Standing up for the disabled and challenging stereotypes

This week I’ve been saddened to hear several blind people I know saying the benefit system needs reforming as too many don’t go out and work and would rather sit at home and sponge off the government. Here I’ll try and challenge these myths and stereotypes and hopefully we can stop others doing the government’s job for them for a change. Firstly I am blind myself having been for 10 years now and have worked whenever I can. I do a part time job for my dads company. It’s no great shakes but its work and I always attend punctually and so on. I don’t believe disabled people are anymore lazy than any other part of the population. I want to dispel the stereotypes of workshy s benefit scroungers that don’t want to do anything to help them if I can. I do receive Disability Living Allowance son to be phased out which I’m increasingly worried about with its replacement PIP Personal Independence payment being tighter and harder for people to claim I do worry for many disabled people out there today going through stressful unnecessary tests. I also claim working tax credits as my pay is so low it needs topping up just for me to get by. Just getting a job is not the magic dream the Tories like to think it is there are many who are on poverty wages and struggling to feed them every week despite having a job. We need to unite with those in and out of work as we all face the same enemy in the capitalist system itself using us for profit making. Challenging the myths and falsehoods put out by the government and our dear media which is set to divide and rule us. If people really wanted to help more people disabled or not into work then why were good jobs like the brave Remploy workers who lost their jobs a few years back at the hands of this Tory government and why do they not extend access to work to those looking for work too. Access to work which is funding and support to disabled people in work which can be made available to those needing “reasonable adjustments” to enable them to do the job. None of this is covered by the employer so there is no additional cost to employing a disabled person which is another myth we must smash. I know many blind and partially sighted people looking for work and am struggling not many wish to remain on benefits and laze about as the government and the media would have you believe. Putting it simply there is just not the jobs out there if you’re disabled or not let’s be frank. Even if a job was there there are so many ways around discrimination laws employers can try it is made even harder by the stereotypes of disabled put out there by the establishment that disabled people are not as hard workers as their non disabled counterparts which is completely rubbish. A recent statement from DPAC a group I’m closely aligned with Disabled People against Cuts writes about the cruel Work capability assessment which the last labour government brought in for anyone thinking labour are any better towards disabled people think again. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/29/disabled-not-lazy-stop-hounding “The WCA presumes that there are too many people on disability benefits because disabled people are too lazy or too comfortable living on benefits to work. It is founded in the idea that disabled people need to be harassed and hounded out of their comfortable life into finding work under the threat of loss of benefits. No one is comfortable living on benefits. Disabled people are no more lazy that the rest of the population. The real reason that there are so many people on benefits is that society does not include disabled people. We do not have the same access to education, transport, housing and jobs. Social attitudes ensure that disabled people in the workplace are seen as a problem, rather than an equal opportunity. And there are large numbers of disabled people who simply can not work. Why should they be harassed? Why should they be hounded? Why should they have to live in fear? We know, and this report confirms, that many people have wrongly been found “fit for work” when they can’t work. We also know and the UK courts have confirmed WCA discriminates against claimants with mental health impairments. The Work and Pensions Committee report recommends “improvements” to make the system more workable and less harmful. This is pointless, because it would not make the WCA any less wrong or any more useful” We call once again on Labour to commit to scrapping the WCA and to address the real problems that disabled people on benefits face in society. We call once again on the British Medical Association to send guidance on DWP rules “29 and 35″ which allows doctors to prevent foreseeable harm being done to ‘at risk’ patients. They didn’t improve slavery; they abolished it, because it was wrong. They didn’t amend Apartheid; they ended it because it was wrong The WCA is wrong, and it needs to be abolished Signed Andy Greene, Disabled People against Cuts Annie Howard, Disabled People against Cuts Bob Ellard, Disabled People against Cuts Debbie Jolly, Disabled People against Cuts Denise McKenna, Mental Health Resistance Network Jane Bench, #New Approach Eleanor Firman, Disabled People against Cuts Ellen Clifford, Disabled People against Cuts Gail Ward, Disabled People against Cuts John James McArdle, Black Triangle Campaign Katy Marchant, Disabled People against Cuts Linda Burnip, Disabled People against Cuts Michelle Maher, WOWPetition Nick Dilworth, #NewApproach Pat Onions, Pats Petition Paula Peters, Disabled People against Cuts Rick Burgess, #New Approach Roger Lewis, Disabled People against Cuts Rosemary O’Neil, Carerwatch Roy Bard, Disabled People against Cuts Wayne Blackburn, #NewApproach Another good piece by the excellent Johnny void that runs an excellent blog you should all check out “The shocking story of Jobcentre abuse recently published on Disabled People against Cuts’ (DPAC) website will be all too familiar to many claimants. The post tells the story of a claimant who was called on their mobile phone by a Jobcentre advisor in the middle of a blood transfusion for a life threatening condition. Instead of simply offering to call back, the advisor then began demanding that they immediately attend the Jobcentre for a back to work assessment, despite the claimant having lost six pints of blood due to kidney failure. It is difficult to call for unity between claimants and low paid (and themselves harassed) Jobcentre staff when claimants face open abuse like this. But every job has its share of contemptible bastards and part time Jobcentre staff themselves will soon be facing this brutal regime when Universal Credit is introduced. We will all be benefit scroungers then and this unites Jobcentre staff and claimants with a common cause. This is an opportunity to amplify and escalate the fight against Iain Duncan Smith’s bodged social security reforms and it should be taken by those in and out of work alike. The treatment doled out to the above claimant reveals a dangerous time-bomb at the heart of welfare reform. Without excusing at all the behaviour reported by DPAC, there is really no reason why Jobcentre staff would have any understanding of complex health problems. Jobcentre staff are not health care professionals. Neither are they social workers, mental health specialists, probation officers, substance misuse counsellors or housing officers. Yet Jobcentre staff have been granted unprecedented powers over the lives of so called ‘vulnerable people’. With a stroke of a pen, Jobcentre decision makers can sentence claimants to four weeks unpaid work, or stop vital benefits, whatever their circumstances. In fact there is no reason why Jobcentre staff would ever even know that someone has a drug problem, a mental health condition, a serious health problem or is street homeless. And if they do know, they aren’t trained to deal with it. The situation is even worse on the privatised Work Programme where the ‘black box’ style of provision means welfare to work companies can mandate claimants to almost any activity they see fit with no scrutiny whatsoever. As Jobcentre staff themselves could well testify, even before the huge re-assessment of people on sickness and disability benefits, then many of the small number of long term unemployed people often face complex problems in their lives. It may surprise people to know that if someone hasn’t had job for twenty years, it is usually not because they are lazy. Jobcentres have always dealt with large of numbers unemployed people who were sleeping on the streets, had diagnosed, or undiagnosed mental health conditions, serious problems with drugs or alcohol or a range of factors that meant full time work was a long way away*. Now those people have been joined by hundreds of thousands of claimants formerly on sickness and disability benefits and everyone of whom has been signed off work by their own GP. If a GP can order someone to bed rest only to be over-ridden by a DWP clerk or welfare to work advisor ordering them back to workfare, then what chance do social workers, mental health nurses or probation officers have. From December 3rd last year the DWP gave powers to Work Programme companies and Jobcentres to mandate sick or disabled claimants to workfare for an unspecified period. Workfare sharks like the inaptly named The Conservation Volunteers (@TCVtweets) have said they will provide their own assessment of a claimants ability to carry out the very physical workfare programmes they run**. A conservation charity worker can now force someone to work unpaid even against the advice of the claimant’s doctor. The potential consequences of this are horrific and not just for claimants. With no CRB checks, risk or health and safety assessments on the Mandatory Work Activity scheme – or any interaction with other agencies – then the possible dangers are endless. An alcoholic could be sent to work in a licenced premises for example. Or someone with a history of violence in stressful situations could be sent on workfare to work in a stressful situation. This is something workfare using charity shop managers might like to consider before being tempted by the lure of free labour. It is only a matter of time before this situation leads to a tragedy. And when it does, it will quite likely be a Jobcentre worker who faces the blame. This should be a pressing matter for the PCS Union whose members cannot be expected to have a specialist understanding of the vast array of problems that claimants face. And they should be supported by social workers, probation officers, mental health teams and other social care professionals. As Universal Credit is introduced and benefit conditionality vastly expanded then care plans, child protection measures, resettlement and treatment programmes will be torn up as vulnerable people are subject to the nasty and ever changing whims of ministers at the DWP. *Homelessness, substance misuse and mental health charities also know this incidentally. They have just chosen to remain silent as the magical belief has flourished that if only someone got a job in Tesco then all their other problems would disappear. Some people will sadly never make it in this cruelly competitive capitalist world where people are solely judged by how much they profit they can generate for the rich. ** TCV have changed their statement and there is now no reference to them saying they assess a claimant’s health before they begin a period of workfare. Presumably they now leave it to poverty pimps like A4e to decide. They have said they will not use people on sickness benefits as workfare staff – if they are fibbing and anyone knows of anyone on ESA forced to work at TCV then contact Boycott Workfare: http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?page_id=1703 Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid

Disabled people feeling the pain from workfare, the misery must end !

The number of claimants on sickness and disability benefits facing sanctions looks set to have doubled since December last year. 11,400 claims were slashed for failure to participate in work related activity or missing a meeting with the Jobcentre in the seven months between December 2012 and June 2013. This compares to 10,130 sanctions inflicted on claimant's of sickness or disability benefits in the previous 12 months. Sanctions have also soared for people on the mainstream unemployment benefit Jobseeker's Allowance, with the DWP boasting today that over half a million claims have been sanctioned between November 2012 and June 2013. Benefit sanctions lead to desperate poverty and are often handed out for the most trivial of reasons. A recent report by Citizens Advice warned that sanctions have led to people to attempting suicide, becoming homeless or resorting to begging or going through bins for food. This is all wonderful news according to Employment Minister Esther McVey who today proclaimed: "We always make the rules very clear – it’s only right that there is a penalty if people fail to play by them." The trouble is many do play by the rules as they are known but still find themselves sanctioned and in deprivation as a result including many disabled people. There are many reports of people being sanctioned for some incredible reasons and many are quite farcicle if we are honest. At the fantastic Johnny Void blog who i follow closely now on a recent post Johnny writes "Astonishingly many of those who have faced sanctions will have been plunged into poverty by charities who have been only too happy to sell out their service users for free workers and lucrative Work Programme contracts. Household names including the Salvation Army (@salvationarmyuk), YMCA (@YMCA_England) and The Conservation Volunteers (@tcvtweets) have all defended these vicious measures whilst employing countless unpaid workers under threat of sanctions on mandatory workfare schemes. Members of the Disability Works coalition have also got their snouts in the trough. Some of those on sickness or disability benefits who were sanctioned will have had benefits slashed due to 'compliance doubts' raised by charities such as SCOPE (@scope), Mencap (@mencap_charity) and MIND (@mindcharity). These so-called charities are Work Programme sub-contractors and have agreed to report back to the Jobcentre if a claimant misses a meeting or fails to attend 'work related activity'. Charities claiming to support disabled people are now complicit in destroying people's lives by snitching to the DWP that they aren't trying hard enough to find a job. This is despite these claimants having undergone a notorious Atos assessment which has agreed that they are unable to work at present. Appalling however sick and disabled claimants can still be sent to work unpaid on the Work Programme or face sanctions. They may be unfit for work, but they are fit for workfare in the eyes of the DWP. With yet more workfare planned, alongside ludicrous new 'conditionality' for unemployment benefits which expects people to spend 35 hours a week looking for non-existent jobs, the number of sanctions is likely to rise even further. The poverty now being socially engineered by the DWP is unprecedented in living memory in the UK. In one of the richest countries in the world people are now being left to go hungry or homeless with the collusion of charities - whilst the Labour Party boasts they will be even tougher on unemployed or disabled claimants than the Tories. It is down to claimants themselves - and all those who support a welfare state that does not abandon people to destitution for any reason - to fight back against this callous war on the poor. A good place to start is the Week of Action Against Workfare beginning on 2nd December, please spread the word, tweet and share: http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?p=3060 There is also a petition (I know) on 38 Degrees calling for all sanctions to be scrapped. Please sign/share etc: http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/benefit-sanctions-must-be-stopped-without-exceptions-in-uk (It's not all doom and gloom. Disabled people fighting the closure of the Independent Living Fund today had a major victory in the courts.) Above pic via the Benefit Claimants Fightback group on facebook. Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid For quotes and extracts with thanks to Johnny over at http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/benefit-sanction-rate-doubles-for-sick-and-disabled-claimantss/

Workfare the blight of Britain

The Tories plans are for mass workfare in affect lowering the minimum wage to a new level that is below poverty wages. Working for your benefits is the new workhouse I’d say. So many people who are out of work will experience workfare at some point if they cannot find a job. George Osborne's latest idea to be presented at Tory party conference this week which his latest attacks on the poorest in society and the unemployed. His latest idea is to force everyone who is looking for a job to attend the job centre every day in a working week to sign on. This is similar to a punishment for not having a job. Anyone can lose their job through all sorts of reasons and could turn from a hard worker to being on the doll at the turn of the day. Workfare is horrible and very degrading for anyone having to work for your benefits becomes working for low pay not seen for a long long while. Workfare could be the new low pay society in this country where labour costs are driven down to a new level. This is all in order to make the UK competitive again on the world market apparently the global race for capital to become profitable once again. Take the Tories latest idea that the unemployed which are all stereotyped to be lazy work shy scroungers of course are to pick litter for their benefits. Those out working will maybe think oh good they shouldn’t be getting something for nothing as George Osborne would most probably agree. Yet cleaning litter is already someone’s job. Not a very well paid one granted but by paying someone’s benefits to pick litter is taking someone’s job further division even more. Can you start to see yet where this is all going? It is clear to me that workfare on a mass scale will likely become the norm if capital in Britain gets its way. Fighting back is a must but so many are on the verge and finding getting by incredibly hard as it is. The threat of losing their benefits which are at a low level is something many do not wish to go through with so does end up going along with it. I think this is where solidarity must come in. Those of us who are in jobs should in my view be looking to set up hardship funds for those who are possibly looking to boycott workfare to help out those who will lose their benefits as a result. I am not sure how this could work but this is certainly something I think could help if we are going to look to take on workfare with mass action. Making people aware of what workfare is and who is still involved in the scheme is key. The actions taken by boycott workfare for example calling out companies and charities involved in the scheme is a good way of targeting them but clearly bigger action is needed to really take it on. Another question is will we see workfare workers in the public sector such as the fire service, police etc? Could we see this? It’s possible I guess with the help of the private sector no doubt. This is the route we are heading unless we do something about it. This post is simply highlighting my fears and thoughts of workfare and where we are heading. I would be interested and happy to cover anyone who has been on workfare and their stories keeping your identity hidden if you so wish.

supporting the job centre workers

Reading this piece below just makes things clear to me that this government are not really interested in helping people back into jobs with this news it seems they couldnt care less if people cant get a job just as long as the banks dont run off and bring down the capitalist system. Heaven above we must protect taht first not jobs for real working and unemployed people. Here is the article i found on a socialist based website but outlines the disputea nd both sides. I will summerise and put a few thoughts after the piece.

Around 3,000 members of the PCS civil service workers’ union in seven call centres are to strike for two days next week after the collapse of intensive talks with Jobcentre Plus management. This is the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

The workers, based in Bristol, Manchester Chorlton, Makerfield, Newport, Norwich, Sheffield and Glasgow Springburn, are set to strike on Thursday and Friday of next week.

Some 69 percent of members had voted for strikes over their transfer into the Jobcentre Plus call centre network, which means worse working conditions—and a worse service to the public.

They had been set to take action in December until talks were offered.

However, it has become clear that management remain intent on compulsorily transferring all members on the seven sites into the Contact Centre directorate (CCD). This is part of management’s plan to make CCD the contact centre organisation of the future and to take on work from other parts of the civil service.

Currently CCD has the highest rates of sickness and turnover of staff. The concessions made in the talks around flexible working hours and lunch breaks were inadequate and, even then, will be subject to review if the bosses got their way.

The union had urged management to ease the way they use oppressive targets such as call handling times. But the employer had refused to budge on this issue.

When PCS decided not to call the strike in December, management agreed to implement some interim arrangements as a sign of good faith. Their subsequent failure to do so shows their contempt for their staff. At Manchester Chorlton they proceeded to extend opening hours until 6pm, despite having previously agreed with the PCS not to do this while the talks took place.

The strike will be followed by action short of a strike action from 24 January.

Members in the existing 30 call centres have overwhelmingly supported the call to escalate the dispute throughout the network. Escalation is the key to winning this dispute.

The PCS group executive, which runs the union’s work in the DWP, is to meet next week to discuss the next steps in the dispute




A few short thoughts from me....

This dispute sounds like maddness to me it completely goes against the idea of helping the unemployed back into work which the tories seem to think is what they want to do very loosely. Well by changing working patterns and laying off of staff to cut down staff numbers in the one place that can identify and support people back into work is just complete loonacy in my view. I know it is a public service and maybe there are a few things they can become more efficient on perhaps but cuts and changes to the way the systm works is just crazy. Whoevers idea this was be it the job centre or governments they really do need to think again.

So i here by offer my solidarity to all those taking part in the strike planned. We need people like this to help this country back on its feet. Lets not pull the rug from under the services that are doing their best to help that.