoken out against workfare and the huge rise in sanctions. We also understand that the primary role of the PCS is to represent their members including around 84,000 staff in the DWP. It should be obvious that there is a tension here where the PCS are campaigning against policies that their own members are required to implement. But there is also the possibility that the PCS could take concerted action to defend the welfare state in the interests of both claimants and their members. Government policies cannot be implemented without workers to implement them.

At meetings with the PCS we have raised the possibility of action being taken. Sadly the PCS have been dismissive of our suggestions and they have been met with arguments for inaction. PCS leadership have argued that anti-strike laws prevent action being taken in solidarity with claimants. But the interests of claimants and PCS members are intertwined and these policies directly impact on the working conditions of PCS members. Increased aggravation between PCS members and claimants put both at risk. And under Universal Credit many DWP staff will themselves face conditionality and sanctions. The right of workers to withhold their labour is fundamental. Laws which undermine this right do not comply with international obligations and should be challenged. Without those prepared to take risks and challenge injustice we would not have unions or a welfare state.

This is not about blaming those PCS members tasked with implementing unjust policies. We know that the blame lies elsewhere. This is about the role that unions could and should take in building solidarity between workers and claimants and in empowering workers to take action. If the PCS are sincere about campaigning for social security justice then they should refuse to cooperate with the implementation of unjust policies. Words are not enough. Boycott Workfare therefore calls on the PCS to take action to protect welfare provision and to frustrate the imposition of policies designed to undermine it.

Boycott Workfare would like to thank those PCS branches who have signed our pledge and those members who have taken part in our actions. We are grateful to members of the PCS in the Civil Service Rank and File Network who put forward a motion to this year’s PCS conference. We urge all PCS members to call for proper debate and practical action on challenging sanctions and to support the emergency motion calling for non-cooperation with sanctions to be debated as well as the rally on the 21st May.

Age UK: still using workfare

Workfare: silence is consent

Does Age UK support workfare or not? They certainly didn’t want to discuss the issue at their For Later Life Conference although they had plenty to say about poverty, inequality and equal rights in ‘tough times’.

Back in 2012, Age UK head office said there was ‘no involvement’ in workfare schemes and that they were now advising their stores to wind up their association with government employment programmes. But in recent weeks Boycott Workfare has had a spate of tweets from people saying they’re being forced to ‘volunteer’ at Age UK or face sanctions. Age UK in East Sussex appears to be taking part in MWA (Mandatory Work Activity), which requires people to work unpaid for 4 weeks or lose benefits.

Contact Age UK to raise your concerns now!

Age UK local shops

Age UK says that ‘national policy’ does not apply to 170 local independently run stores using the Age UK name, as they ‘make their own decisions, based on the needs of their local communities’. It’s difficult to see whose needs are being served by forcing people to volunteer for 30 hours a week, or else lose their unemployment benefit (Job Seekers Allowance is £71 per week for people aged 25 or over; or just £56 for under 25s).

Paid work

People are being forced to work at far below the minimum wage – on threat of sanctions of up to three years. For a 30 hour week, minimum wage at £6.19 an hour would be £185.70 per week. If people were paid a living wage, the rate would be £256.50 in London or £223.50 elsewhere in the UK.

What forced volunteering really means

Volunteering for a charity should be a choice. Forcing people to volunteer undermines the value of genuine volunteering, which is by definition, voluntary. In fact, using mandatory workfare placements means that Age UK is using forced unpaid labour. Given that they are advertising a wide range of paid jobs – how about offering those to people, instead of workfare?

Using unpaid labour further reduces wages and increases the gap between rich and poor. Something Age UK CEO Tom Wright, on well over £100K per annum, (plus some nice little earnings from subsidiary activities) might like to reflect on.

Contact Age UK to raise your concerns now!

Protecting welfare rights

Making welfare benefits conditional is a fundamental attack on people’s social rights. There’s already been a concerted assault on the rights of those who are sick, disabled and unemployed. Does Age UK think pension rights won’t be next? Would Age UK support a policy of ‘volunteer’ or lose your state pension? Don’t think it couldn’t happen. It could.

Attack on welfare

The social fund (small cash loans to help vulnerable people in a crisis) has already been replaced by vouchers. The number of people referred to food banks has doubled in the last year (to a third of a million people) as benefits are so low individuals, families and children face starvation.

Not in our name

Age UK seems to think it can sit on the fence because the Age UK shops using workfare are ‘independent’. So what would an Age UK shop have to do before Age UK said ‘not in our name’ and withdrew the right to use the Age UK brand? Racial discrimination? Age discrimination? Fraud? Contravening legislation on equal pay or perhaps on the minimum wage?

Workfare punishes people who are unemployed. Workfare removes the hard won right to unemployment benefits and creates a pool of unpaid labour, undermining jobs, pay and conditions for all workers. Consent has been removed from the system and the threat of starvation and homelessness has been used to bully people into unpaid labour.

Taking Action – What you can do

Age UK has a responsibility for what all shops trading under its name do. Ask Age UK to withdraw its branding from shops involved in workfare or ‘work for your benefits’ schemes administered by the DWP or by private sector interests working on their behalf.

You can email them directly.

Post a message on their Facebook page.

Send them a tweet.

They welcome a chat.

You can give them a (polite) call 0800 169 87 87 (freephone from a landline).

Check out with volunteers and workers at your local Age UK shop if they are involved in workfare and let us know!

Aktive Arbeitslose challenge sanctions and share mutual support with unemployed people in Austria.

Boycott Workfare is proud to be taking part this week in a conference in Vienna, hosted by the Austrian group ‘Aktive Arbeitslose‘. As well as an exciting chance to share ideas, tactics and experiences across borders, it’s also an opportunity to look more deeply at the EU and its involvement in workfare. What we found is revealing but perhaps unsurprising.

As high unemployment, austerity, and cuts ravage Europe, and millions of people are plunged into poverty, the workfare industry continues to promote poverty and a europe-wide race to the bottom. But people across Europe are refusing to run that race.

Wondering what this has got to do with EU? Follow the money: In 2010 A4e alone had already received £60 million from the European Social Fund (ESF).

Perversely the ESF claims its aim is to ‘help millions of Europeans improve their lives by learning new skills and finding better jobs’. Yet A4e continues to fail to meet its targets to get people into work and to ruin lives via sanctions. The EU continues to fund it to do so. Not to be outdone, REED and Deloitte-owned Ingeus have their snouts in the trough as well: REED were recently awarded £4.9 million. ESF-funded Ingeus recently had a visit from an EU commissioner to highlight its ‘successes’, which is odd given that it too is failing to meet its minimum Work Programme targets.

Familiar? European Social Fund branding appears on Work Programme letters and leaflets.

The government’s flagship £5 billion Work Programme is, according to DWP statistics, worse than doing nothing at all. Every single private company has failed its targets, but instead of the scheme getting scrapped, the companies want more for doing even less. This is the scheme that the European Social Fund has boosted with a further £66 million so that disabled people can be subject to it as well. The EU is subsidising the likes of A4E and the government to sanction to people and increase poverty.

Whilst workfare providers make millions from scrounging astronomical sums in the form of both UK and EU taxpayer subsidies, jobseekers continue to be scapegoated, punished and impoverished. Yet if workfare providers and funders can co-operate across borders, so too can the people in Europe – in fact we should. We are keen to hear from groups across the EU. If you are in Europe and reading this, please contact us. If you are a EU citizen in the UK on workfare or who has been sanctioned then get in touch.

The First Vienna International Conference of Unemployed is a welcome opportunity to share counter-strategies and to network together. We have the tools. We have the ideas. Let’s use them.

Read Boycott Workfare’s speech to the conference.

Two years ago a third of Haringey Council parks department gardeners were made redundant. Now people on workfare are being forced to work unpaid on their estates.

This report from Haringey Solidarity Group highlights the problem of workfare being used to fill the gaps left by local authority cuts. If you’re in London, join the protest today! If not, please support the local campaign by raising your concerns with the council.

Homes for Haringey is the borough’s arms-length management organisation, set up to manage council housing. Tenants on their estates have found out that local unemployed people are being forced to work on their estates for no pay and with no workplace rights.

Groundwork, a national registered charity working in partnership with Haringey Council, has been using the Government’s workfare schemes – in which unemployed people are forced to work with no pay or workplace rights – to maintain some Homes For Haringey estate gardens.

The last time we picketed the Homes for Haringey office, they issued a statement attempting to deny their involvement in replacing paid jobs. But tenants on Broadwater Farm Estate have seen people on the Groundwork scheme cutting hedges and doing other grounds maintenance work, work that was previousy done by paid council staff. Job Seekers have also been sanctioned for refusing to work for no pay under the Groundwork workfare scheme, losing all entitlement to benefits for several weeks.

Two years ago a third of Haringey Council parks department gardeners were made redundant. They used to maintain all the Council estate gardens. It is unacceptable that these paid jobs are now being replaced with unpaid labour. People should be paid a living wage for the job they are asked to do. Poverty levels are already very high in Tottenham, being forced to work for no pay just makes things worse.

Why should people be forced to work for no pay?

The government has handed millions to private companies to administer these Workfare schemes, supposedly to save money by helping people to find jobs. But the reality is:

- Workfare does NOT get people into jobs. A recent government report found that just 3.5% of people on the Work Programme actually find paid employment lasting more than 6 months (less than teh figure for those would have found work anyway). The government then handed yet more money to scheme providers, which shows that workfare is about driving down wages and subsidising the private sector.

- Workfare affects ALL of us. There are currently about 18 people chasing every job in Tottenham. Workfare placements replace REAL vacancies, taking away genuine paid jobs, so forcing more people to rely on benefits.

Under workfare schemes unemployed people have to work for nothing or they face sanctions meaning loss of ALL benefits! There is a growing movement of opposition to Workfare, and in response a number of companies have quit the programme.

Homes for Haringey is wholly owned by Haringey Council to manage its housing. The Council should put an immediate stop to the use of workfare in the borough.

What you can do:

• Contact Homes for Haringey: Ask them about their use of unpaid workers. Email feedback@homesforharingey.org, call 020 8489 4337, or tweet @homes4haringey.
• Get in touch with Haringey Solidarity Group or North London Solidarity Federation if you have seen Groundwork carrying out parks maintenance, or other work that was previously done by paid staff.
• Haringey Council have a commitment to pay their staff a London Living Wage. The five councillors below all sit on the Homes for Haringey board. Contact the councillors to speak to them about Homes for Haringey’s use of workfare.
  • Cllr Ed Butcher
  • Cllr Isidoros Diakides
  • Cllr Joseph Ejiofor
  • Cllr Juliet Solomon
  • Cllr Anne Stennett
• Please come and support a lunchtime protest this Wednesday 24th April, 12pm at the Homes for Haringey offices in Wood Green Alexandra House, 10 Station Road, N22 7TR (2 mins from Wood Green tube)