[Radical_childcare] *Plotting and scheming for Welfare not Workfare

[butterflea at riseup.net]

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 and
enduring illnesses.

Two days later, members of twenty-three different groups from around the
UK 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 across
the UK, the Disabled People's Direct Action Network, Southwark Mind,
WinVisible (women with visible and invisible disabilities), Single
Mothers' 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 movement
which 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 treatment
for 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 benefits
and definitely not at £1.27 an hour!
•	We want free, high-quality, public services to support older people and
people 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 pitted
against us. We believe that we must stand together and demand all of our
rights 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 to
access 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 at 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 our
campaign, please ask your group to sign up to this statement and email
hackneyunemployedworkers at 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 Workers
Union, Cambridge Unemployed Workers' Union, PCS, Hackney Unemployed
Workers, 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, Stop
Deportations, Anarchist Federation, Communist Students,  Salford
Unemployed Workers' Union.
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