Iain Duncan Smith speaks at Glasgow Welfare to Work conference
‘If the unemployed do not take part they can have their benefits reduced for up to three years.
‘They can have it all stopped, not just reduced.
‘following a rule change in December, sick and disabled benefit claimants could also be made to work unpaid or face having their benefits cut off’
‘It is worse.
‘There is a time limit to the MWA for able-bodied jobseekers.
‘There is NO time limit for disabled people – they can be on slavefare for life. And if their disability means they cannot do the slavefare placement they are sanctioned.’
http://discussion.guardian.co.uk/comment-permalink/21605353
GUARDIAN: ‘Sick and disabled braced for enforced work-for-benefits programme’ ~ BTC SAYS: PLEASE USE OUR REGULATIONS 29 & 35 CAMPAIGN MATERIALS! Posted on December 3, 2012
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17 Responses
So they don’t like their own tactics used on them, excuse me while I P155 myself laughing. The DWP threaten sanctions on people no employer would touch while at the same time telling them work for this so called charity getting something called work experience, if they need people to do something then either pay them a wage or use those who give their time freely without threats being made upon them.
If these so called charities need people then they should do more to get people to give their time freely rather than using forced labour as those who are forced to do something do so at a slower pace than those freely giving their time.
Exactly. Couldn’t put it better myself. And those “charities” still doing this, shame on you!
In my eyes, any charitable organisation that utilises FORCED LABOUR, and i emphasise, FORCED LABOUR, ARE THE LOWEST OF THE LOWEST.
The whole idea of any charity is to provide support. Whatever kind of support they offer is always welcomed, but sadly, to accept a worker who has had their benefits threatened is akin to aiding and abetting a bully. Namely the twisted, caustic DWP.
Since my father died, my mother occupies herself by working voluntary, no pay, at a charity. How can enforced working at a charity, even lead to getting a part time or full time job with pay, given that most positions are voluntary in the first place?.
Anybody can work for nothing if they so desire. Especially those who are financially solvent like my mum. Wages are a necessity, good wages are seldom available in this day and age.
I have witnessed Britain taking retrograde steps for many years. Walking down any high street windows are seen to be boarded up yet charity shops are in full flow. It does not take a brain surgeon to work out why, if the staff are volunteers…….
Any charity offering a placement to someone is adding to the denigration of their towns.
Furthermore they are taking a political stance by co-operating with the government to massage employment figures.
But worst of all they are effectively putting two fingers up to the people who are actively seeking a real job ,with real pay, working under good conditions.
You are aware that Atos does also Mandatory work activity http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/143592/response/364178/attach/4/FOI%205184%20Appendix%20260213.pdf
well well well charitys giving up on slave labour market well who gives to these us and by keeping up the slave market they shoot themselves in the foot but then are they charitys at all jeff3
Why are all the so-called back to work schemes focusing on unskilled labour, that would not assist anybody’s CV? Many unemployed or disabled people are highly qualified, with strong work experience, or experience of running a business, there are graduates and business qualified people… How about offering training and placements that actually benefit people and their futures and where they can use their real skills… And PAY them a wage if they are working for an employer, or help them set up their own business.. Including funding and grants for small businesses. Btw. Slavery was abolished in 1833.
Blaming the victim DWP? What’s new.
I’ve really gone off charities, since they sold disabled people down the river with their naive consultations with the Gov’t that enabled them to say they had worked with disabled peoples’ charities. Not in my name, pal! Now they want forced labour and whine when people object? Oh do grow up.
“activists are intimidating charities” says DWP
cant you see where this is going, IDS wants to criminalize activists and get the police to round them up they want to put activists on intelligence databases this is the slow slide into Nazism the slow removal of our right to protest I am very disturbed by this move by the DWP/IDS so should you all.
Part of the disinformation campaign by the DWP, it gets worse and worse what the DWP under IDS will do to force disabled people into extremely disadvantageous positions.
And all of this is apparently to cut the defecit! Not ideological warfare then? So who exactly is cutting the defecit – just disabled people, nobody else ….????
Forced labour is not volunteering and never will be. My daughter has a part time job for which she is paid, and also does a few hours voluntary work in the community which she enjoys. Her choice, thats the difference.
This is a great piece by Geoff and deserves repeating.
He has assessed the situation extremely accurately.
It is great news that the Sue Ryder charity has finally saw sense and left this slave labour scheme.
Why a charity that exists to provide support for sick and disabled could have been so hypocritical is staggering but money corrupts even the best of intentions.
They should have admitted that they were wrong and apologised instead of making misleading and lying statements of why they pulled out.
I offer congratulations to all involved in protesting against them. Information about this charities monthly donations during the last few months, would make interesting reading.
Some years ago the DWP used to be called the DSS, a more appropriate name for them, as their activities resemble the SS.
The Gestapo used physical torture while the DWP use a more subtle form that of coercion and emotional torture.
Work placements should be voluntary and something that the jobseeker is interested in. Bullying and coercion by government and its associated departments in a supposed democracy has no place in the 21st century.
IMHO the DWP seems to be profiling their staff for psychopathic and sadistic personality traits/disorders, and pushing these individuals on to the ‘advice’ desks. Particularly so in the case of those dealing with the sick or disabled, who seem to be exceptionally lacking in any vestiges of propriety or human decency. Staff showing signs of compassion or conscience seem to be relegated to backroom data shuffling jobs, so they never see what’s
taking place on the doleface.
The brutality and M.O. of these thugs is so stereotyped that it seems highly probable they are also being sent on training courses in interrogation and ‘breaking down’ techniques – the exact type of training that formerly was reserved for police dealing with hardened criminals.
Disabled forced labour is a concentraton camp scheme. Future researchers will likely find classified DWP papers that specifically lay down that WRAG was designed as a eugenics programme. There is not even any pretence that these work schemes could retrain a disabled person for a new occupation that would be feasible within the limits of their condition. There is no pretence that a two year workfare sentence will ever lead to paid work – we are just junk labour to be worked to death and tossed aside into the crematoria afterwards.
The scheme is also fraudulent because if at the end of their 2-year ‘probation’ period, (during which WRAG victims are supposed to be cured) an individual remains chronically sick/disabled, they are NOT being ‘graduated’ into the support group, but sentenced to another two years ‘probation’ and workfare on a rolling death-march which will roll until either it kills them, or they kill themselves.
Imagine if tomorrow there was a train crash, or a bomb was planted in a busy public area, or if a hospital had been failing in its duties, and 73 people died. It is guaranteed that mainstream news outlets would report on little else for weeks to come, and the government would be setting up investigations and vowing that it must never be allowed to happen again. How many more tens of thousands of disabled and sick people need to be exterminated by the British Government before anyone starts to pay attention?
IT IS NOT POSSIBLE THAT 73 DISABLED PEOPLE CAN BE ALLOWED TO DIE NEEDLESSLY EVERY WEEK IN BRITAIN, WITHOUT THE GOVERNMENT *CONDONING* IT. If IDS and the DWP do not have the authority to end this abuse, then who does?
Look how fast IDS rushed through a patch-up job on the workfare legislation when it was declared illegal. That’s how fast he could STOP THE CONTINUING DEATHS UNDER ATOS & THE DWP IF HE ONLY HAD THE WILL TO.
“Purnell will earn £295,000 in his new role”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/feb/14/james-purnell-to-rejoin-bbc
“Germany”
http://www.dw.de/temp-labor-modern-slaves-or-economic-heroes/a-16656289