Plotting and scheming for welfare not workfare

*please repost

On 12 November, it became legal to force unemployed people to work for their benefits – to do 40-hour-weeks for under a third of the minimum wage. The Government's Welfare Reform Act introduced 'Work for your Benefit' pilot schemes, which once completed can be rolled out without any further debate. It also attacked single parents – who face sanctions if they fail to prepare for work outside the home as soon as their child turns three – and people with impairments, disabilities or severe andenduring illnesses.

Two days later, members of twenty-three different groups from around theUK met to share information and plan resistance to these pernicious attacks, which will take their toll on working-class and low-income communities.

Groups present included Unemployed Workers Unions from six cities acrossthe UK, the Disabled People's Direct Action Network, Southwark Mind,WinVisible (women with visible and invisible disabilities), SingleMothers' Self-Defence (part of Global Women's Strike) and members of the union in the Department of Work and Pensions – PCS. They were joined by feminist and other groups (all listed below).

The strength to be gained from meeting in solidarity with each other was immense and created a real sense that a movement is building: a movementwhich will not only fight the immediate attacks of the Welfare Abolition Act, but draw out the connections between our struggles and together challenge the ideology driving them.

The Act seeks to make our worth dependent on work; work defined in the really narrow terms of waged work for someone else's profit. By making us compete with those in waged work for non-existent jobs, it helps drive down wages and conditions. We all take the brunt as the rich make even more money out of us.
• We want solidarity with and from people in low-income, temporary and insecure work. These are the jobs that 'work-for-your-benefit' would replace.
• We want caring to be recognised as important work in society. Single parents are already working and benefits are their entitlement to a social wage.
• We want justice for people with severe or enduring illnesses. The drive to get people off incapacity benefits and Employment and Support Allowance and into work is making people more ill with stress. Only we know what we are capable of and it is wrong for conditions and sanctions to be imposed on us to force us into unsuitable work, unwanted “work-related activity”or “motivation sessions” which press us into their programmes of treatmentfor addictions and other conditions.
• We want the right not to work. People not in waged work contribute loads to their communities. We do not want to be forced into mind-numbing,insecure work that leaves us no better off, or worse off than on benefitsand definitely not at £1.27 an hour!
• We want free, high-quality, public services to support older people andpeople with impairments/disabilities. People should not have to become employers managing 'individual budgets' in order to access the care they need.
• We want to stand in solidarity with migrant workers. Just as unemployed people are pitted against people in work, so migrant workers are pittedagainst us. We believe that we must stand together and demand all of ourrights together.
• We want to fight privatisation of the Department for Work and Pensions.Attacks on DWP and Jobcentre Plus workers are attacks on our rights toaccess welfare. We will support the PCS' fight against cuts.
• We want an end to the apartheid system of benefits, healthcare and housing for asylum seekers. UK Border Agency support should be scrapped-- where people are forced to survive on incomes far below benefit levels– which are already set at subsistence level. No slum housing and dangerous and dirty hostels, dispersal, or vouchers.

After a day of info-sharing, outrage and scheming, we formed a few working groups. If you're able to help out with any of the projects, please email hackneyunemployedworkers@gmail.com
1. Media working group – monitor and respond to hostile articles in the media.
2. Our propaganda – creating posters, newsletters etc to get our messages out
3. Website – put together a website as a space to share resources, feedback and comment, get the word out about our campaign and publicise local and national action.
4. Our welfare rights – compiling information to help us access our rights now and creating 'Know your rights' leaflets.
5. Defeating the Work for your Benefits pilots – research to support the network to take action against the pilots.

If you want to stay in touch, please join our discussion list here:http://groups.google.com/group/no-to-welfare-abolition

If you agree with our demands above and would like to take part in ourcampaign, please ask your group to sign up to this statement and email hackneyunemployedworkers@gmail.com

And put the next national meeting in your diary now.... 17 April in Manchester!

The meeting had people in attendance from: South Manchester Community Union, London Anarcha-Feminist Kolektiv, London Coalition Against Poverty, Feminist Action, Defend Welfare Newcastle, Manchester Unemployed WorkersUnion, Cambridge Unemployed Workers' Union, PCS, Hackney UnemployedWorkers, Single Mothers' Self Defence, Winvisible, Alliance for Workers'Liberty, Disabled People's Direct Action Network, Southwark Mind, Women's Office Manchester Student Union, Riveters feminist group in Manchester,Feminist Fightback, Industrial Workers of the World, No Borders, StopDeportations, Anarchist Federation, Communist Students, SalfordUnemployed Workers' Union.

UK Government's Welfare Reform: Comments

Dear friends
We wanted you to see the letter from Single Mothers' Self-Defence and
WinVisible in
today’s Guardian (UK Newspaper), together with other letters. Below is what we were
responding to.
Please circulate widely.
Many thanks
_________________
Letters
Crackdown on fraud – and the vulnerable

The Guardian, Wednesday 9 December 2009
Minister Helen Goodman claims she agrees "that the early years of a
child's life are
so important" (Letters, 3 December). Yet Labour, with almost 100 women
MPs, many
calling themselves feminists, voted on 10 November for benefit sanctions
against
single parents of children aged three upwards, if they refused "work-related
activity". The "family-friendly" provisions Ms Goodman takes credit for
were won in
a knock-down fight in the Lords spearheaded by carers, including
breastfeeding
mothers, and women with disabilities. Labour already had in place that
mothers with
newborns had to report for "work-focused interviews". We won exemption from
interviews until the child is one; exemption from work-related activity,
if there is
no childcare; and for mothers of disabled children receiving any care
benefits,
among other concessions.

Better-off families can choose for one parent to stay at home, but
children from
low-income families are denied their right to care from someone who loves
them. Few
employers allow flexible working when teenage children need and deserve
attention.
At a recent single parents' conference, minister Yvette Cooper heard the
profound
problems mothers have of job insecurity, as well as discrimination against
part-time
workers. On top of coping alone with debt, high rents, stress, children's
behavioural problems, the enforced double day is a recipe for family
breakdown.
Professionals at the conference showed they know these problems inside
out, but they
do not protest publicly.

Kim Sparrow Single Mothers' Self-Defence

Claire Glasman WinVisible (women with visible and invisible disabilities)

• It's ironic that the day the government announced a blitz on benefit
fraud, our
39-year-old severely disabled daughter who has very high support needs
received a
summons for fraud, with a substantial penalty charge levied, in threatening
language, from our local NHS Fraud Office for a prescription from April. The
prescription was ticked in the appropriate box as free, as she has always
been in
receipt of free medication, as disabled from birth. She has lived at the same
address for 13 years, has not changed her GP and, unfortunately, is
reliant on
several medications that require constant repeat prescriptions that are
ongoing.

Fortunately we, as parents, are able to challenge this inexcusable action,
that was
seemingly made without any checks on who she was or her status. Now the
"blitz" is
being rolled out, how many other of our most vulnerable and poorest
citizens are
going to be treated in such a way, and traumatised in the run up to
Christmas?

Name and address supplied

• How will Tory plans to slash already inadequate benefits support people
suffering
from depression?

H Powell

Alvechurch, Worcestershire



Letters
Lone parents

The Guardian, Thursday 3 December 2009
Our policy towards parents is based on what's best for them and their
children –
putting family first (Time to grow emotionally, 2 December). We agree with
Sue
Gerhardt that the early years of a child's life are so important – that's
why we
won't require parents to go back to work before their child is seven. And
government
financial support for families during a child's first year, including
statutory
maternity pay, the Sure Start maternity grant, and the child tax credit is
now worth
over £9,000.

For lone parent mothers of children aged seven to 12 we are introducing new
family-friendly regulations which will make clear that parents can look for
part-time work or jobs that fit with school hours. Paid work is the best
and most
sustainable route out of poverty for families and also good for people's
health and
wellbeing, and their self-esteem. It's far too simplistic to say we're
forcing
people back to work – any expectations fit round childcare and
flexibilities that
help to protect the work-family life balance.

Helen Goodman MP

Parliamentary undersecretary, Department for Work and Pensions



Time to grow emotionally
Chasing parents back to work just when children need them most will be
costly in the
long run


Sue Gerhardt
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 December 2009 22.00 GMT
Everywhere, cuts are on the agenda. And not even the youngest, it seems,
escape
their impact. With the pre-budget report looming, it is particularly
disturbing to
consider that the manifesto pledge to extend maternity leave was the first
big
casualty of the Treasury's spending squeeze – suggesting it is seen as
Labour's most
expendable commitment.

Yet other government departments have in recent years acknowledged how early
parenting is the key to laying down the foundations for emotional
wellbeing. The
first two or three years are the crucial window when various systems which
manage
emotions are put into place. In particular, it is when we learn to exercise
self-control and to be aware of other people's needs. Without these basic
emotional
skills children may not grow up emotionally competent.

But to achieve this basic emotional literacy, babies need to be with
people they are
attached to well beyond nine months. They need to be with people who are
safe and
familiar, who know them well, respond to them quickly and, above all, love
them. The
idea that their main caregiver should be forced by economic necessity to
take paid
employment – or encouraged to let someone else manage their baby's emotional
development – is ludicrous.

As "JH", a single parent opposing proposals in the new welfare reform act,
wrote: "I
have the love and the commitment – why is that not recognised? I don't see
how
paying a stranger to care for him, while I seek similarly underpaid
part-time work
(perhaps even caring for someone else's children) will benefit either of us,
financially or otherwise."

The evidence is that it is highly unlikely to benefit her child –
particularly if he
is put into low-quality nursery care – since the earlier babies are put into
nurseries, and the longer they are there, the more likely their emotional
distress
will result in them being aggressive and difficult at school. Recent
research by
Clancy Blair at Pennsylvania State University also suggests that
children's academic
achievement is highly dependent on the emotional foundations that are put
in place
in the first couple of years.

Yet instead of moving towards greater support for early parenting, the
government is
sending the message that this is a luxury we cannot afford. Mothers should
leave
their babies and get back to earning money. The worthy goal of lifting
children out
of poverty is invoked. Of course we don't want children to feel excluded from
society, to suffer from their parents' financial anxieties, or to live in
communities of workless, frustrated adults. Yet it is simple-minded of the
government to conclude that forcing parents into work is the most
effective way to
end child poverty. Many chronic welfare dependents have themselves
experienced
economic deprivation, social exclusion and emotional trauma as children
and, as a
result, have become the teenage parents, the substance abusers, the
aggressive,
unreliable, under-qualified, psychosomatically ill, emotionally unskilled,
unemployable people who are such a financial burden to us all. Their own
emotional
difficulties often make it hard for them to offer their children the
loving, firm
parenting that is so essential for psychological wellbeing. But where is
the support
for such parents in the form of psychotherapy and parent-skills training
so that we
can stop the cycle of disadvantage?

The men in the Treasury are casting around for easy targets to balance
their books
and meet their child poverty targets. But they have lost sight of what really
matters. Children's wellbeing starts with positive early relationships
from birth.
This is one investment we must make, however expensive it is. In the long
run, we
will even save money.

Sue Gerhardt is a British psychoanalytic psychotherapist and author of Why
Love
Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain

UK Welfare Reform: Urgent Action Needed to Support Single Mothers

Dear friends,

URGENT -- please take action by the end of Wednesday

Welfare Reform Bill-- protection for children under five overturned by MPs

MPs supporting the government tonight brutally overturned the amendment won in the Lords, which protected single parents of children under five from losing benefit for not doing work-related activity.

Single parent families could have their benefit cut by 40%.

This is an outrageous attack on single mothers who are looking after
children full-time.

236 MPs voted against the government, and some made clear that mothers caring work is a vital contribution to society.

It should be recognised not penalised.

Please write to the Lords who backed the amendment to urge them to keep this important protection for children, and let them know the strength of feeling in the community on this issue. Personal statements from mothers, fathers and carers are most convincing.

Lord Freud, the Conservative Lord who led on this amendment, will raise it again when the Bill goes back to the Lords on Thursday at 11.30am. We have another chance of defeating the government on their uncaring policy.

Fax number for the Lords: 020 7219 5979 (mark for the attention of the Peer you are writing to.)

(As time is short, please send your letters direct, don't rely on us to forward them, but do send us a copy at womenstrike8m@server101.com Fax 020 7209 4761)

Please write to:

Conservatives
Chris Scott
scottcg@parliament.uk Conservative Office, House of Lords has undertaken to pass on emails received by end of Wednesday.

Lord Freud
freudd@parliament.uk
Fax: 020 7219 5979 mark attention Lord Freud
Tel: 020 7219 4907

Lord Taylor of Holbeach CBE
Tel: 020 7219 4051
taylorjl@parliament.uk

Baroness Morris of Bolton OBE
Tel: 020 7219 5353
whitbycollins@parliament.uk

Liberal Democrats
Baroness Celia Thomas
Tel: 020 7219 3586
thomascm@parliament.uk

Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope
Fax: 020 7219 5979 mark Attention Lord Kirkwood (no email)

Crossbench

Lord Northbourne
Tel: 020 7219 3884
Fax: 020 7219 5933
northbournec@parliament.uk

Welfare Reform Bill: Update and Single Mothers

Mothers, carers, people with disabilities, victims of domestic violence … win
important changes in the Lords.
But some may be overturned on Tuesday when the Bill returns to the Commons. Join us
to press MPs to keep them.

Many important concessions have been won. Testimonies from those affected, among a
wealth of letters and evidence from organisations, including ours, were taken up by
Peers and journalists, forcing the government to shift. The government has publicly
agreed to some of the changes, but some remain under threat.

The Bill is coming back to the Commons on Tuesday 10 November.

ACTION YOU CAN TAKE: Phone and/or email your MP to urge them to keep the concessions
and to condemn the worst measures in the Bill.

House of Commons tel: 020 7219 3000 Find your MP

Most under threat:

· Single parents of children under five are entitled to care for our children
full-time without losing benefit for not doing “work-related activity”. We need to
press MPs not to overturn this. No mother should be forced to go out to work if she
feels her pre-school age children need her.


Changes likely to be approved:

· Single mothers/parents of children aged three to six. Single parents on
Income Support will be able to keep £50 earnings, up from £20. No “work-related
activity” will be compulsory outside school hours, childcare or term-time. Mothers
won’t have their benefit cut for missing “job seekers” appointments due to family
responsibilities. Parents of children under 12 claiming Job Seekers Allowance will
not have to work full-time and can reject jobs that do not fit within school hours.


· Parents. Jobcentre advisers and “back to work” staff must have regard for
the welfare of the child in what they tell parents to do.

· Carers. Single parents will be exempt from job seeking if their disabled
child under 16 receives any rate of Disability Living Allowance for care.
Previously, the government said the parent must work if a child is on the low rate
for care.

· Women fleeing domestic violence. A three-month exemption from job seeking.
Though not enough for recovery and settling distressed children, it is an
improvement over the previous discretionary decision by Jobcentre staff.

· It is illegal for anyone to be pressured into medical treatment. Jobcentre
or “back to work” staff will not be able to tell disabled people claiming Employment
and Support Allowance (including people with mental health problems) that they have
to take their prescription or undergo surgery. The government previously claimed
that some people are “wilfully keeping themselves unfit for work”. People with drug
and alcohol problems can be required to attend assessments and “motivation”
sessions, but cannot lose benefit for refusing rehabilitation or treatment.

Despite these changes, the Bill takes away many of our rights:

It abolishes Income Support. This is the main benefit which acknowledges unwaged
caring work by single mothers and other carers.

It wipes out entitlement based on need and brings in US-style workfare. Couples
with young children must both seek work. Almost all claimants of working age must
look for a job or engage in a “work-related activity”. Those who cannot find a job
will have to “work for their benefits”, i.e. for £1.60 an hour. Forcing more people
to chase scarce jobs, while allowing employers to bypass the minimum wage, lowers
everyone’s wages. Councils looking to cut costs are already preparing for workfare
staff. Those of us who do not or cannot comply are threatened with destitution.
Asylum seekers were the first to be made destitute, and this inhuman standard is
being extended to others.

It introduces compulsory joint birth registration even where the father is violent.
If the mother has no official proof of his violence (a common situation) she will be
forced to give his name. Mothers of newborns should not have to worry about going
to court to stop the father abusing his parental rights to persecute her and the
child.

It expands charging for disability services which local authorities are allowed to
deduct at source from disabled people’s personal budgets. While many disability
groups welcome “the right to control” in the Welfare Reform Bill, the new percentage
charging system discriminates against those with severe disabilities, who pay more
from bigger budgets.

We are determined to defend our entitlement to benefits and free high-quality
services. Many people have signed up to a letter condemning the abolition of Income
Support. Add your name. LINK

Contact us for more info:

Single Mothers’ Self-Defence centre@crossroadswomen.net
WinVisible (women with visible and invisible disabilities) winvisible@allwomencount.net
Global Women’s Strike womenstrike8m@server101.com
Legal Action for Women law@allwomencount.net

Tel: 020 7482 2496 www.allwomencount.net www.globalwomenstrike.net

URGENT: Early Day Motion to keep Income Support

Dear friends,

John McDonnell MP has put an Early Day Motion (EDM) to keep Income Support, which the Welfare Reform Bill would abolish. Please ask your MP to sign the EDM and circulate this EDM to your friends and colleagues suggesting that they also urge their MPs to sign. You can find out who your MP is here (http://www.upmystreet.com/commons/l/). The more MPs who sign from every party, the more seriously it will be taken. Many in the House of Lords oppose the harsh measures in the Bill which would make many destitute and first of all women and children, and they have put down amendments to change or delete the worst clauses. They are discussing these in Grand Committee, starting today. One amendment is to leave out Clause 7, which would abolish Income Support. See briefing on the amendments.

Kim Sparrow


EDM 1609 INCOME SUPPORT 08.06.2009 McDonnell, John

That this House condemns the proposed abolition of income support which is a crucial lifeline against destitution and poverty for parents, carers, those they care for and other vulnerable people; further condemns the requirement contained in the Welfare Reform Bill that claimants with children over seven years old must find a job or work for their benefits for £1.73 an hour if they are unsuccessful in finding work after two years; notes that unemployment has risen to over two million and that many parents cannot access affordable childcare in their area; deplores this erosion of the principles of the welfare state and the minimum wage, and regrets the hardship that many families will now face; and calls on the Government to maintain income support in recognition of society's collective responsibility for childrearing and the important work of carers and parents for society.

PLEASE PASS ON.

Welfare Reform and Home Education

Campaigners in London have been exposing and protesting against the government's shameful pushing through of their 'welfare reform bill'- otherwise known as their welfare ABOLITION bill. please see www.lcap.org.uk for more info (london coalition against poverty).

The government has been wanting to push through these changes for a long time, and is using the excuse of the economic crises as a cover. The bill will adversely affect those in the most vulnerable groups, and those on benefit eg. single parents on income support, are being scapegoated for cash grabbing, all the while that the government is bailing out the greedy bankers and politicians are claiming tax payers money for moat-cleaning!

The bill will mean eg. single mothers on income support will be forced back to work when their child is still very young.

I’ve been wondering what this bill will mean to those of us home educating/planning to.

Thankfully this issue has not gone unnoticed, and the home ed charity ‘Education Otherwise’ (www.education-otherwise.org) have been looking into this issue also and are lobbying parliament etc. Please see the website below for more info on what this bill will mean for home education in the future: http://www.freedomforchildrentogrow.org/welfarereform.htm

It is really important that we all inform ourselves and keep up-to-date on issues relating to the freedom and autonomy of educating our children, otherwise legislation will be against us before we know it. Even if we have chosen to send our children to school or do not have kids at all, we still must recognize that this is a CHOICE, and Home Ed is legal (despite what some may think), and respect other parents’ decisions to provide independent education for their kids outside out the mainstream system. Obviously the 'choice' to home educate is made more difficult for those with less money, less support, less time etc. But everyone who wants to home educate should be facilitated to do so, and it is discriminatory not to support this. However, the implementation of the Welfare Reform Bill will do exactly that- not only discriminate against the less privileged in this society, but force upon them a system of education that they do not agree with, and will make it even more difficult for them to home educate their kids.

We must also dispel the common myth that Home Educating means keeping your kids at home with no friends for company! There are many Home Ed community groups, so kids have continuous 'class' mates, and an amazingly varied and rich education. It can be really empowering and an educational experience for the parents too, by being involved in their children's 'curriculum'. Children can also opt to take GCSEs, A-Levels, and progress to University if they wish. There are many support groups out there, and even a Home Ed Camp once a year in the UK, to get together and have fun with other like-minded people from all across the UK (see http://www.home-education.org.uk/ and (http://www.hesfes.co.uk/).

And finally.... a brief thought for those who accuse single parents on income support of being daytime-telly-watching money grabbers: if those of us on income support all home educate, just imagine all the money we are saving the government on school fees! Surely then, it is THEM who should be paying US for home educating? Home Educators would like a 30grand salary too cheers!

Welfare Reform (Abolition) Bill

On Monday (March 9 2009) members of the CRAP! Collective and our children joined a group of activists to protest against the Welfare Reform Bill which will have its third reading on March 17.
In what was a creative, fun action, we along with over twenty activists (dressed as bankers and fatcats) stormed the Department of Work and Pensions' Adelphi House and occupied the lobby for over two hours.

It was a really fun action, with shouting, singing, painted faces and wicked props (massive pound coins and bowler hats) and the children (and adults) had a great time. The police maintained a hand-off presence (perhaps because of the children), although at the end forcibly removed two protesters.

This action marked the begining of a week of action called by London Coalition Against Poverty (LCAP), Feminist Fightback and the Disabled Peoples Direct Action Network to protest against the welfare reform bill, whose Green Paper was drafted by staff at Adelphi House.

The Welfare Reform Bill is an attack on all benefit claimants, but particularly disabled people and single parents.Single parents will no longer be entitled to income support and instead be transfered to Jobseekers Allowance, whereby the parent must look for work or else lose their benefit. Mothers will also be forced to register fathers name on their childrens birth certificate, even in cases of domestic violence. Non-compliance will result in benefit being suspended for 26 weeks.
We will be further analysing the bill (its massive), and its particlar relevance to parents and carers.

There will be further actions around this bill, check www.lcap.org.uk for updates. There is also a full break down of the bill there.