Every time I go to a supermarket I wonder how many of the staff are on workfare placements and how many are paid a wage. And it is no surprise that retailers are taking liberties when it comes to exploiting unpaid labour especially ones whose profits are nose diving. There’s an excellent piece by Anne-Marie O’Reilly and Warren Clark on plans to extend ‘welfare-to-work’ (it includes first hand experiences of workfare). False Economy will be publishing a series of posts on workfare with journalist Kate Belgrave’s post on workfare in the USA.
Workfare is building momentum. Retailers, councils and charities are seeing unpaid labour as a way of beating the cuts coupled with the ideology of attacking pay and conditions, driving down salaries. Legal challenges are in the pipeline and it will be interesting how the courts interpret “forced labour”. To fight workfare we need an organised political campaign with the trade unions at the forefront as, to reiterate, it’s a wholesale attack on pay and conditions, workers rights, criminalising the unemployed and it’s all ideological. One day we will wake up finding ourselves part of an unpaid labour force.
People who have been unemployed for more than two years and haven’t secured sustainable employment could be referred onto compulsory community work placements under plans being considered by the Government.
In a clear sign that the government intends to use forced labour to replace the gaps left in public service delivery, the provider guidelines suggest that a community placement would be appropriate at Local Authorities and Councils, Government Departments and Agencies, Charities and third sector organisations, Social Enterprises, and Environmental Agencies.
If your council isn’t involved in “work placements” there’s a good chance they will be. It is imperative that we put political pressure on councils and councillors to refuse to take part and pledge that they won’t engage in compulsory work-for-benefits placements. And you may remember Islington Council a couple of months ago stated:
We are also not a work programme contractor, so will be asking the DWP to correct this mistake. The council did look into the programme when it was first announced, but the decision was made many months ago not to proceed.
Yet look at what they are proposing now, child labour. Gosh…. the stench of the Dickensian is becoming more and more obvious.
Schoolchildren as young as 14 are to be offered adult jobs such as repairing roads and clerical work in a bid to give them a “work ethic”.
Islington council wants to pay new “junior assistants” £25 to work up to eight hours a week, which it hopes will break the cycle of unemployment in deprived areas of the borough.
Council leader Catherine West said: “It may be entry-level jobs like delivering post to schools or helping with highway repairs or photocopying and filing, or making tea and coffee for meetings. These are real council roles and it’s about trying to develop a work ethic earlier than 17 or 18.
“We hope young people can get into jobs before they get a lot of free time on their hands and start mixing with people who may not be the best mentors in the world.” She added that child staff would be supervised by adult workers and hoped the move would lead to the council returning to being the “employer of choice” of local people.
Furthermore
The Labour-run authority faces an £18 million cut in its government grant and will soon sack 140 more staff, but denied using children to fill adult posts. Islington’s bylaws state that 14-year-olds can undertake light work as long as their safety or education is not compromised.
Child labour dressed up as instilling young people with the “work ethic”. This will have an impact specifically on working class young people, working for peanuts when education should be integral not child labour. And this coming from a Labour controlled council! These are shocking proposals and we should be challenging it. Even the opportunistic and hypocritical yellow Tories don’t like it.
Opposition Lib-Dem leader Terry Stacy said: “This project is ill thought-out and a return to Victorian workhouses. How many council roles happen after 5.30pm or on Saturdays? What they should be considering is viable work experience linked to the curriculum.”
Charities and other groups delivering the Work Programme have signed up to a contract that says they will “not do anything which may attract adverse publicity” for the Department for Work and Pensions, Third Sector has learned.
The provisions came to light after an employee at a charity delivering the Work Programme, who had been in contact with Third Sector, said she could not speak about the programme because she had learned of the restrictions in the contract.
The provisions are in the contracts between the DWP and the Work Programme’s prime providers. Third Sector understands that the adverse publicity clause has been passed to some charity subcontractors through a condition added by some primes that all terms in their own contracts with the DWP also apply to groups in their supply chains.
