Boycott Workfare Action Weeks. Keep volunteering, VOLUNTARY!

We are publishing below recent briefings from 'Boycott Workfare':

"Saturday 2nd May, 12noon – 1.30pm, Salvation Army International HQ by Millennium Bridge, London

Praised by the government for “holding the line” on workfare, the Salvation Army is one of the few national charities still to use compulsory unpaid work placements.

Being involved in workfare means being responsible for sanctions – benefit stoppages which leave people with nothing to live on. Sanctions are driving food poverty in the UK. So it’s a mystery how Salvation Army – which also runs foodbanks – can justify its involvement in the sanctions regime.

On Saturday 2nd May, come and shame Salvation Army into joining the tens of charities to pull out of workfare. Take part in a visual action outside their international headquarters by millennium bridge near St Paul’s between 12 noon and 1.30pm.

Bring a placard or poster with a sanctions story, fact or example. Show just what a grotesque system the Salvation Army is supporting!

Please help spread the word and invite people to the Facebook event!

This week’s the Week of Action vs Sanctions and Workfare with daily online actions. If you haven’t had a chance to do so yet, please take a minute to:

• Lobby Greenwich and Bexley Community Hospice shops to withdraw from workfare
• Sanction B&M Stores who we’ve been told are replacing paid workers with workfare
• Ask the British Psychological Society to challenge psychological coercion in the benefits regime
• Tweet the leaders of the main political parties to challenge their unanimous support for workfare

Today we’re supporting the Keep Volunteering Voluntary campaign’s call for people to contact the charities and voluntary organisations you support to invite them to pledge to shun workfare too. Read on for more info, and follow Keep Volunteering Voluntary on twitter and facebook.

There are a lot of organisations who have said they won’t take workfare, but still a lot who do. We want all voluntary work to be freely chosen, not a means for private companies to make profits or Jobcentres to force people off benefits. Keep Volunteering Voluntary (KVV) have set up a pledge and already over 450 organisations have signed!

You can help to encourage organisations to sign up to Keep Volunteering Voluntary in several ways. Firstly check whether they are already on the list of sign-ups.

• If you use or support a charity, try to find out whether they use workfare, and in any case ask them to sign up to KVV.
• If there is a local charity shop, go in and talk to the people there: find out whether there is anyone there on workfare, and ask the organisation to sign up to KVV.
• If you work or volunteer at a voluntary organisation, try to get them to sign up.
• If a place you work or volunteer at has any links with a voluntary organisation, try to contact them too.

Download or order leaflets from Keep Volunteering Voluntary to take into charity shops, or adapt this template letter as an email to send to a voluntary organisation.

Some responses you may get and some tips on how to reply:

“We’ve already signed up.” – great, well done!
“We don’t have anyone on workfare.” – so you won’t mind signing up to KVV then.
“We’re helping the unemployed gain experience.” – that’s not of much value if they don’t want to be there.
“What’s wrong with (unpaid) volunteers.” – there’s no objection to genuine volunteers, but to compulsory schemes and coercion.
“The people on placement want to be here.” – that’s fine, but they shouldn’t be threatened with sanctions.

If you can get any kind of statement from an organisation, that’s always useful – a way in to further dialogue, or good publicity for the campaign. Let Boycott Workfare know and we’ll pass it on to KVV as well.

Some charities – such as Age UK – have a national office but each local area branch is ‘independent’ and may sign up separately. So if you see a local branch signed up but not your area, that’s an added incentive for your local to sign up too.

Without charities’ support, workfare schemes will collapse. That’s why every extra new organisation to sign up is so important – helping build consensus in the voluntary sector that workfare is completely at odds with its aims and values.

Perhaps you’d like to take the opportunity to contact some persistent workfare-using charities with your concerns too?

• See if there are any charities local to you on our list of workfare exploiters
• Ask hospices how they can reconcile caring for the community with sanctions. Contact North London Hospice shops or other charity hospice shops too
• Contact Groundwork UK – which hosts hundreds of placements and a DWP sub-contractor for the schemes
• Contact YMCA – which releases reports condemning sanctions, but then helps sanction people on Mandatory Work Activity

And don’t forget to check out the list of actions taking place across the UK today and tomorrow as part of the Week of Action vs Workfare and Sanctions.

WORKFARE WEEK OF ACTION!

We are publishing below a recent briefing from Boycott Workfare.

"With an election looming it’s a vital opportunity to expose and challenge workfare and sanctions policies and the political lies that underpin them. 

Already your efforts have resulted in massive success: Dozens of organisations have withdrawn from the schemes following public pressure. Let’s take it even further on 25th April – 2nd May. Read more here.

Start getting ready for the week of action now:

• Reply to this email to order know your rights leaflets to give out at your local jobcentre or workfare provider
• Plan an action at a workfare exploiter near you!
• Order Keep Volunteering Voluntary leaflets to ask charities in your area to pledge to avoid workfare!
• Join the Facebook event and invite others to take part too!
• Remember to let us know what you plan so we can help to publicise it!

The week of action is a chance for everyone who opposes workfare and sanctions to demand an end to these cruel policies. Already this year, at least four organisations have withdrawn from workfare following public pressure. However you take part, it will count. 

During the week itself, check the Boycott Workfare website to take part in daily online actions too!

Then join us for the Welfare Action Gathering on 30th May!

It’s a fact, regardless of who wins the election - we will have to resist!  New policies such as the roll out of Universal Credit will see people in employment and on housing benefit sanctioned too. So, we would love to see you come and take part in our Welfare Action Gathering on 30th May at the London Welsh Centre. It will be a great chance to discuss how we can all continue to resist, and maybe even come up with creative new ways of doing so! "

Please let us know if you can take part in the week of action and gathering and help spread the word far and wide!

BULKY BOB'S AND L.A.M.H PULL OUT OF COMMUNITY WORK PLACEMENT SCHEMES!

We are publishing below a recent briefing from Boycott Workfare:

"It’s been a bad month for workfare: anti-workfare protests and campaigns in various parts of the country have been gaining ground at the expense of the DWP’s schemes. Campaigners are causing myriad problems for the Department for Work and Pensions: it is increasingly difficult for them find and keep placement providers for their Community Work Placements(CWP) scheme.

As Shiv Malik reported in the Guardian earlier this month, even the DWP admits that our actions are working. At the Information Commission tribunal hearing – where the DWP are challenging court orders telling them to release the list of organisations that are involved in workfare schemes – they argued, “that if the public knew exactly where people were being sent on placements political protests would increase, which was likely to lead to the collapse of several employment schemes”. Well, it would be a shame not to prove them right.

Successful attempts to get charities and other organisations to stop their involvement in workfare this month have taken many forms. There have been online actions; the work of the campaign urging charities to Keep Volunteering Voluntary (KVV); persistent one-man protests outside placement providers; and actions which didn’t even have to take place to get Bulky Bob’s to stop using workfare!

By some accounts, it was merely the threat of Liverpool IWW arriving at local household waste recycling firm Bulky Bob’s for the protest they had planned for the 12th of November that moved them to withdraw from workfare – although online actions by Liverpool IWW and others helped to pile pressure on the company’s management. Bulky Bob’s have also agreed to sign the KVV pledge, promising not to get involved in further unpaid work schemes. You can see their statement on their website here.

John MacArthur protested on his own for 2 hours a day outside the Motherwell (Scotland) charity ‘LAMH’ (Lanarkshire Association for Mental Health). He had been employed by the association at minimum wage in 2010-11, but recently was referred to them for unpaid work as part of the 6 month Community Work Placement programme. He was sanctioned in August – his Jobseeker’s Allowance was stopped until January for refusing to work for no wages at LAMH, leaving him “living on 16p tins of spaghetti”. But John made sure his former employers were aware of his situation and the negative publicity LAMH received induced them to drop out of the CWP scheme.

Sustained campaigning against workfare schemes has been destabilising the DWP’s schemes at every level this month, and clearly they’ve been feeling it. Let’s all support each other to keep up the good work going forward.

If you have any actions planned you’d like us to publicise, or any recent actions you’d like us to mention, get in touch at info@boycottworkfare.org."

Boycott Workfare: Week of Action gets Results!

We are publishing below a recent briefing from Boycott Workfare:

"So, what did last week show us? When you take action, you get results. 

Scope, Barnardos and British Heart Foundation have cancelled their involvement with CWP 6-month workfare. Traid pulled out too when an action was called outside its store in Wood Green. That’s four national charities who were forced to respond following pressure from you.

With over 17 actions in the UK and beyond, and hundreds of people taking action online, we stepped up pressure on workfare which is unpopular and vulnerable.

In Edinburgh, compulsory courses at workfare provider Learndirect were cancelled when 60 people blockaded its office. In London, provider Urban Futures faced an occupation at the same time, exposing managers’ nasty attitudes towards claimants. In Brighton, people invaded provider Avanta and handed out leaflets.

Actions took place at job centres, which were rebranded “sanctions centres” instead. This report from the demo in Peckham shows why: “They appear to be sanctioning people at the rate of between 30 and 45 people per day. Some people have received sanctions of 10 months for a ‘first offence’! They seem to be ignoring the official guidelines about sanctions periods entirely and making up as they go along. We also heard about a 6 month pregnant woman with child who was sanctioned for two months for being one minute late.”

The Trades Union Congress was bombarded with tweets and emails, while claimants from Kilburn demonstrated, asking the TUC how it can march for a “pay rise” while actively supporting “no-pay” Traineeships for young people and sanctions.With the government set on extending workfare and sanctions to the working poor next, the huge level of support in the week of action shows that the public are with us. In Sheffield “shoppers were, without exception, sympathetic” to the picket outside workfare exploiter Savers. “Some people had experienced workfare schemes themselves and were pleased that we were making the issue a public one.” People know that workfare means increased poverty via sanctions, and replaces paid work.

In the Netherlands, the anti-workfare campaign Doorbraak also took part in the week of action, pushing the mayor of Amsterdam to pledge to end to workfare next year. Austrian unemployed group “Aktion Arbeitslose” helped build support as well.

By holding those who profit from workfare to account and having a massive impact – at a time when permanent austerity and social injustice are the policy order of the day – your actions bring hope. We show each other that we are not alone. People’s actions in New York have brought workfare to an end in the city where it began. Whilst claimants have been abandoned by the Coalition Government, Labour and sadly even the TUC – they have not been abandoned by you. So let’s keep the pressure up! "

A massive thank you to everyone who took part in any way in the week of action. If your action isn’t mentioned here, but you’d like it to be, please email info@boycottworkfare.org 

Take action: No grounds for green-washing workfare‏!

We are publishing below a recent briefing from Boycott Workfare:

"Take online action today against Groundwork, the green charity using unpaid labour. Branches of Groundwork up and down the country openly advertise their involvement in all kinds of workfare, including the latest and most exploitative programmes.

Charities and voluntary organisations should know the value of volunteering. Instead Groundwork is taking thousands of unemployed people on workfare placements with no pay and putting people at risk of sanctions. According to their own statistics they forced 4,500 people through workfare last year alone. They trade on the goodwill of their ‘volunteering’ projects to secure government money for unpaid labour schemes.

Groundwork is also taking part in the latest draconian scheme, Community Work Placements (CWP), as a sub-contractor of G4S in Merseyside, Lancashire and Cumbria. CWP is a six month long placement – twice the length of the maximum community service sentence for committing a crime.  Workfare criminalises unemployed people and then punishes them more harshly than other people who are forced to work for free. It does this without even the appearance of judicial process: people are punished just because they’re unemployed. More than 400 charities and 22 councils have rejected CWP and other workfare schemes by signing the Keep Volunteering Voluntary pledge. They understand that workfare is punitive and that it doesn’t help people find jobs.

Following the latest attacks from the government on unemployed people, in which the Tories are promising to cut benefits and roll out more of the harsh schemes like the ones Groundwork provides, we need to show those involved in workfare just how unacceptable it is.

A lot of green charities and recycling companies are involved in workfare schemes. The environment is a useful alibi for forcing people to work for free, because it makes it easy to claim that the work unemployed people are doing is for “community benefit” – which it is supposed to be, if the scheme is one that people can be directly forced to do, like CWP or Mandatory Work Activity.  This is why there’s so many environmental charities, city farms, and recycling firms on our list of workfare exploiters.

Workfare schemes cannot operate without charities that are willing to take on unpaid workers, but Groundwork’s involvement is deeper: they help organise the schemes as well. Groundwork say they recognise that Jobcentre Plus is enforcing a “stricter application…of conditions and sanctions”, but they continue to help to run this punitive system anyway. 

Let them know about the hardship and destitution that benefit sanctions are causing. Let them know that forcing people to work under threat of destitution for no pay is wrong.

Groundwork are on Twitter @groundworkuk and on Facebook here.

Or you could contact them through their website, or on the phone (0121 236 8565).  They have local branches throughout the UK.  To find contact details for the nearest one to you, look here."

5 ways we’re winning against workfare. And a few ways to get rid of it altogether.

We are publishing below the latest briefing from Boycott Workfare:

"With the week of action against workfare coming up on 4-12 October, we wanted to share some of the things your action and active support has already achieved. With so much impact already, the week of action is the next step where you can help put an end to workfare altogether.

We have helped each other to defend our rights

The job centre and workfare providers rely on misinformation, lies and bullying to push people around. That’s why finding out and claiming our rights is so important. We find out our rights, spread the word and have helped cancel workfare placements for many who have contacted us. The Welfare Action Gathering in February brought together tens of groups of people from around the country who take action against workfare and who support each other to get their rights on workfare, rights at the job centre and in navigating Atos’ tests.

Over 20,000 people support this campaign. The more people who know their rights the more people can say no to workfare – or help expose who is using workfare…

Our actions make workfare exploiters pull out

Workfare relies on placement providers – every time we get them to pull out is another step to ending workfare. Many big names including Argos, Holland & Barrett and PDSA have pulled out.

A highlight this year: George Osborne was publicly humiliated after a visit to promote his new 6-month brand of workfare (CWP) backfired when Byteback IT pulled out just a week later, following a backlash against workfare from the public.

The list goes on, and we’ve been keeping track of it here (where you’ll also find the crowd-sourced list of the organisations still exploiting people on workfare).

We have shrunk the number of workfare placements

We know that Workfare providers like A4E regularly complain how hard it is to find placements now that so many places are boycotting them. A DWP report into Mandatory Work Activity complained that it was unable to find placements for everyone because: “The high profile withdrawal of placements from a number of larger charities meant a sharp reduction in placements” (Dec 2012). There has since been a significant decrease in Mandatory Work Activity referrals: December 2013 had the lowest number since the summer of 2011. This is because together we are all…

Turning the tide: hundreds of charities won’t touch workfare…

Since the Keep Volunteering Voluntary campaign launched in April this year, 420 voluntary sector organisations have pledged to defend the values of volunteering and steer clear of workfare. Charities like Shelter, Oxfam and Crisis which tackle poverty in the UK were among the first to sign up, and have been joined by major charity umbrella bodies and tens of local organisations. In the week of action, why not contact the charities you support and ask them to sign up too?

… councils are also coming out against workfare…

Councils are beginning to take a stand against workfare too: 24 are now boycotting the schemes. Scarborough Council pulled out after we exposed them as one of the worst workfare using councils in the UK. You can ask your council to join them here. Little wonder that…

The DWP is scared the schemes will “collapse” when the public know who is exploiting workfare…

When the DWP tries to find yet another way not to reveal the list of the businesses and charities exploiting people on workfare schemes, we know we’ve got them running scared. They’ve said they’re worried the schemes will “collapse” when the public discovers which brands are exploiting people on the schemes. There’s good reason for it too: we are succeeding in pushing back workfare.

That’s why your action is so important…

Take part in the week of action on 4-12 October in whatever way you can:

• Take part in one of the actions already called in Edinburgh, Brighton, London, Amsterdam or Bristol or check out the list of workfare exploiters and plan your own action!
• Visit the boycottworkfare.org website Mon-Fri in the week of action and get involved in mass online actions!
• Help spread the word: Invite your friends to the Facebook event.

Work without pay is a threat to everyone. Whether you’re in paid work or not, you need to know that these schemes replace paid work, undermine the welfare state, and undermine wages and working conditions for everyone. Workfare is enforced with sanctions. If we don’t stop it now, the government has part-time and low paid workers in its sights for workfare and sanctions – that could be you. So support us to support you. Say no to workfare, join the rebellion and take part in the week of action!"

BOYCOTT- WORKFARE - UPDATES FOR WEEK OF ACTION!

We are publishing below the latest briefing from Boycott Workfare:

The week of action is very soon now.Following on from our call out, we've heard rumours of assorted local actions but are keen to hear definite stuff that people want to announce,

For inspiration check out 

http://brightonbenefitscampaign.wordpress.com/2014/09/11/brighton-day-of-action-against-sanctions-benefit-cuts/

and

edinburghagainstpoverty.org.uk

who we know are both doing actions. 

And Occupy Wakefield are reported to be planning...

If you're struggling for places to talk to check out the list at

http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?page_id=16

Retrospective legislation making benefit sanctions legal, was 'incompatible with the right to a fair trial' says High Court!

We are publishing below a recent briefing from 'Boycott Workfare'.

This annual gathering of organisations profiting from workfare – or hoping to – is being held yesterday and today at the Arena Convention Centre in Liverpool.

Wherever you are, why not let the private companies, charities and think tanks involved know what you think online #intowork2014. If you only have a minute – use our handy tweet buttons here: http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?p=3648 

The conference is being organised by CESI (Centre for Economic & Social Inclusion) – self appointed ‘thought leaders’ in the welfare to work industry. People who make their money supporting policies that mean forced unpaid labour and poverty for many, but escalating profits for the few.

Following the High Court Ruling that this Government’s retrospective sanctions legislation is incompatible with human rights , and the near collapse of ‘Community Work Placements’ this is an excellent time to keep up the pressure – to continue to stand up against workfare.

Check out the full list of conference speakers. The vast majority are from the heavily tax payer subsidised ‘employability sector’. Coventry University will be announcing its MSc in ‘employability leadership’ so that ‘ERS leaders understand financial drivers so that their business can recruit and marshal high quality supply chains to deliver contracts’.

It’s a mark of just how successful the campaign against workfare has been that hardly any voluntary agencies are involved. Keep volunteering voluntary and thousands of activists across the country are making a big difference. Inspite of the efforts of ‘Crown Representative for the VCSE’ – paid by you to get charities to do the government’s dirty work.

We’d expect to find ‘work til you drop’ McVey on the platform. And no surprise that Labour are falling over themselves to show their support for corporate welfare with Shadow Minister for Work & PensionsStephen Timms opening the second day. As Chair of ‘Christians on the Left’, you might have expected him to be campaigning for Boycott Workfare….

Other usual suspects include G4S, Ingeus (still getting contracts, still failing to deliver jobs), (not)Working Links and Seetec – with dinner provided by the notorious Shaw Trust, whose commitment to workfare has forced thousands of people to depend on food banks. While their CEO Roy O’Shaughnessy, one of the highest paid in the sector (well over £180K) delivers the Shaw Trust’s strategic goal of ‘getting closer to the DWP’.

Also on the programme is Reed NCFE who will explain why low pay, no pay exploiter employers are more interested in ‘mindset’ than skills.

Or you could listen to the National Housing Federation talk about how to ‘leverage a variety of funding and borrowing options’.

Or people like CMP, who specialise in getting people who are sick to stop using the NHS (aka ‘self management’) and get back to work (‘Reduce unnecessary fears about health and work’).

Family Mosaic is the company that thinks it’s ok to set up ‘employment boot camps’ and boast about their ‘fitness and diet regimes’ for the disengaged. Confirming what we already know. To be unemployed is a crime. And punishing unemployed people is big business.

There are still a few voluntary agencies, charities and ‘learning providers’ milking the workfare system while spouting sanctimonious claptrap about ‘those most affected by welfare reform’ and ‘supporting people not yet benefiting from the economic recovery’.

Exposing this kind of hypocrisy has been extremely successful in the past. The public has a right to know when charities pretending a commitment to social justice are in fact profiting from workfare – directly or indirectly. Age UK, the Papworth Trust and the Runnymede Trust are speaking. NIACE will be there – still salivating at the prospect of all those mandatory ‘skills provision’ opportunities. Why not tweet them and point out that myths about skills shortages are used to deny young people a wage while forcing them to work.

We have no idea what Disability Rights UK are doing at a festival of workfare exploiters. Just saying….

It’s especially disappointing to find Joseph Rowntree Foundation sponsoring a session on ‘welfare to work providers encouraging benefit take up’ and speaking on ‘sustainable work for the long term unemployed’. Not only is this completely laughable, (as JRF must know perfectly well), supporting these kind of events gives them legitimacy and is a stab in the back for all those who have suffered sanctions, forced unpaid labour and the relentless attack on benefit claimants from this government. Remind them that workfare is an integral part of the Government’s commitment to maintaining no pay, low pay Britain and keeping a significant percentage of the population in poverty.

Workfare is collapsing. Let’s keep up the pressure. Use the links on this webpage to expose those still profiting from workfare. Don’t forget to include #intowork2014