AS PROMISED WORKFARE ON ITS WAY
Not content with hassling us with the Job Seekers Allowance, or introducing proposals to reduce money to those of us who are single parents or on Housing Benefit, good old Johnny Major and his cronies are now forcing through workfare -or as they like to call it "Project Work".
Gillian Shepherd, the Tory in charge of (forced)'education' and (un)employment recently stated that because workfare pilots in Medway (Kent) and Hull had been so successful, she was now intending to expand the pilot. From early 1997 there will be 29 new pilots throughout the country. This will affect between 90,000 to 100,000 claimants.
Shepherd claims that nearly 25% of those involved in the first pilots came off benefit. What she failed to mention was that a number of people moved out of the area and signed on somewhere else to avoid workfare; a large number were kicked of the dole as they told the dole to "stuff it". Further they only managed to place 9 people in the 13 weeks work experience. Why - well most employers had enough brain cells to realise that taking on workers forced to work for peanuts does not lead to a happy workforce and unhappy workers can easily sabotage a bosses precious profits. One employer who obviously had less brains than most was Grand Met (owners of Burger King and others) who has agreed to be a work "provider" and take trainees.
What is Project Work. If you sign on at one of the offices involved in the pilot (more later for those of us in London), it will affect you if you have been unemployed for more than 2 years and are between 18 and 50. Although they can't send us all on it, if they tell you to do it - it's compulsory. Refuse without good reason and its bye bye dole. You will be expected to go on up to 13 weeks "intensive jobsearch assistance". If you still have not got a job it's another 13 weeks of work experience for your dole plus a tenner.
In London there is one pilot scheme which covers East and North East London. The Job Centres involved in this pilot are: Hackney A & B, Victoria Park, Shoreditch, Leytonstone, Leyton, Walthamstow, Ilford, Seven Kings, Loughton, Poplar, City Side (Stepney), Stratford, East Ham & East Ham Central, Hornchurch, Romford, Barking, Dagenham, Isle of Dogs, Plaistow and any other in East London we have missed out. The job centre management estimate there are 22,500 claimants (over 2 years unemployed and between 18 & 50) in this area they will be targetting. This is nearly a quarter of those being targetted throughout the 29 pilots. They will not just be picking on the odd few individuals - they intend to put all 22,500 people on the 13 weeks training course. To acheive this they are taking on 140 extra staff, but even with this number of new staff it seems unlikely they can cope properly.
All this sounds pretty heavy shit, but all is not lost. The fight against the Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) is hotting up with more and more Anti-JSA groups setting up all the time. This means we are already fairly well organised to fight workfare. Secondly, we have easier targets that with the JSA. If direct action is taken against places like Burger King it will soon hit their profits and/or image. Further, the government want the voluntary sector and local Councils to participate. We need to convince these groups/Councils the error of their ways if they contemplate participation. There are a lot of opportunities to defeat the pilot, what with large numbers of us being picked on; inexperianced staff who won't be able to cope with the work expected of them; job centre staff hating workfare as much as claimants and prepared to work with campaigning groups; and training providers an easy target for protest. We need to have co-ordinated nationwide reprisals against any "work provider" - whoever they are. Anybody know who else Grant Met own, or other work "providers"?
Actions, not just in the area of a pilot scheme but nationwide, will soon make "providers" think twice about supporting the scheme. But any actions must include ordinary claimants - not just a group of activists bussed in to create hassle. Campaigns against the JSA and Project Work must be accessible to all claimants and bring new people into campaigning. Otherwise we will remain the same few "politicos" burning ourselves out and not achieving what we could.
This time they may have taken on too many of us. We need to share information amongst all claimants, campaigning groups and workers involved in the fight. We need to inform claimants of their rights and support them setting up local claimants/campaign groups. All of us need to support any actions taken by Anti-workfare groups in the pilot areas. We can't remain isolated, or ghettoised - get linked up with others in your area and network with groups in other areas.
The following are Anti-JSA groups we know of in London:
North London, c/o P.O. Box 2474, N8. 0181-802-9804 (also for general information and about starting your own group)
North East London - P.O. Box 3140, E17 5LJ
East London Against the JSA, c/o 84B Whitechapel High Street, E1 7QX
Hackney Against the JSA, c/o Colin Roach Centre, 56 Clarence Road, E5
Hounslow Claimants Action, P.O.Box 87, Hampton, Middlesex, TW13 3TF
Newham & District Claimants Union, Durning Hall, Earlham Grove, Forest Gate, E7
South London, Box JSA, 121 Railton Road, SE24 0LR
Southwark Claimants Action, c/o SHIP, 612 Old Kent Road, SE15 1JB
Merton Unemployed Centre, Wimbledon Methodist Church, SW19 1SP
London Against the JSA, P.O. Box 3140, E17 5LJ
Groundswell is a UK wide network of independent claimant and campaigning groups against the JSA and Project Work. For more details about groups outside London contact them at Oxford Claimants Action Group, c/o OUWCU, East Oxford Community Centre, Princess Street, Oxford, OX4 1HU.
BURGER SCUM
Grand Met have been involved for years not just in cheap labour schemes, but generally in Quangos and direct intervention and control of training and the unemployed. Grand Met Community Services control numerous "training" providers, JobClubs etc. and claimed in '91 to be handling over 5,000 unemployed people on any working day.
In the early'80s Grand Met got involved in privatising services and private hospitals for a while. then in '88 they bought the US Pilsbury group including Burger King, who were already running their own special schools for smiling cheap labour, and sending staff (and advertising disguised as learning aids) into schools to help kids "understand how the free enterprise system works".
The chair of Grand Met, Sir Allen Sheppard is also chair of Central London TEC (the quango that runs 'training' schemes) and London Forum - the bosses' version of the GLC. He was also the main man behind the last- minute anti-Labour adverts from big business at the last election.
As well as Burger King, Grand Met run Chef&Brewer restaurants, Pearle (glasses and eyecare) and loads of food and drink brands including Haagen Dazs, Green Giant, Smirnoff, Gilbeys....... (for an up-to-date full list check out their annual report in your reference library). They also run Inntrepreneur set up with Courage to take over pubs to get round the monopolies commission. They have loads of empty pubs which they don't seem to like being squatted.