March 3rd Day of Action! London and Liverpool

Take action with Boycott Workfare in London!

Boycott Workfare are planning in London for a March 3rd Day of Action against workfare exploitation.

Keep your eyes on our Get Involved page for how to take part.

Take action with UK Uncut in Liverpool!
Saturday, March 3rd 2012. 1pm until 4pm. Meet Next to Nowhere Social Centre, Bold Street, Liverpool.

If you continue to exploit us we WILL shut you down.

Private companies are benefiting from people who are made to work unpaid on threat of loss of benefits.

This means that those on benefits are being made to work for companies such as Sainsbury’s, Holland and Barrett, Primark, Arcadia Group and many more shops on our high street not for a fair, living wage but for £2.25 an hour for up to 30 hours per week.

The government calls it “work experience”, we call it exploitation.

It means that companies involved aren’t hiring people who need jobs in favour of this free labour. It means that those who could actually be employed by the company and then go on to be “economically active” and pay income taxes are instead struggling to survive on way under £100 a week. It means that even disabled people, pushed off DLA and on to JSA by the government’s ridiculous new guidelines for what makes you “fit to work” can be forced to work 30 hours a week.

So we’re taking action about one of the many stores who exploit the unemployed in the traditional UKuncut fashion. Take a look at the Facebook event

Sainsbury’s misleading customers over their use of workfare labour

Following the news that Waterstones have stopped delivering government workfare schemes, Boycott Workfare has been keeping up the pressure on other shops to do the same.

It looked for a moment as though Sainsbury’s might have followed Waterstones example when they started telling their customers on Twitter:

“We don’t have any arrangements in place with the government in relation to their work programmes”.

Sainsbury’s sent this message out to several of their customers who had asked about their use of workfare.  This understandably led people to believe that Sainsbury’s were no longer involved.

However, when Boycott Workfare questioned them further about this Sainsbury’s admitted that some of their stores have made arrangements with Jobcentre Plus to provide unpaid workfare placements. We know that Sainsbury’s have previously provided workfare placements for private providers such as A4E. We asked if Sainsbury’s still have any arrangements with private providers but they chose not to answer.

Last year Sainsbury’s made profits of £665 million. Their boss Justin King earned £3.2 million.  The young people working for their benefits in Sainsbury’s get £1.78 an hour. Sainsbury’s pay them nothing.  Rather than trying to mislead their customers, Sainsbury’s should follow Waterstones example and abandon the use of forced, unpaid labour.

Superdrug have also been caught out.  They told one of their customers on Twitter that “Superdrug do not use workfare labour”.  When Boycott Workfare pointed out to them a recent advertisement for an unpaid workfare position at Superdrug, they chose not to respond.

Good news: Waterstones ends forced unpaid work placements!

In a promising sign for our campaign, The Guardian has today reported that Waterstones will no longer accept workfare at its stores. It seems it was embarrassed into the decision when the paper exposed the practice at one of its stores: “They got me to do a lot of the grunt work, such as moving entire book sections around the store. I never saw anybody else do this kind of work.”

The reality of workfare is gradually being exposed. This month someone who was placed at Bookers Wholesale told us: “The first day was horrible. They sent me in the chill room to work with no fleece or gloves. Apparently there were none. I noticed the other staff not doing any hard jobs, making me do hard lifting. They were being paid and not doing as hard work as me.”

This is a key time for push for other high street stores to end workfare as well. Come to our meeting on Wed 8^th February, 7pm, 11 Goodwin Street, London, N4 3HQ to discuss how we’ll do it. Or email us to feed in your ideas beforehand.

Unfortunately, we have this week heard that the postal workers’ union has agreed to allow workfare in the Royal Mail for a trial period. Please contact the union to ask them to reconsider their policy.

There are loads of ways to support the campaign:

• If you use Facebook, please like our new Page.
• Submit a Freedom of Information request to find out where workfare is taking place in your area.
• Get the information out there! Print leaflets and leaflet your job centre / welfare to work provider. Email us for a copy or the latest version will be on the website soon. (We can help pay for printing – email us for details).
• Approach Trade Union branches and ask them to support our campaign and make a donation (see our union motion here)
• Get in touch if you’re tackling workfare in other ways and we can help with resources or publicity!

Thanks for supporting Boycott Workfare. Stay in touch!

Royal Mail “Work Experience” Programme

“Congress reaffirms its belief…that compulsory workfare schemes are in contradiction to the notion of welfare rights.”
TUC Congress 2010 Final Agenda

The leadership of Communication Workers Union have this week issued a letter to branches stating they will support DWP  ’Work Experience’ at the Royal Mail. The scheme will begin with ten 30 hour a week workfare placements at a time in each region. Over the course of a year, each region will see 130 forced unpaid workers. There is no sign of any jobs at the end for those forced to take part in the scheme.

The questions for the union are:

• How the CWU can support a scheme which mandates people to work for less than minimum wage and penalises them by cutting off even the subsistence income of £50 Jobseekers if they do not take part?
• How can the union leadership support a scheme, which is already seeing paid workers replaced with forced workers across the UK?

All the evidence that Boycott Workfare has received demonstrates that workfare schemes such as “Work Experience” lead to overtime and staff hours being cut for those who are employed. It is worth remembering that if in future, postal workers take industrial action, workfare will provide Royal Mail management with a workforce that will be forced to cross picket lines and work since if those sent on this scheme refuse to do so they will have their JSA stopped.

The CWU has said it will review its position after an initial trial period, so this is an important time to remind the leadership of its responsibilities to its members. We ask all union members and CWU branches to contact the CWU leadership to challenge their support for this forced unpaid work scheme and to boycott it in their own workplaces.

You may want to point out to the CWU that:

• People on Work Experience are subject to sanctions if they do not take part. This is forced labour.
• The Guardian have helped to expose that these schemes do not benefit young people.
• The Citizens Advice Bureau lists Work Experience as a compulsory scheme.

No jobs at the end of workfare

This person’s experience on workfare placements from the Work Programme is typical:

I was forced onto a Work/Slave Placement for four months for Bookers Wholesale through Work Programme provider Prospects.

At the start I thought I would get a job at the end of it, how wrong I was. The manager said to me, “Work hard and we will employ you”. Another gentleman named James, who must have been in his 40s, was sent from Prospects about 6 weeks earlier than me so I could base on what happened to him at the end an idea of what would happen to me.

The first day was horrible. They sent me in the chill room to work with no fleece or gloves. Apparently there were none. I noticed the other staff not doing any hard jobs, making me do hard lifting. They were being paid and not doing as hard work as me. The more I saw this the more resentful I became.

When James left before me they didn’t offer him a job. I asked the manager about it and he said they would offer James a Saturday job if anything was available. “He is 40, not 14” I thought. James told me he asked them and they had said they would employ him. The turning point came when two brothers who worked there part-time were sacked for stealing some alcohol. I thought “job for me and James” but then I noticed they employed the brother of someone that worked there.

Prospects job hunts were disgusting, they treated us like children. James told me one of the women talked to him like he was 5 all because his bus was late. Being the bigger man he dismissed it, it’s amazing how someone could manage it.

Near the end Prospects told us to ask our slave masters about volunteering for one day a week. I asked the manager just to see what he would say. He said there are no jobs but you could continue as you are, like “You wont employ me but you will use me as slave labour??? “ I couldn’t be bothered to say anything, I just left in disgust.

The last week I had 2 days left out of my 5 to take off (James took none), I said to Prospects “I’m taking the days off”, they said “What if they are counting on you to be there?” I just laughed and said “If they are, then employ me!” They tried to force me to go, but I yelled “You’re supposed to find me a job not turn me in to a slave!!“

Faced with the Work Programme? You need to read this

The Work Programme models the “black box” approach: claimants are sent to private companies who are given free reign to impose whatever conditions they want. The DWP hasn’t even stipulated a maximum amount of time that Work Programme providers can force people to do workfare.

There are ways that you can protect yourself on the Work Programme and at the job centre. This is the focus of new website consent.me.uk

Take a look for information on:

• Retaining control over your CV
• Leaflets
• Obtaining information the DWP Jobcentre holds about you
• Obtaining official information
• Starting work?
• Work Programme contracts
• And more!

Also check out this video for a simple digest of some of your rights:

Miserable Christmas for workfare staff at Asda

Boycott Workfare has consistently pointed out that if people are placed in mandated unpaid work on threat of losing even the tiny income of £53/week benefits, they are in a position where they can easily be exploited. This account from a young person in mandatory “work experience” at Asda shows that companies are quick to take advantage of this situation. Workfare workers were forced to work Christmas eve and New Year’s eve while paid workers were sent home:

I’m one of the DWP work experience lot at Asda. The store has been sending home paid workers early and using workfare workers. The store has somewhere between 10 and 15 people on DWP work experience. Not long after my group started work paid staff started mentioning people being sent home early while work experience people were kept in (and a second group of five or six work experience people was actually taken on a couple of weeks ago). At the same time everyone from the managers and team leaders down were talking about large overspends on stock. All of the work experience people that I know personally are working christmas eve and new year’s eve and while I’m not exactly in a position to know exactly what the rosters are for those days it seems pretty unlikely that they’re going to have normal levels of paid staff working on extra pay when they apparently can’t afford to pay them all normal wages in the course of a regular week.

Read another account of supermarket exploitation over Christmas here.

Why We’re Supporting Boycott Workfare Campaign In Birmingham

Since the beginning of the year, Birmingham Trades Council and Brighton GMB Branch have signed the pledge to Boycott Workfare. The campaign also has the support of Birmingham Against Cuts who have written this statement…

Workfare is a government scheme where people who have been on Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) for 6 months or more are made to take a “work experience” position at a company for a period of up to 6 weeks.Common placements are at Poundland, Tesco and other retail businesses, where people will do jobs such as sweeping/cleaning and shelf stacking.

Workfare was first brought in as part of the Flexible New Deal, under Labour, and is being expanded by the ConDem coalition. Worryingly, there are now moves being put into place to create placements of up to 6 months for long term unemployed.
During the period you are working for the company, you receive your benefits and travel expenses. There is no extra pay, and people on the work experience do a full 30-35hour week for up to £67.50 of benefits (younger people will get less, with £53.75 being a lower rate). This means that people are often earning less than £2/hr for their work – well below the minimum wage.

The companies they are working for do not pay anything, instead the taxpayer covers the cost of their “wages”.

Boycott Workfare are a campaign group who have been working to end these schemes. They approached us before Christmas as they will be starting to campaign around the West Midlands this year. This coincided with the start of a legal challenge to Workfare by local firm Public Interest Lawyers (who regularly attend Birmingham Against The Cuts meetings), and a story in the Guardian about workfare, which included details from Cait Reilly, who was made to give up her voluntary position at the Birmingham Pen Museum, in order to do a placement at Poundland in Kings Heath.

We have decided to support the campaign in Birmingham, and will be helping to organise a meeting in the city centre sometime in March, along with Birmingham Trades Council and Boycott Workfare. We will of course publicise this meeting when there are firm details. There will also be meetings held around Birmingham and the West Midlands.

If you want to get involved with the campaign, or want to know if there will be a meeting near you, please email us at BirminghamAgainstTheCuts@Gmail.com and we’ll pass your details on / get back to you.

Read the full statement of support here.

A cartoon about workfare

Caitlin Reilly was forced to work unpaid at Poundland. The prospect of workfare – handing free labour to companies like Tescos and Asda – is now faced by more and more people. Thanks to one supporter of Boycott Workfare for this cartoon…

Avoid forced unpaid labour

1. Don’t volunteer for “Work experience”!
Once you volunteer for job centre ‘work experience’ it becomes mandatory. Then if you stop doing this work experience, your benefits can be stopped.

Make sure this doesn’t happen to you:

• Do not agree to volunteer for the job centre’s “work experience”: It quickly becomes forced unpaid labour.
• If you want to do work experience, find something that is really voluntary.
• If you are sent on the scheme, you must turn up on the first day- but you do not face sanctions if you leave within during the first week (unless this is due to misconduct).

2. Avoid Mandatory Work Activity!
We have seen people referred for ‘Mandatory Work Activity’ simply because they have challenged their advisor. But there are strict guidelines for who can be referred. You can use the job centre internal guidance below to challenge referral! You do not have to go on this scheme if:

• you are currently working (paid or voluntary)
• you are undertaking employment related study / training
• you are taking part in or recently completed another “employment measure”
• the reason given is you have a lack of recent work experience
• you are being referred because your advisor thinks you haven’t been meeting your jobseeker’s agreement.

3. Also, watch out for the “Work Programme”
Multi-million pound companies like A4E and Reed profit from making our lives miserable on the Work Programme. They have been given freedom to make anything they want mandatory, and this can include workfare.

We are working on ways to challenge this. Workfare is wrong, and it’s up to all of us stop it. Remember, you are not alone. That’s why Boycott Workfare was formed by people like you. So help yourself and get involved!

To see this information in the DWP’s own words, click here and here.