I wrote to Labour councillors today in Bromley asking them to investigate the fact that the council is apparently using unpaid labour, to what extent is unpaid labour used and calling on them to challenge and condemn this practice. Time will tell whether this will work. Below is a list of councils involved in using workfare (please see Boycott Workfare’s excellent spreadsheet which includes retailers and charities). And some of these councils are Labour implementing cuts and exploitation of labour. It is not a case of who is on this list but who isn’t!
Argyll and Bute Council
Barnsley Met Borough Council
Blackpool Council
Baenau Gwent County Council
Bolton Council
Brighton and Hove Council
Bromley Council
Calderdale Council
Cardiff Council
Cheshire West and Chester Council
City of Bradford Met District Council – Skills for Work
Dudley Met Council
East Riding County Council
Gateshead County Council
Halton Borough Council (Halton People into Jobs)
Hartlepool County Council
Islington Council
Kensington Council
Kent County Council
Lambeth Council
Liverpool City Council
Bexley Council
Manchester City Council
Medway Council
Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council
Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council
Newham Council
Newport City Council
North Lanarkshire Council
Northumberland County Council
Perth and Kinross Council
Portsmouth Council
Renfrewshire Council
Sefton Council
Shropshire Council (County Training)
Slough Borough Council
Southwark Council
Tower Hamlets Council (Skills Match)
S E Rural Community Councils
Stoke-on-Trent City Council
Suffolk County Council
Wigan Council
Wycombe District Council
The government has unveiled plans for yet another workfare scheme. This time, for six months at a time. In a press release on 8th November, Chris Grayling revealed plans to give community service type sentences to the long term unemployed. A trial is already underway in Derbyshire; Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Rutland; East Anglia; and Leicestershire and Northamptonshire. In short, claimants are now being treated as criminals.
And guess who is involved in this financial gravy train…. Atos!
Indeed the aim is ideological, to criminalise the unemployed. Workfare provides an army of unpaid workers who don’t do this out of choice but out of fear they will lose their meagre benefits. People on these schemes rarely get a paid job, if ever, at the end. They do a day’s work yet get nothing in return; no sick pay, holiday pay, NI contributions or pension. They are an invisible workforce. Workfare will create a two tier workplace and possible divide and rule.
This practice must be condemned and fought against. Workfare is quietly creeping in as you can see with the number of councils involved in some shape or form. Councils like most of the other users of Workfare… are quiet and vague about it. And they are supposed to be accountable and transparent.
Even if your council isn’t on that list contact your local councillor to ask them whether there are plans to use unpaid labour and if there isn’t then ask them to sign up to the pledge at Boycott Workfare. If you are a trade unionist and work for one of these councils investigate and challenge the practice. Also go for a Freedom of Information request (see Boycott Workfare for info). Lobby in any way possible including council meetings. We need trade unionists, unemployed, disabled activists, anti-cuts campaigns, councillors and MPs (Labour….please listen!!) to work together to get rid of this pernicious criminalisation of the poor. They didn’t create this economic mess so stop blaming them!
See
Update: Good news! There will be a legal challenge to Workfare
PIL sent a ‘letter-before-action’ last night to the Work and Pensions Secretary Ian Duncan-Smith – the first step in a High Court judicial review action on behalf of 33 year-old Jonathan Shaw from Birmingham. PIL are arguing that the Mandatory Work Scheme amounts to exploitation, with jobseekers forced to undertake up to four weeks of unpaid work. At the end of their placements, jobseekers are often not considered for permanent employment and many are simply replaced by other jobseekers who, like them, face losing their jobseeker’s allowance if they fail to carry out the work.
Another update: Labour councillor for Bromley contacted me and said,”We would not support the use of free labour. I will make enquiries and get back to you”. Hope she does and I hope Bromley Council drops any commitment they have to unpaid labour as it’s exploitation.
