SUICIDE OF MEN IN BUILDING TRADE

ONS figures 2011-2015

To coincide with this, Public Health England (PHE), Business in the Community (BITC) and Samaritans have joined forces to produce toolkits for employers on how to prevent suicide and how to minimise the impact when it does happen.

The new ONS analysis shows that suicides are less common for females than males, and that there are differences in the types of occupation where suicide is more common. For women, occupations with a high risk of suicide include nurses (23% above the national average), primary school teachers (42% above average) and those working in culture, media and sport (69% above average).

For men, low skilled labourers in construction had a risk that was 3 times higher than that the average for England; men working in skilled construction jobs also had an increased risk. Both male and female care workers have a risk of suicide that was almost twice the national average.

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Debbie Abrahams MP debates state pensions!

Debbie Abrahams - Shadow Pensions Minister

THE UK state retirement age will probably be increased to 70 before many millennials - young people who are 18 to 35 today - retire and there won't be a pot left for  them  to piss in, because all the baby boomers born after WW11 will have gorged themselves on welfare benefits and left them with sweet FA.  Many of these baby boomers with their triple-lock pensions, have been Conservative Party voters and hard-line 'Brexiteers'.

I'm just at the back end of the baby boomers, born in the early 1950's.  No free bus pass for me at 60, but 66, assuming there are still free bus passes by 2020.  By then, I'll probably have a long white beard and a walking stick and possibly riddled with arthritis, and too ill to get on a bus.  However, if I lived in Wales, Scotland or NI, or an area of Greater London, I'd get a free bus pass at 60 but not in Labour controlled Greater Manchester, the home of the NORTHERN POORHOUSE.   And Labour are as much to blame for this, as the Tories.

While successive governments have increased the UK state retirement age, arguing that we're all living longer, we now know that since 2010, rises in life expectancy have stalled.  Researchers at the University of Manchester and York have found that while the rate of premature death in people under 45 was falling in the south, it was stagnating in the north.  In 2015, the number of premature deaths of people aged 35 to 44 was 50% higher in the north than the south.

It is argued that deindustrialisation in many parts of northern Britain, has led to precarious employment, unemployment, and increasing poverty.  Economic recession, along with the austerity programme and cuts to public spending, have resulted in an increase in deaths by suicide, - now the biggest cause of deaths of British men under 50 - substance abuse, and chronic health conditions among young people whose life chances and quality of life have worsened.  The university researchers also point out that the regional death gap has widened since the banking crisis and financial crash in 2008.

In his book 'The Health Gap 2015', Michael Marmot, professor of epidemiology at University college London, argues that while we have the medical knowledge to improve public health, life expectancy and quality of life, good health, is far too important to be left solely to doctors.  He points out that good health is not just related to access to technical solutions but to the nature of society - "the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, have a profound influence on health and inequalities in childhood, working age and older age.  In short, levels of education, the social class we are born into, our income and wealth, and the region where we live, are all  factors which have a bearing on how long we will live. If you increase the age at which people can retire, then it is well known, that people who do heavy work in manual occupations are those ones who are most likely to die before reaching the state retirement age.

Shadow Work and Pensions Minister, Debbie Abrahams MP, has launched a national conversation with communities across the country to discuss State Pensions as part of the Labour Party’s commitment to ensure dignity and security in older age. She wants to hear your views and is inviting people to attend an event hosted by herself as part of a nation tour on:-

Date: Saturday 9^th September
Time: 2pm
Venue: John Holt Centre, Birch Avenue, Westhoughton, Bolton, BL5 2NR

In a circular to Labour Party members Debbie Abrahams says:

"Older people have been badly let down by the Tories. During this year’s General Election they failed to provide transitional protection to women born in the 1950s who have had the increase in their State Pension Age accelerated; in addition, they failed to guarantee they would protect the State Pension ‘triple lock’ and Winter Fuel Allowance.

Most recently the Government announced that they will be accelerating the increase in the State Pension Age to 68 at the same time it was announced that increases in life expectancy had ‘ground to a halt’.

This contrasts to the Labour Party’s manifesto pledge to retain the triple lock and winter fuel allowance, as well as provide support for 1950s born women through pensions credit and further transitional protections.

Labour has also rejected the accelerated increase in the State Pension Age to 68 and are examining options for a flexible retirement age.
Please RSVP here.

If you have any additional access needs please email jane_logan@labour.org.uk.

Please pass this invitation on to others in your area who may be interested in attending.
See you there."

Debbie

Debbie Abrahams
Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions

Are Ashton Jobcentre acting like NAZI's?

EVENTS at the Jobcentre in Ashton-under-Lyne, get murkier by the day. We understand that only last week a meeting took place in Ashton between P.C.S. union representatives and two invited activists who have been campaigning against the governments iniquitous sanctions regime outside Ashton Jobcentre, for the past 12 months. The meeting was initiated by Annette Wright, a union official of the P.C.S union and President of Manchester Trades Council, and Evan Pritchard, a lay branch official from the Greater Manchester Unite Community Union.

Although the P.C.S. union is officially committed to support initiatives that seek to undermine and expose the 'draconian sanctions regime that exists in Jobcentres', it seems that much of the time was taken up in admonishing Charlotte Hughes, a leading figure in the campaign.

Sources have told us that the P.C.S. area representative for Stockport and Tameside, who was present at the meeting, made it abundantly clear that he was vehemently against working with groups opposed to sanctions (contrary to P.C.S. union policy) and expressed the view that he had no sympathy with the plight of the unemployed or those who opposed sanctions.

Ms. Hughes, a 'hardworking' single-mother with four children, who runs a blog - 'The Poor Side of Life', a weekly diary of events outside Ashton Jobcentre - was asked to remove items from her blog concerning Ashton Jobcentre and the P.C.S. union. The irate Stockport P.C.S. official also demanded that she remove all references to Jobcentre Staff  "only doing their Job" as he insisted this had Nazi connotations!

Over the last 12 months, Ashton Jobcentre has repeatedly made petty complaints to the police in a vain attempt to get protesters arrested. The police indicated some time ago that they felt that this was a waste of police time as it was not unlawful to engage in peaceful protest. Despite this, the Jobcentre have persisted with their petty complaints and have even threatened protesters with an injunction.

"Pregnant, sanctioned and hungry": Ashton Jobcentre slated for abominable behaviour!

The weekly protests outside  Ashton Jobcentre have now been taking place for over seven months.
They began last August, when  19-year-old Eleanor Coulthard, from Ashton-under-Lyne, was sanctioned for a third time, after telling an employer that she was 23-weeks pregnant. Previously, she had been sanctioned when the jobcentre said that she was not doing enought to find work. Although Eleanor had only been claiming Jobseeker's Allowance for 3 months, she was sanctioned for a third time after the Jobcentre told her that she shouldn't have mentioned her pregnancy during an interview for an unpaid work placement, with  B&Q at the Snipe Retail Park in Ashton-under-Lyne.

The government deny that they have national targets for sanctions. Government employment minister, zero-hours champion, Esther McVey, recently told a parliamentary select committee: "there are no sanction targets, there is no harassment." Yet the PCS union says that  Jobcentre workers, based on staff surveys, are put under pressure to make sanction referrals and are rewarded for sanctioning claimants. Mark Serwotka, General Secretary, of the PCS union told the Work and Pensions Select Committee that:

"Assaults on staff have increased dramatically since the regime was tightened up and what we now see is civil servants, many of whom are fantastically low paid - 40% would be entitled to universal credit, becoming a target because people think they are to blame."

In the recent Channel 4 'Dispatches' programme - 'Britain's Benefit Crackdown' broadcast last Monday, two former Jobcentre workers from Leicester told how they had been disciplined for not meeting sanction targets. Alan Davis, a DWP personal adviser told the programme - "The pressure was enormous, I just felt what they were asking me to do, was totally wrong - they were asking me to 'hammer people' who in their own way were doing their best to get a job..."

Among those who appeared on the programme was plucky Eleanor Coulthard, now the proud mother of baby Malachi, who attended his first Jobcentre protest two weeks ago. She told 'Dispatches' that because of the stress that she was put under by Ashton Jobcentre she developed Bell's Palsy, a facial paralysis associated with stress and gave birth five weeks prematurely. Eleanor added:

"I don't think pregnant women should be sanctioned because its not just you it's affecting. There's an unborn child that's growing inside you, that needs food, and nourishment from you. And if you're not getting it, the baby is not getting it."

One of those who was 'hammered' by the Jobcentre and was referred to in the 'Dispatches' programme, was ex-solider, David Clapson, from Stevenage, Herts. A type one diabetic, David died skint and starving, five days after Jobcentre officials axed his benefits: he had £3.44 in his bank account. An autopsy found that he had no food in his stomach and had died of ketoacidosis, caused by a lack of insulin. Having no food or electricity, David had been unable to store insulin in his fridge safely. His sister, Gill Thompson, told the programme that leaving a type one diabetic with no money was tantamount to passing a death sentence on them.

Last Thursday, a jobseeker at Ashton Jobcentre, told us that he had been sanctioned for 3 months, because he arrived 2 minutes late for an interview. When he later complained about his benefit advisor being 15 minutes late for an appointment, he was told shut up or he would be sanctioned again.

Although the weekly Ashton Jobcentre protests have attracted support from a number of groups, including the Green Party,  Labour party  members in Tameside have been conspicuously absent. Indeed, one Tameside Labour councillor, and gravy train rider, who is known to own at least two Spanish villas, has referred to Eleanor's mother, Charlotte Hughes, the Green Party parliamentary candidate for the Ashton constituency, as the 'bag lady'. He recently tweeted that she should get a job instead of protesting outside Ashton Jobcentre.

Protestors lay wreath at Ashton Jobcentre: staff called upon to show humanity and compassion!

Around 20 protestors including members from TAMESIDE AGAINST THE CUTS, Tameside Stop The Bedroom Tax & the Cuts, Tameside Unemployed Workers Alliance, Tameside Trades Union Council, & Tameside Green Party, gathered outside Ashton-under-Lyne Jobcentre on Thursday. These regular Thursday afternoon demonstrations, have been taking place since August, after a 19-year-old girl from Ashton had her benefit stopped after she informed an employer B&Q (where she'd been sent by the Jobcentre to work unpaid) that she was 23-weeks pregnant. More recently, a 32-year-old jobseeker was told by staff at Ashton Jobcentre that his benefit would be stopped if he continued to participate in the protest outside Ashton Jobcentre against unfair and illegal sanctions.

On Thursday, a wreath was laid outside the Jobcentre to highlight how benefit sanctions and cuts have led to suicides. A list of people whose deaths have been linked to benefits cuts, which was taken from the 'Black Triangle Campaign', was read out to the public. A representative from the trade union UNISON, also read out a letter that he was delivering to Ashton Jobcentre objecting to unfair sanctions and the beastly inhuman treatment that is being meted out jobseeker's. Rev. David Grey, a former friar of Gorton Monastery, dressed in a monks habit, made a speech outside the Jobcentre calling upon Jobcentre staff to show humanity and compassion towards the unmployed.

Although the government deny that there is a policy of targeting people for sanctioning, it is known that staff face disciplinary action if they don't sanction enough people. At one Jobcentre, Easter egg prizes were offered to staff who had sanctioned the most people.

While the UK is ranked as the sixth richest country on earth, a recent all-party report on foodbanks, has warned that Britain is 'stalked by hunger' caused by low pay, growing inequality and a harsh benefit sanctions as well as social break-down. The report says that benefit sanctions are the single biggest reason why the poor are resorting to foodbanks.

Ian Duncan Smith, Secretary for Work and Pensions, denies that welfare cuts are connected to financial hardship and suicides. He has accused Britain's largest food bank network, the Trussell Trust, of scaremongering. Other well-fed Tories have also scoffed at reports of hungry Britain, claiming that the poor don't know how to cook or that greater awareness of food banks, has led to increased demand. Yet the report says that severe hunger is leading to malnutrition and that there has been an increase in people scavenging for leftovers in restaurant and supermarket skips. Despite this indictment against Duncan Smith's vendetta against the poor and vulnerable, he was voted the most influential lay Roman Catholic by readers of the Tablet in 2010.

On Wednesday, a Labour motion to scrap the bedroom tax, was defeated in the Commons by 298 votes to 266, after 35 slimey LibDems, voted with the Tories to retain the tax despite promising earlier this year, to ditch the policy.

The weekly protests outside Ashton Jobcentre, have attracted a great deal of attention from citizen journalists working within social media. Yet the local Tameside newspapers the Tameside (PRAVDATISER)  Advertiser  and the New Charter owned, Tameside Reporter and Chronicle, have shown scant interest in the campaign despite receiving regular briefings. A visit to Ashton Jobcentre made by Rachell Reeves, Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and council leader, Kieran Quinn, in October, did however, receive press coverage.
https://foodpovertyinquiry.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/food-poverty-feeding-britain-final.pdf

Killed by benefits cuts! Jobcentre staff offered Easter egg prizes to sanction claimants.

We are printing below an article which appeared in the Daily Mirror.

David Cameron has been slammed for “brushing off” the death of a diabetic ex-soldier whose benefits had been stopped.
David Clapson, 59, was starving and skint when he was found dead by friends, as revealed in the Daily Mirror yesterday.
His grieving sister Gill Thompson has called for the Government to review the way that benefits are “sanctioned” in the wake of the tragedy.
But a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister has brushed off calls for change.
Asked if it was right that a diabetic man had had his benefits taken away she said: “Judgments that are made around benefits are based on individuals circumstances relevant to their looking to find work, their various conditions.
“Even when someone is sanctioned then they can still get financial support through the Hardship Fund.
“And before people have their benefit sanctioned there will be a series of efforts to contact people by letter and by phone if they fail to attend an appointment.”

Struggle: David died hungry and penniless with no way to pay his bills

Gill, 57, said that was just not good enough.
“They are just saying we are sorry for the death of your brother but tough, we followed the procedure,” she said.
“They should not just brush it off. Obviously for people to die something is wrong.
“You can’t say sorry we followed the procedures when someone is dead. It just does not make sense.”
The Mirror revealed how David, who served in Northern Ireland in the 1970s, died after having his benefits stopped for missing a meeting with an adviser last summer.
Three weeks later he was found dead.
His electricity had been cut off, he had just a can of soup and tin of sardines in his kitchen and just £3.44 to his name after his Jobseekers’ Allowance was “sanctioned”.
Gill said that he was not the only one to die after having their money stopped and said ministers must reform the system to prevent another tragedy instead of trying to ignore it.
“I don’t care even if they do not admit it as long as they look at it again in the background.”
She added: “If my brother had been a murderer he would have been fed and watered with a roof overt his head.
“People talk about human rights but where were my brother’s human rights and dignity?
“They took away his rights and dignity.”


http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/david-cameron-slammed-brushing-off-3928427#ixzz38siiVtPN
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'Bedroom Tax' loophole could see up to 40,000 exempted!

Working age tenants who live in social housing, may be exempt from the 'Bedroom Tax' if the have lived in the same house since before before 1996 and have been claiming housing benefit continuously since then.

Housing experts estimate that up to 40,000 households could be affected and the cost of refunds could run into the millions of pounds, along with associated legal costs and compensation for families who had to pay removal companies to move out of their homes. All could be eligible for refunds worth on average at least £640 per claimant, credited to their rent account.

According to the Guardian, this would have applied to Stephanie Bottril, of Solihull, who took her own life in May last year, after blaming the government's 'Bedroom Tax' for making her life impossible. In a circular to Housing Benefit Staff, the DWP have confirmed that some tenants are exempt under this loophole which they are intending to close.

Elderly dying mum forced to move because of Tory 'Bedroom Tax'!

An 82-year-old sick pensioner, who has less than a year to live, is facing eviction from her three-bedroom home because she cannot afford to pay her Tory Bedroom Tax.

Mary Bennett, a widow from Runcorn, Cheshire, has been told that she must leave the home that she has lived in for the past 20 years because she cannot afford to pay the £14 a week tax. The widow, who’s dying wish was to die at home, suffers from a cardiac condition and dementia. Over the past 20 years, she has spent £10,000 on disability adaptations to her home.

Although pensioners are normally exempt from the Bedroom Tax, Mrs Bennett cannot claim the OAP exemption because her son Alan Clark, 47, is her live-in carer. Mr. Clark gave up his job as a hotel manager, to look after his mother. A discretionary grant from Halton Council has paid the short-fall in Mrs Bennett’s housing benefit since she fell into arrears, but she will be forced to move from her home, when this expires in March.

Alan told the Daily Mirror that though he plans to move his mother to a smaller rented house where his sister lives, he fears that the ‘upheaval could unsettle his ill mother’ and added: “How dare they take away a dying woman’s wish for the sake of £14 a week. It is a travesty.”

A council spokesman told the newspaper: “Discretionary housing payment cannot exceed March 31 in any given year as the council receives annual fund allocation from Government. Until this grant is known any awards cannot be made into the next financial year.”

Since the introduction of the Bedroom Tax in April, thousands of families have been pushed into homelessness and a spiralling cycle of debt as they struggle to pay the tax. According to a recent study, more than half of households hit by the Bedroom Tax have been unable to pay their full rent.

While the Tory government imposes punitive taxation like the Bedroom Tax on hard-up families, it is making the British taxpayer foot a £1 million legal bill so that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, can go into battle with Brussels to defend banker’s mega-bonuses. The chancellor has filed a complaint against the European Union (EU) over its plans to cap bonuses, even though this measure has the support of the EU’s twenty-six other European Finance Ministers. 

Wigan man hangs himself over 'Bedroom Tax'!

The following report which we are publishing, appeared in the local newspaper, 'Wigan Today'.

"A MAN saddled with extra debt after a hike in his rent because of the bedroom tax took his own life, an inquest heard.
Bolton Coroner’s Court was told John Walker, from Marsh Green, was found hanged at his home by his former partner Susan Martin in May after she went to his home as he had sounded upset and low during their phone conversations.

The court heard Mr Walker, 57, had been worried about mounting financial problems with loans and his credit card due to being out of work, and had also disagreed with the JobCentre who had told him he was fit to work despite his complaints of an injury to his back.

His difficulties with money were compounded by being forced to pay extra rent on his property under the so-called “bedroom tax”, which was introduced earlier this year.

The inquest was also told Mr Walker had problems with heavy drinking, and was upset when he was unable to provide presents for his daughter because he had blown money set aside on booze.

Ms Martin told the court: “In the weeks leading up to his death a few things troubled him. He was out of work and struggling to pay a loan, and he was also still trying to pay for a place in Torquay which had been repossessed and sold for less than we bought it for.

“He didn’t really express his feelings but things upset him. I still tried to see him regularly because he had distanced himself from a lot of his friends and his family back in Birmingham.”

Mr Walker came to Wigan in 2001 and later moved into the property in Hampden Place where he was living at the time of his death. Born in the West Midlands he had previously moved to Weymouth, where he worked in holiday camps, and to Torquay, where he found work in a hotel.

Police quickly ruled outfoul play and officers also found a note in the property.

A post-mortem investigation revealed the only system in his body at the time of his death were low levels of paracetamol consistent with medicinal use and could not have impaired his judgement.

Recording a suicide verdict, deputy coroner Alan Walsh said: “To some extent, his life was ruined by his inability to stop drinking.”

Man cuts throat with knife in protest over bedroom tax!

The following report which we are publishing in full, by Oliver Cray, is taken from the Runcorn and  Widnes Weekly News.

A MAN cut his throat with a knife in a Runcorn benefits advice office during an outburst about the bedroom tax.

An eyewitness, who asked not be identified, heard the middle-aged man say he was ‘sick of all this sh*t’ then watched him drag a blade through skin from his ear down to his throat on each side of his neck.

The wounds left him and the floor spattered with blood, the witness said.

Staff hit an emergency alarm during the incident.

It happened at about 2pm on Monday, at Halton Direct Link in Halton Lea shopping centre.
Cheshire police officers have spoken to the man, who suffered ‘minor injuries’, about his wellbeing.

No criminal offences were reported.

Halton Borough Council said he was receiving support following the incident, as are Link staff.
The witness, who was waiting in line to see an adviser, said no other residents reacted to the outburst but that staff seemed ‘a little bit shocked’.

He said: “From what I could see, the bloke had gone to see an adviser".

"He was upset about the bedroom tax and wasn’t getting through and he started to cut his throat on both sides and threw the knife on the floor and he had blood coming from his neck.There was a lot of blood but it hadn’t come out of his artery, he wasn’t gushing out blood. He went through the side of his neck from his ear to the front. It would have needed medical attention. Everyone was just sat about normal waiting to go and see the adviser. I was in the queue. Nobody did nothing.”

A Halton Council spokesman said: “We are aware of this incident. The person concerned is receiving appropriate support and we are supporting our staff who witnessed the incident.”