This week (from Dec 2nd): take action to stop workfare and sanctions

[smokedout]

There's online actions all week as well, starting with the ERSA conference tomorrow #ERSA2013

will try to remember to post them here but if not check the Boycott Workfare website daily, please help spread the word

from Boycott Workfare

Things are very wrong: each month 70,000 people face hunger and hardship due to benefit stoppages – ‘sanctions’. Millions of hours of work which should be paid are being replaced by workfare. But we’re taking action and having an impact.

This week, from 2-8 December, join thousands of others across the UK to push back against sanctions and workfare – with action online and on your high street. Here’s the latest list of actions planned across the UK. Let us know if you’re planning something too and check back here Monday-Friday to take online action every day.

Edinburgh: flyering all week and a demo on Saturday 7th

Cardiff: Wednesday 4 December at 6:30pm, Marks and Spencer – 72/76 Queen Street, Cardiff

London:

• Noise Demo at workfare industry conference at the University of London, 12.30pm 2nd Decemeber
• Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group demo at Hammersmith Job Centre against the introduction of Universal Credit. Meet 11am on Wednesday 4th December at Hammersmith Job Centre, Glenn House, 22 Glenthorne Road, W6 0PP
• M&S picket, Islington – Sunday 8th December 1pm outside Holloway Road M&S
• M&S picket, Wood Green – Sunday 8th December 2pm outside Wood Green High Road M&S (Nearest tube: Turnpike Lane)

Reading: Saturday 7th 4pm at Reading town centre. Planning meeting for the action on Tuesday at 7pm.

Also don't forget to sign the petition to scrap all benefit sanction without exceptions: http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/benefit-sanctions-must-be-stopped-without-exceptions-in-uk

 

[smokedout]

Tomorrow's online action announced, tell the workfare and sanction conference sponsors what you think #ERSA2013

On Monday 2nd December the welfare-to-work industry will be splashing out yet more tax payers’ money on their annual workfare conference in a plush Central London venue.

Workfare exploiters like the Shaw Trust and the Salvation Army will be gathering to discuss how to further profit from the huge increase in unpaid work. From April next year hundreds of thousands of unemployed people will be forced to work for free for six months or face losing benefits completely. The cost of this scheme is estimated to be £300 million. Most of this cash will end up lining the pockets of the welfare-to-work sector – companies like A4E, G4S, Ingeus and Serco who specialise in forcing people to work without pay.

Many of these companies will be present at Monday’s conference where tickets cost up to a whopping £534 in some cases. Claimants are clearly not welcome at the conference unlike Employment Minister Esther McVey and Matthew Sinclair from hard right think tank the Tax Payer’s Alliance who will both be giving speeches at the event. The Tax Payer’s Alliance recently released a report calling for permanent workfare for those out of work even if this is due to sickness or disability.

The conference is being organised by ERSA, the trade body established to represent the welfare-to-work racket along with the Centre for Social Inclusion (CESI).

Boycott Workfare will be holding a noise demo outside the conference from 12.30pm as part of the Week of Action Against Workfare and Sanctions . A day of online protest has been called targeting the sponsors of the event who hope to gain some positive publicity from being associated with this workfare love-in. Contact them on social media and let’s make sure that doesn’t work out quite in the way they hoped as they are named and shamed for their support of forced work.

Delegates at Monday’s conference will be tweeting using the hashtag #ERSA2013 so add this to all tweets. Don’t forget to tweet conference organisers ERSA and CESI themselves: @ersa_news @InclusionCESI

Sponsors of the conference include:

Learn Direct, who can be found at: @learndirect

https://www.facebook.com/learndirect

Work Programme providers the Shaw Trust are at: @Shaw_Trust

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Shaw-Trust/221553131217597

Training charity Catch 22 who recently advised the Department for Education that the new unpaid Traineeships Work placements should be shown “to provide a commercial advantage to employers” can be found at: @Catch22charity

https://en-gb.facebook.com/Catch22charity

Spirit Resourcing are sponsoring the delegate packs: @HelloSpirit https://www.facebook.com/spiritresourcing

Welfare-to-work recruitment agency R3 Welfare & Skills will be sponsoring the pens at the conference: @R3WelfareSkills
https://www.facebook.com/pages/R3-Welfare-Skills/475538409128072

 

[ddraig]

I'll be at the Cardiff one

 

[twentythreedom]

Nuff respect smokedout

 

[smokedout]

Brief report from yesterday

Day 2: Stop Traineeships – workfare for young people

Day 2 of the Week of Action Against Workfare: from Boycott Workfare
Day One of the week of action against workfare and sanctions was great – with a LOUD noise demo at the workfare industry’s annual conference, hijacking its hashtag and actions in Cardiff and Germany! On Day Two, target the companies profiting from making young people work without pay on Traineeships.


Traineeships are about providing cheap labour, driving down wages, massaging unemployment figures and conditioning our young people for a life of poverty and jumping through endless hoops in search of a job.


They’re a fairly new scheme that targets 16-24 year olds with more unpaid work. Traineeships involve a work placement of up to six months for which the employer is not even required to pay travel expenses. The promise at the end of six months’ unpaid work? You may then be eligible to work for £2.67 an hour as an apprentice.


Used together, traineeships and apprenticeships have the potential to massively undercut the minimum wage on the high street and elsewhere. The government is of course rolling out compulsory education for 17-18 year-olds and unpaid work looks set to make up an increasingly large component of that education. Benefits cuts for 18-25 year-olds are also threatened.


There are many companies happy to take advantage of young people and profit from their lack of opportunity and today let’s take action against them. Contact them by phone, email or on social media.


Kwikfit

Kwikfit’s hit the headlines for expecting 39 hours of unpaid work a week from its traineeships and advertising them across the UK. It’s already faced huge public criticism on social media. Let’s make sure it knows the pressure hasn’t gone away and it needs to pay the people who work for it.


You could comment by phone or email, on its Facebook page or Youtube channel. They are on twitter @Kwik_Fit


Subway

This multi-national brand with $18.1 billion in sales in a year, is recruiting multiple traineeships in Blackpool to “prepare food and serve customers” for 21 hours’ work a week each. currently advertising for at least three placements, this shop is saving itself £3180 on the wages bill in the next two months. Let’s hope the young people weren’t planning on buying any Christmas presents.


Share your thoughts on Subway’s Facebook page or take a look at their contact details. They are on twitter @SUBWAYUKIreland


Toywatch

Here is a luxury watch shop offering unpaid work for six months in its store in Westfield to young people when clearly it should and could offer them paid work and on the job training. You can contact Toywatch and let them know what you think on shop@toy-watch.com, comment on their Facebook page, give them a call on 020 3301 8744 or pay them a visit. They are on twitter @ToyWatchWorld


Novotel

Novotel’s 4* hotel in Southampton is also profiting from 42 hours of unpaid work in its kitchens each week. Its contact details can be found here.


Got a few more minutes?

Have a dig here and pick the companies you’d like to contact about their exploitation of young people to replace paid work.


Want more info on traineeships? Hear it from the horse’s mouth here and here.


Please also sign, share and tweet the petition calling for an end to all benefit sanctions without exceptions.

 

[ddraig]

go on the Cardiff Tea Tent!

 

[SikhWarrioR]

To my mind an even better way of making you feelings known is to find out which corporations are using these slave labour scams then not to do business with them AND let them know why you are not using them

 

[ddraig]

people do that too

 

[smokedout]

Day 3: Target the companies replacing paid work with workfare

sorry, bit late with this, from Boycott Workfare

Workfare hands companies free labour which means fewer jobs and paid hours for everyone. But direct action and online pressure mean tens of brands now steer clear of it. Let’s step up the pressure on companies who still think they can profit from unpaid work!

Take action today to shame these companies and make them realise that exploiting unemployed people might just mean fewer customers this Christmas. There’s new online action every day this week so please keep checking back!

Marks & Spencer

Marks & Spencer’s use of workfare hit public awareness when they announced 1400 new placements in their stores and a benchmark of 2% of the workforce to be unpaid. But this isn’t the brand’s first encounter with workfare. Despite their CEO earning over £2 million a year, they are also profiting from unpaid work through another workfare scheme in Scotland, which targets single parents. It’s likely their involvement is much more widespread – we also heard from someone sent on a 4 week placement at one of their outlet stores.

Last time we took action, M&S was forced to disable comments on their Facebook Page. Several pickets and walks of shame will pay a visit to their stores this week. Please feel free to contact them with your thoughts as well:

By email: Using their online form
By phone: See this useful list of numbers
Facebook: Marks and Spencer
Twitter: @marksandspencer

B&M Stores

In May, B&M won an award from the workfare industry for its involvement. But the reality of this involvement is harsh. One person has reported: “B&M stores have started using workfare Jan 2013. Receiving free labour and stopping overtime for employees with contracts. The people forced to do this free labour are not happy and neither are the employees!” Boycott Workfare has had reports of workfare at B&M stores in Bangor, Glasgow, Manchester, Southend and Northern Ireland. Show them they can’t keep cutting their wages bill with unpaid work!

By email: enquiries@bmstores.co.uk or customerservices@bmstores.co.uk
By phone: 0151 728 5400 or more numbers here.
Facebook: B&M Stores
Twitter: @bmstores

Asda

Asda has been at the heart of workfare in the UK, helping the government relaunch its “Work Experience” scheme last year. We have had reports that one of their stores in Manchester uses disabled people on workfare on the night shift. They are frank about their involvement here.

Asda contact form: Click here
Facebook: Asda
Twitter: asda

Don’t forget to sign the petition calling for an end to all benefit sanctions without exceptions.

 

[smokedout]

Day 4: On-line Action against Community Work Placement Charities

As part of the Week of Action Against Workfare and Sanctions, on Thursday 5th December 2013, we’re focussing on the Charities that will be handing in their tenders today to access unpaid claimant workers through the new Community Work Placements regime.

Community Work Placements, originally announced by George Osborne as “Help to Work” on 30th September 2013, is a set of new measures that will be forced on claimants who have come through the two year Work Programme without securing employment. The scheme is described as an “intensive option” where the providers will “deliver mandatory work placements for claimants for 30 hours a week for up to 26 weeks, alongside supported jobsearch”. Or put another way, it’s a six month sentence to force claimants work for free or lose their benefits.

Typically the 33 companies who have the option of tendering for this new scheme are the very companies who currently run the Work Programme: the companies who failed to assist the claimants back into work over two years are now being given an extra six months to make even more money off the back of the unemployed! These “Employment Related Supported Services Suppliers” include three charities Boycott Workfare has flagged up before.

Take a look at their finances at http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/find-charities/ by inputting their charity number. Then e-mail or contact them on social media to express your distaste at their continued abuse of the benefits system to line their own pockets!

THE SHAW TRUST:
business.development@shaw-trust.org.uk (287785)
@Shaw_Trust
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Shaw-Trust/221553131217597

THE CONSERVATION VOLUNTEERS:
a.watmouth@tcv.org.uk (261009)
@tcvtweets
https://www.facebook.com/TheConservationVolunteers

GROUNDWORK UK
gduxbury@groundwork.org.uk (291558)
@groundworkuk
https://en-gb.facebook.com/groundworkuk

There are also two more charities touting for business as “secondary delivery providers”, seeking to subcontract from the above and the usual suspects such as Ingeus, G4S, A4e and Serco. They are the supposedly christian organisations The Salvation Army and the YMCA. Key in “Salvation Army” or “YMCA” to the web link above to find out how they are profiting in your locality. The details below are for their head offices in London.

THE SALVATION ARMY:
info@salvationarmy.org.uk
@salvationarmyuk
www.facebook.com/salvationarmyuk

THE YMCA:
press@ymca.org.uk or enquiries@ymca.org.uk
@ymca_england
www.facebook.com/YMCA.England

Don’t forget to sign the petition calling for an end to all benefit sanctions without exceptions:http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/benefit-sanctions-must-be-stopped-without-exceptions-in-uk