Posted: April 30th, 2013 | Author: editor | Filed under: Call to action, Charities, Name and shame | 1 Comment »
Age UK: still using workfare
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!
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Posted: April 24th, 2013 | Author: editor | Filed under: International, Welfare to work industry | 2 Comments »
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.
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Posted: April 24th, 2013 | Author: editor | Filed under: Call to action, Name and shame, Public Sector | No Comments »
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.
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.
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Posted: April 16th, 2013 | Author: editor | Filed under: Call to action, Charities | 3 Comments »
YMCA: still backing workfare despite all the evidence (Photo: Joelsp/Flickr)
Everyone already knew it, but now Work Programme providers have themselves admitted that they’re failing (though of course to them this means they should be paid more for doing less). Online pressure and protests pushed Homebase to make another statement on its use of workfare but “no further commitment” to workfare still leaves paid hours devastated in at least one store, and tens of people working without pay. Lord Freud, architect of welfare reforms, George Osborne and Iain Duncan Smith have all been served ‘eviction notices’ by UK Uncut. Liverpool have also kicked off a week of action. Workfare and other welfare reforms are under pressure, as ministers consistently lie to justify them.
In the second of our ‘Workfare Wednesday’ callouts, help keep up the pressure on another workfare exploiter: YMCA. In recent weeks, Christian charities using workfare have come under fire for failing to note that “The Labourer is worthy of his hire” (Luke 10:7).
YMCA’s latest statement on workfare defends their use of forced unpaid workers, and ignores the fact they are responsible for pushing people into destitution and possible homelessness through sanctions which can last up to three years. Help persuade them to join the list of charities who will no longer have anything to do with workfare. Help keep up the pressure today!
YMCA England are on facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/THEYMCA
Their President, Bishop John Sentamu, has spoken out against workfare in the past. Contact him on twitter
or the charity direct
Phone them on 020 7186 9500 or their shops hotline on 0845 601 0728.
Email: shop@ymca.org.uk or enquiries@ymca.org.uk
They have a youtube channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/ymcaengland
To find contact details of your nearest YMCA shop visit: http://www.ymca.org.uk/find/ymcashops
Contact YMCA International to tell the world what this organisation is doing in their name to the poorest and already destitute in the UK @ymcaint or on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ymcas
YMCA have a range of fundraising arms including a Fitness Training company on twitter @ymcafit and facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ymcafit
They also run a corporate conference centre called Dunford House 01730 812381 sale@dunfordhouse.org.uk http://www.facebook.com/dunfordhouse
Please note: Whilst it’s well worth trying to speak to a manager or senior individual if possible please bear in mind most people taking calls/emails will be low paid retail/admin staff and could even be on workfare themselves. Be aware that is an offence to make telephone calls or send communications which are threatening, indecent or offensive.
While you’re at it, you may also like to contact another Christian charity and major workfare exploiter, Salvation Army too.
Posted: April 10th, 2013 | Author: editor | Filed under: Call to action, Name and shame | Tags: homebase | 2 Comments »
Homebase boasted about cutting paid work with workfare. We can’t let them get away with it!
In the first of our weekly call outs for online workfare action, it’s time to show Homebase that we won’t settle for their PR guff!
Two weeks ago, it emerged that Homebase is taking on tens of workfare placements in their Haringey store: 750 hours of unpaid work in just one week in just one of Homebase’s 342 shops.
A week later, a Homebase poster was leaked: it showed managers boasting about how they have been able to cut the wages bill with workfare. Then a staff member told us what it had meant for staff: overtime cut for everyone and some people’s hours reduced cut from 48 down to 8.
People’s response has been immense, with loads of online pressure, people pledging to shop elsewhere, and pop-up demos outside their shops.
It’s obviously having an impact.
On Easter weekend, Homebase took their Facebook Page down at least three times because of the scale of response from the public. Since then they have deleted literally hundreds of comments.
Yesterday, Homebase posted a new statement, saying “While we review our local arrangements, we have decided to make no further commitment to the Job Centre work experience programme.” But that still leaves tens of workfare placements in their Haringey store and possibly elsewhere too.
Step up the pressure for every single person working in Homebase to be paid.
At their stores
A week of action has been called against Homebase, culminating in protests, leafleting and pickets at their stores this weekend. Why not print some leaflets and visit a store near you? Haringey Solidarity group put this poster, this poster and this leaflet together, which you might like to adapt and print. Let us know if you need help covering printing costs!
So far actions have been called in:
London on Saturday
London on Sunday
Bristol on Saturday
Bath on Sunday
Let us know what you plan and we’ll add it to the list!
Online
On Facebook (if they bring their page back again): facebook.com/homebase
On Twitter:
By email: order.enquiries@homebase.co.uk or info@homebase.co.uk or enquiries@homebase.co.uk
By phone: 0845 077 8888 or 0845 601 6911
Or contact the company they are owned by: The Home Retail Group.
By post
A clever project has been set up for people to write or send parcels to workfare users’ Freepost addresses. More info here.
…and if you’re in Liverpool, there’s a whole week of workfare fun planned next week.
Homebase has boasted about workfare reducing paid work. We can’t let them get away with it. After all, “If you exploit us, we will shut you down.”
Posted: April 6th, 2013 | Author: editor | Filed under: Call to action, Name and shame | 16 Comments »
This poster was leaked from the Haringey Homebase store.
This poster,
leaked yesterday from Haringey Homebase, shows exactly how employers view workfare: an easy way to cut the wages bill. Homebase claim
“We ensure they work alongside, not replace, paid colleagues”, but a staff member has told us that since tens of workfare placements were brought in, overtime has been cut for everyone. Some people’s hours have been cut from 48 down to 8 – far below the threshold for Working Tax Credits – because that is all they are contracted for.
It turns out 750 hours with no payroll costs – the figure for just one week in just one of Homebase’s 342 stores – does have a massive impact on the paid work available. Apparently it’s an effect that is popular with the regional manager, who we’ve heard has been trying to get all Homebase stores in her region to use workfare, and has been suspending or moving managers who don’t.
Homebase have been quick to claim that the scheme is voluntary, but our source told us that workfare workers have all been told “work for free or lose your benefits”. As Boycott Workfare have exposed, even on paper the Work Experience scheme is only voluntary if you say ‘yes’, since it is backed with the threat of Mandatory Work Activity which carries up to three year sanctions.
Haringey Homebase is not advertising for workers and we’ve heard that managers have been instructed to tell people on workfare that there are no jobs for them. This, despite the fact that last year the boss of Home Retail Group – who also own workfare exploiters Argos – was paid £1.1 million.
The public response to this story has been immense with hundreds of comments on Homebase’s Facebook page deleted, and the company taking it offline at times. But it hasn’t yet been enough. In a week where people claiming benefit have been smeared by the Chancellor, the fact of the matter is that it’s not people on benefits who are scrounging off the taxpayer, it’s businesses. We need to show Homebase that they can’t get away with workfare exploitation and we won’t go away until everyone working in their stores is paid.
Contact Homebase and their parent company Home Retail Group. Order leaflets from Boycott Workfare for a pop-up action at your local store. Help spread the word!
Oh, and if you were ever tempted to think this is a one-off mistake, this is what someone else told us this week: “a friend of mine who was working 40 hours per week at Argos has just had his hours cut by half because they have been getting workfare in. Now he can’t afford his rent.”
Feel free to contact Argos, Homebase’s sister company, too.
Posted: March 30th, 2013 | Author: editor | Filed under: Name and shame | 4 Comments »
21 workfare workers in one Homebase store. (Photo: Sebastian Ballard)
Perhaps eager to claim
a chocolate Easter egg bonus, Job Centre staff in Finsbury Park (London) this week congratulated each other for
securing 21 workfare placements in a single Homebase store in Haringay. This is a store that is not advertising for workers: more evidence that workfare replaces paid work.
Last year the boss of Home Retail Group – who also own workfare exploiters Argos – was paid £1.1 million. You’d think they could afford a living wage for the people working in their stores.
Homebase have responded to the spontaneous public reaction calling for them to quit the scheme by deleting tens of comments on its Facebook Page, then disabling comments, then promising a statement on Tuesday, then taking the page down, then resurrecting the page free of any mention of workfare, then taking the page down again. It’s clear our actions are having an impact.
Let’s keep going until everyone working in their stores is paid!
Contact Homebase:
On Facebook (if they bring their page back again): facebook.com/homebase
On Twitter:
By email: order.enquiries@homebase.co.uk or info@homebase.co.uk or enquiries@homebase.co.uk
By phone: 0845 077 8888 or 0845 601 6911
Or contact the company they are owned by: The Home Retail Group.
Posted: March 28th, 2013 | Author: editor | Filed under: Action report | 3 Comments »
Edinburgh’s actions shut two workfare exploiters down!
Last week thousands of people around the UK took action against workfare, and it’s already had results! Superdrug have declared that they are pulling out of workfare. The pressure on those charities and businesses still profiting from unpaid work stepped up massively. Online actions saw Debenhams decide to cancel a live Facebook Q&A, and the Salvation Army respond to visits to its headquarters and online pressure by claiming “workfare does not exist”!
Action on high streets across the UK saw shops that use workfare closed down, letters delivered to workfare users, and chalking appear on the street pointing out workfare profiteers. Read more about actions in Edinburgh, Bristol, Birmingham, London and Nottingham – just a few of the many cities that took part in the week of action.
It was a week where, with the exception of only 57 MPs who voted against it, both the Government and the Opposition supported a bill which denied justice to 300,000 people. They rushed through a retroactive law to rob £130 million from people who were due repayments of unlawful benefit sanctions. Shamefully, the Labour Party are now lying to justify their actions: pretending that people could not have appealed wrongful sanctions without the bill; and that no sanctions were possible without it.
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Posted: March 22nd, 2013 | Author: editor | Filed under: Call to action, Info on schemes, Welfare to work industry | 10 Comments »
Iain Duncan Smith and his thinktank friends think that workfare and sanctions are a good idea for people in low-paid and part-time work too. tell him what you think! (Photo: CBI / flickr)
It’s now Day 6 of the week of action – and we must have already topped 35 hours of anti-workfare activity. Shame we can’t stick that down on the form!
Join people in cities across the UK for pickets and creative action, and take part in online action too!
For today’s online action, we will turn our eyes towards the future and step up efforts to get another ‘flagship’ scheme grounded before it even sets sail out of the harbour. Not content with the devastation sanctions are already causing, the DWP and their thinktank friends Policy Exchange have been seeking ideas on how to extend workfare and ‘conditionality’ – let’s call it profiteering, time-wasting, potentially life-sapping harassment – to working claimants when Universal Credit kicks in. And we have this weekend to tell them: don’t even think of it.
According to Lord Freud, the banker-turned-welfare-minister: “The fact that those in work will come under the ambit of the JobCentre Plus for the first time as a result of universal credit gives the government radical new opportunities.” The ComDems have learned their lessons from New Labour in the spin of framing retrogressive steps as ‘radical’. They are boldly going where no poverty profiteer has gone before.
However, the government is well aware that the usual divisive rhetoric about benefits robbing ‘the taxpayer’ will be more difficult to direct against people who are already working and paying taxes. Also, many of the workers they aim to harass are organised, belong to unions and have access to resources such as free legal advice. The Cait Reilly case upset IDS so much he threw a spectacular hissy fit. There’ll be many more challenges if the DWP insists on sticking its nose where it’s not meant to go.
Therefore, the DWP and Policy Exchange are asking for suggestions on how to widen the range of their nets to self-employed, part-time and low-paid workers. In a document with the catchy title of “Extending labour market interventions to in-work claimants – call for ideas”, the DWP requests feedback from “employers, behavioural economists, social psychologists, think tanks, welfare to work providers, academics, charities, application designers and those at the sharp end of delivering existing services”. Of course, this call-out doesn’t include those at ‘the sharp end’ of DWP schemes.
The DWP’s call for ideas on in-work conditionality will run until 25 March. So we have only a couple of days to go, but let’s make them count. It asks that people submit ideas to: uc.newapproaches@dwp.gsi.gov.uk
Alongside this, the Policy Exchange has formed a policy and academic group dedicated to this project. These lovely folks kindly invite comments ‘on a personal basis’ for Matthew Oakley at matthew.oakley@policyexchange.org.uk.
We can ensure that they come to work on Monday to an overflowing inbox. Many websites allow you to download free PDFs of classics. Perhaps the DWP and Policy Exchange folks might want to read some. Dickens might be a good place to start, which will show just how ‘radical’ their plans are.
Suggestions, they want? Those of us likely to be on the sharp end of this stick could tell them what we think. Let ‘em have it!
Posted: March 21st, 2013 | Author: editor | Filed under: Call to action, Charities | 4 Comments »
Some charities have adopted an ethical position on workfare. Let’s make the others follow!
Given
today’s evidence that there are targets to increase sanctioning people’s social security at all costs, it is time to put the charities who help that happen on the spot.
In the last month, thanks to your action, five charities have said they will no longer take part in workfare schemes: Sense, PDSA, Capability Scotland, Sue Ryder and the Red Cross. The Children’s Society has also pledged not to use workfare.
This means the workfare schemes which rely on charity placements are on the rocks! Already before the latest withdrawals, the government complained: “The high profile withdrawal of placements from a number of larger charities meant a sharp reduction in placements.”
One in five people sent on mandatory work activity in charity shops face destructive sanctions (benefit stoppages) of three or six months. The charities still involved are profiting from making people poorer. Let’s tell them it’s time to pull out!
RSPCA
Last month, fellow animal charity PDSA realised that it needed to show a bit more kindness to the human beings working in its shops. Time for RSPCA to do the same and stop using workfare!
Head office: 030 0123 0100
Facebook: RSPCA
YouTube: www.youtube.com/rspcauk
Flickr feed: www.flickr.com/photos/rspca
Twitter:
TCV
TCV (formally known as BTCV), have previously boasted of using 20,000 unpaid workers on various government schemes since the 1980s. They currently hold lucrative contracts with the DWP to deliver Mandatory Work Activity. The so-called charity have forced at least 589 people into unpaid work, often for private companies on this scheme alone.
This is on top of the countless people who have been forced to work without pay on their conservation projects.
Sue Pearson, a spokesperson for the charity, even boasts of how they have attempted to get round DWP rules which state placements must have a ‘community benefit’. Speaking to the Guardian, Pearson explains how claimants forced to work in a food preparation factory had been required to “gather up recycling materials” in order to meet DWP criteria.
TCV are the worst kind of workfare exploiters. As well as bullying people into working for no pay, they also put jobs and working conditions at risk by sending claimants to work for free in profit making companies.
Head office 01302 388 883
Email: information@tcv.org.uk
Find your local TCV Branch: http://www.btcv.org.uk/volunteer/index.html
Facebook: TheConservationVolunteers
Twitter:
Papworth Trust
Earlier this month, Papworth Trust told civilsociety.co.uk:
“Papworth Trust believes that by being involved in mandatory work activity, we can make sure that each work placement is as effective as possible for each disabled or disadvantaged person.”
Now tell them what you think of their use of disabled people on workfare!
A list of phone and fax numbers can be found here.
Email: info@papworth.org.uk
Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/papworthtrust
Facebook: Papworth Trust
Twitter:
British Heart Foundation
Mark Thomas has spoken out against the use of workfare by British Heart Foundation: “As someone who fundraises and supports BHF (L2B bike ride regular) it’s gutting to see them join an exploitative scheme like Workfare. BHF involvement in Workfare has undermined my trust and commitment to them as a campaigning group. I would ask BHF to reconsider. If they wish to keep their public status as a charity that is automatically thought well of by the public then they should cease their involvement with Workfare.”
Following occupations and pickets in across the UK British Heart Foundation
announced they were “moving away” from workfare. Recently they declared they had withdrawn from the Mandatory Work Activity scheme. But they are openly declaring
on their website that they are still participating in the Work Programme – despite the fact that in December this scheme was extended to give providers the power to force many sick and disabled claimants on Employment and Support Allowance to work for nothing, or face sanctions.
BHF state on their site: “Our supporters are welcome to contact us directly if they have any questions about our participation in the scheme. Please email customerservice@bhf.org.uk“.
Don’t disappoint them, get in touch!
BHF Retail HQ – 01372 477 300
Head Office – 020 7554 0000
Customer Service Centre – 0300 330 3322
Facebook: BHF
Contact: http://www.bhf.org.uk/contact-us.aspx
Twitter:
YMCA
The YMCA released a new statement two weeks ago defending their use of forced unpaid workers, and ignoring the fact they are responsible for pushing people into destitution and possible homelessness through sanctions which can last up to three years. A rolling online picket has been called to persuade them to join the list of charities who will no longer have anything to do with workfare.
Phone them on 020 7186 9500 or their shops hotline on 0845 601 0728.
Email: shop@ymca.org.uk or enquiries@ymca.org.uk
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/ymcaengland
Find contacts for your nearest YMCA shop: http://www.ymca.org.uk/find/ymcashops
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/THEYMCA
Tweet their President, Bishop John Sentamu, has spoken out against workfare in the past:
Twitter:
And if you’ve got a bit more time, why not get in touch with the Salvation Army, or some of the high street brands profiting from workfare too.
