National Coalition against the Welfare Reform Bill launches..

[Fruitloop]

The problem with allowing charities to fold in an economic downturn is that it excessively penalises the most vulnerable members of society, if the charities have taken over basic service functions that should properly be the responsibility of government. The current UK govt has perfected the black art of using the private sector in order to pass on responsiblity for the crumbling and shit state of public services here, and the extension of this practice into basic welfare is not something to be welcomed. None of this is a criticism of charitable work per se, only of the abdication of the administration's proper functions to the charitable sector.

The point about giving being partisan is that the amount of cash given to any organisation is based on the amount of media attention they can generate and the mass appeal of the issue in question, which doesn't necessarily reflect the needs of the recipients in a way that public services should. The second largest charity in the UK is the National Trust, which takes over stately homes so middle-class people can visit the tea-shops there in the summer months - not my idea of the most pressing issue facing the country at the moment, to be honest. Also, groups that are demonized in the media (single mothers, refugees or whoever the whipping-boys of the moment are) struggle to find charitable funds in comparison to 'cuter' issues like animal welfare.

When I say democratic, I'm not simply talking about representation. The political power of voters relies on their ability to dismiss from office the people that make decision at the highest level, rather than those who merely administer funds already allocated to a particular body.

The main point here though, is that if you recognize the fact that there is always going to be some unemployment (which there is, since it's a necessary - from capital's point of view - counterbalance to wage-inflation), and particular people, such as the disabled, older people, folks with mental health issues etc are always going to be overrepresented in this group - not to mention the ones that are genuinely incapable of supporting themselves at all - what is needed is for us as a society to provide these people with the means to live a dignified and worthwhile life. Shunting people from one benefit to another, making them jump though ever-increasing hoops in the hope that you can save money just through attrition, leaving people to the random mercies of the market in terms of charitable donations from the general public; none of these are an acceptable alternatives.

 

[zion]

Hi Fruitloop,

The problem with keeping poorly-run charities alive is that charities become a repository of poor management practices which waste money that should be used to help the poor. I've seen too much of this.

I don't view helping the poor as being the natural purpose exclusively of government. I think that people do what they can to help one another and that government is there to make up the deficit.

I agree that the National Trust isn't a big priority for me. However, my charity serves single mothers, illegal immigrants, council housing tenants and other "demonized" groups, and we find ourselves able to raise enough money for our needs. It's all about making those causes intelligible to the local community.

I think we shouldn't get confused between charities and quangos. Quangos, as unelected bodies whose members can't be dismissed and who take decisions that should be subject to vote, are a cancer on democracy. The people who serve on them tend to come from the small circle of Our Folks. (Incidentally, the US has very few quangos because it elects even minor officials).

Charities, on the other hand, are set up to help the people they choose to help. I based our campaigns this year on what we were hearing from our clients, but I don't want a majority in my city telling me that I can't do those campaigns because they don't like them, or having the power to dismiss me because they think I'm rocking the boat.

The main point here though, is that if you recognize the fact that there is always going to be some unemployment (which there is, since it's a necessary - from capital's point of view - counterbalance to wage-inflation), and particular people, such as the disabled, older people, folks with mental health issues etc are always going to be overrepresented in this group - not to mention the ones that are genuinely incapable of supporting themselves at all - what is needed is for us as a society to provide these people with the means to live a dignified and worthwhile life.


No disagreement there: we just disagree on what the first recourse should be (charity or public provision).

 

[treelover]

Well, its clear where Alan Johnson now stands, so disabled people have been 'whiling away' thieir time on benefits have they, well its news to me and millions of others, no mention of the suffering chronic illness or certain disabilities can bring, no mention of employers lack of interest, what arrogance, how much further can these people stoop, what is happening to our political process? how much orwellian can it get when Johnson says NL is left wing.

We must keep the Tory tanks off our centre-ground lawn

New Labour has shifted the political mainstream to the left. Now we must find new ways to tackle entrenched inequality

Alan Johnson
Thursday September 21, 2006
The Guardian

To paraphrase Harold Wilson, the Labour party is a crusade against poverty or it is nothing. In 1997 our mission was clear. The systems and structures we inherited - governing work, welfare and public services - were flawed. An overhaul was needed to secure better working conditions, to improve opportunities to work, and to ensure that people from all sections of society were able to take advantage of those opportunities. We needed to reform a welfare system which actively encouraged disabled people to disregard their potential contribution and while away their lives as passive recipients of benefit.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...877191,00.html

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

Sorry peeps b ut am too pissed to reply now, glad to see we can rise above some petty little argument and will ome bqak to this when i can think (and typr) properly. heheheh/.....

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

Ok, got to be quick. I agree with virtually all that Fruitloop writes, basically.

There is an enormous australian "not-for-profit" agency, whose name escapes me presently, that has multilmillion pound contracts from central government to do the work that you describe, zion - and guess what? They are currently advising the UK government on exactly how this approach could, and indeed is, being introduced in this country.

Meanwhile, UnumProvident has set up a group called Beginnings, which is addressing issues around routes to employment and ways to incentivise work-fare style programmes for the long-term sick and disabled, the elderly, carers, etc, all of the people on the margins of the social security system, so that the business of supporting them becomes a "business", rather than a necessary social support system that helps look after those who may be unable to hold down a job.

What do both of these hold in common? One, a conditionality, reminiscent of the poor house, whereby benefit claimants are forced into particular programmes, to undertake particular activities, and to do so at the risk of losing (already sub-standard) financial support. Two, in removes the idea that we should all, as a civilised society, have an interest in helping those less able to help themselves, instead shifting the responsibility back to charity, back to handouts, exactly the reason why many older people don't take up their rightful entitlements. Three, the government hands over the cash and essentially washes their hands of the problem, whilst supposedly charitable agencies have CEO's on >£100,000 p/a which goes against the grain for many of those, who like you and I zion, work for very little reward in actually working at the sharp end.

This is probably slightly garbled <snip> Then there's the Personal Capability Assessment, which consists of some 26 different physical and mental functional areas that anyone sick or disabled will need to be assessed on and demonstrate why it is they can't work, before going next door and undertaking another assessment of what work-related activities they can and should be undertaking. And if they don't, they have their benefit cut or removed. Despite the fact that, by the government's own figures, more than one million disabled people want to work - why can't they? Employers, attitudes, discrimination, lack of workplace flexibility, lack of support, lack of transport, etc etc. Laters.

edited cos sometimes i get carried away with myself

 

[treelover]

Paulie, when you are back online could you go into more detail and could you put all this in the public domain, so more people are aware of it.

 

[Hawkeye Pearce]

Interesting post by PT there. Goes right to the heart of the new labour workfare reforms. New Labour firstly seeks to make a business out of absolutely everything. This is their ideology, unless something makes profit it has no right to exist as far as they are concerned. They have turned what remained of welfare into a device for press ganging people into bad jobs and welfare has become a market disciplining method, just like the old poor house. They try to make life so unbearable on welfare that you are forced to take the first job they throw at you or lose benefits. This was designed quite obviously by people with a mania for "the business ethic" to match any victorian stove pipe hat wearing villain.

 

[treelover]

Anyway back to the main subject matter, the protest in manchester went great, see below, the meeting officially launched the new coalition, so get involved!

''There was a fantastic reception from the public with many clapping and waving as the march went along. Outside the Labour Conference a rally heard speakers including Alex Kemp, national officer of the NUS Disabled Students’ Campaign, Simone Aspis, Parliamentary Campaigns officer of the British Council of Disabled People and John McDonnell MP. Delegates could hear the speeches and were made very aware about the protest against the bill and the issues involved.

Later a CAWRB fringe meeting was held at the Disability Rights Commission Equality Zone in the Novotel hotel. Speakers touched on personal experience, the impact of the bill, and the campaign against it.

Mike Higgins of DAN said "today, for the first time ever, we have had a national demonstration of disabled people, organised by the Coalition Against the Welfare Reform Bill, at a political party conference. And which party is it? It’s New Labour, those people who were going to introduce the social model of disability according to their manifesto in 1997, they were going to transform society. What have we got? We’ve got disabled people frightened to come to the demonstration because they don’t want to be picked out on camera because they might have to go to the job centre and they’ll say if you’re fit enough to go on a demonstration you’re fit enough to work ... We want real work for real wages, we are not for New Labour's idea of the worthy and the unworthy poor. We want a proper job for proper pay, jobs that meet our needs."

The campaign demands that Government quickly rethink this damaging policy and that welfare reform is tackled from a social model of disability approach.

Simone Aspis of BCODP said "We want the Disability Discrimination Act to be tightened up to stop employer's discrimination against disabled people. We want a basic disability income that is available to all at the same rate. We want access to work to be more available, both to employers and disabled people. More crucially we want employers to be much more flexible for the rights of disabled people and full recognition that at times disabled people will be unable to work and therefore we should recognise they deserve a decent income that will allow them to have a decent quality of life. "

In response to the demonstrations a spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions said: "We have been quite clear that no-one on Employment Support Allowance [the proposed replacement for incapacity benefit] will ever, now or in the future, be forced to look for a job or undertake a specific activity and the Bill provides neither Jobcentre Plus nor private providers with the powers to do so."

However, whilst claimants will thankfully not be physically dragged into jobs the Welfare Reform Bill is quite clear that if a claimant does not undertake prescribed activities they can have their benefit cut. The DWP is at least being disingenuous and certainly there is little understanding from Government of the impact upon claimants of such threats.

As Steve Blake of Welfare Reform UK said " I’m not in this wheelchair because I want to be ... I’m here because somebody did that. I lost a business, I lost a home, I lost a job because of it. I have to budget for every single thing. We spend £1.50 a day on food for two of us to eat, except on Sundays when it’s £3. So you just think about what that does to me. I can’t afford to buy new clothes; I’ve had one pair of new trousers in eighteen months. And they want to take away half of what I’ve got, what I’m living on already, which isn’t enough to live on."

OJ of People First spoke of her feelings on the reforms: "They are talking about sending me for even more tests to see if I am really entitled to income support and as you can see it is understandable – I look like a person with learning difficulties. Then they say I will have job related interviews where they decide if I really am a cripple. I hope they will be paying for me to go to all of the interviews for jobs. I know that I will not get [the jobs]. I can see us going back to the dark ages where we are in a dark room, menial jobs that would not keep a teenager in trainers."

- e-mail: [email protected]
- Homepage: http://www.welfare-reform.org.uk/

More

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/10/352351.html

 

[treelover]

Oh and earlier, the Disabled Peoples Action Network (DAN) had a protest outside Tesco's in Manchester, so lots happening....

Disabled protesters target Tesco
john scheerhout


POLICE were called as disabled rights protesters blocked entrances at Tesco Metro on Manchester's Market Street for nearly two hours.

They were campaigning against a government scheme being piloted by the supermarket and other organisations to get disabled people into work placements, which they branded "slavery".

A Tesco spokesman insisted there was no compunction in the "Pathways to Work" pilot and said the scheme was to help incapacity benefits claimants who wanted it to get work experience. No-one was arrested.
Advertisement your story continues below

Earlier, disabled people protested outside Manchester town hall against moves to close some of the 83 Remploy factories around the country - including in Bolton, Stockport, Manchester and Radcliffe - which employ 5,000 workers, the vast majority of them disabled.

Remploy receives £118m government funding a year. Its board has said it is looking at closing a number of factories and get disabled people working in the private sector.

Disability rights groups also marched towards the Labour conference to protest against the Welfare Reform Bill, which aims to get disabled benefits claimants into work.

http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/conference/s/223/223987_disabled_protesters_target_tesco.html

and more press

Disability rights campaigners angered by planned welfare reforms
Back to Central Government


Publisher: Jon Land
Published: 25/09/2006 - 09:38:00 AM print version Printable version
email article to a friend Send to a friend


Anger at Labour's planned welfare reforms
Anger at Labour's planned
welfare reforms

Planned welfare reforms have so angered disabled people that disability rights organisations from across the country were today calling on people to take to the streets of Manchester at the start of the Labour party conference.

A coalition of disability charities said they are alarmed by many of the measures announced in the Government's Welfare Reform Bill which will replace the current Incapacity Benefit with a much stricter and more punitive Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).

Under proposals contained in the Bill, the Government will offer contracts to private sector and voluntary organisations to reduce the numbers of claimants by one million over the next years.

This will be done through the medium of interviews, assessments and work plans overseen by agencies who will have powers to reduce benefits or even stop them entirely.

Caron Peachey, from the Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People,
said: "The problem with this Bill is that it takes little account of the complex nature of disabled people's impairments.

"Even more worrying is the fact that assessment will be made by people who may be unqualified and will receive financial incentives to do so."

The protest has been organised by a number of national organisations, including the British Council of Disabled People, the UK Coalition of People living with HIV and AIDS, Spinal Injury Association, People First and the Trade Union Disability Alliance.

more

http://www.24dash.com/content/news/viewNews.php?navID=57&newsID=10842

 

[treelover]

 

[118118]

For some reason I don't think that protesting will work. "The disabled" would need massive public support, I would have guessed.

Anyway, this was flagged on libcom. Bit worrying, on top of this.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2383231,00.html

Me, personally, I'm just kidding myself that the disability laws are not going to do anything. Being forced back into work is literally my nightmare life. I've already said this, but the amount of suffering that the govenment is totally willing to inflict on me is a bit scary. I thought it was all about making politics to make happy people

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

Well, someone needs to do something, cos MPs won't be interested in doing much to the main substance of the reforms. Worse, many voluntary sector organisations & charities that purport to represent disabled people are also actively bidding for contracts from the DWP to participate in the employment rehabilitation aspects of the reforms.

Considering the fact that almost the entire current claimant population of incapacity benefit and related benefits (some 2million+ people), will be subject to the compulsory work focused interview, reformed personal capability assessment and a work-focused health-related assessments once the move to employment support allowance is introduced, it does give an appearance of, at the very least, a conflict of interest on the part of these agencies to negotiate on behalf of disabled people, imo.

The issue of entitlement to adequate social financial assistance from the state has been conflated with the rights of disabled people to work, and as a result, many disabled people will be alarmed, worried, stressed and subject to inevitably incorrect DWP decisions, penalising them financially (50% of appeals against DLA decisions are successful).

By the government's own reporting, over one million disabled people want to work, so why make the whole incapacity reform compulsory? Why treaten people with financial penalties on already substandard benefits? Why not address issues around employment flexibility, or even, shock, employers themselves? Could it be that the £-signs in the eyes of politicians and charity leaders have blinded them to the truth? Of course not, this is making a business out of what was mutual aid. And destroying large swathes of the civil service in the process.

Good to see the news from the Demo, more please

 

[treelover]

There is real genuine anger growing amongst disabled people about these reforms/cuts:, the Coaltion has had over 500 calls and emails from people who wanted to go on the demo but were too scared to as they were worried about being seen and losing benefit, imo, this is unacceptable in an free country. They are also incensed about how they been treated for years by the Gov't and the DWP: the frequent and intrusive medical tests, the snoopers, the arbitrary welfare changes. However, they are also angry about the lack of support from the left, the unions and for the more switched on ones, the A/C movement. As so often happens, repressive leglislation has created a backlash, much more activity than would have happened without it, the public were indeed very supportive on the Manchester demo, there wil be more events,etc,

watch this space

For some reason I don't think that protesting will work. "The disabled" would need massive public support, I would have guessed.

 

[treelover]

good article on the demo, etc, here

Another day spent shouting at the GMEX Centre in Manchester. This is starting to become a habit, but in our defense, the Labour Party were inside at the time.

Today was the Stroll and Roll march through Manchester, followed by a rally outside the entrance of the conference centre, with Labour delegates catching the afternoon sun outside on the terrace behind double lines of fencing in the New Labour Green Zone. The demo was organised by the newly formed 'Coalition Against the Welfare Reform Bill' the rally might have been small, but it was exceptionally vocal and highly visible

The shock on the faces of delegates who were curious enough to look over was a picture, as a group of around 100 assorted disabled people and carers were vigorously chanting "New Labour - Slave Labour", "Shame on you, shame on you, shame on you for turning blue", "Benefits not Bombs" etc. A succession of people, once again many natural labour voters spoke or shouted passionately and or eloquently through the loud hailer [the P.A. System was a casualty of SOCPA]. The response was a mixture of bemusement and embarrassment. There is as much controversy within the Welfare Reform Bill as the last education bill, but when ever it gets raised, people just pass over it, because it isn't on the political radar. Yet. But maybe a few of the delegates who didn't understand why a group of disabled people were shouting furiously at them might wonder why and take an interest after today.

It was kind of like being at the zoo, but I'm not sure who were the inmates. The delegates were the ones behind lines of double wire fencing, secure in their enclosure, but the lines of police were facing us. The police video evidence gathering teams were filming us, and the armed police and guys on the roof opposite were looking in our direction too. Presumably a hightened suicide wheelchair bomber threat status...

Still, on balance delegates did a pretty good job of ignoring us, well, they watched but didn't engage. Austin Mitchell walked past and didn't acknowlege us, but he was the only one who was prepared to even cross the road.

Apart from John Mcdonnell. He came over and spent half an hour with us, addressing the rally at the end.
He did mention that the conference seemed quiet this year, and that there were a lot of corporate types in for Gordon's Speech. Now this what has been said generally about this years conference, but as I type this, the local news is reporting delegates finding themselves in 6 hour queues for security accreditation, missing Gordon's speech... I wonder if the two might be related?
[We hope to have more from John later.]

More Photos on Flickr.

http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node?page=1

 

[treelover]

Well, some more details have come out, there will definitely be sanctions in the form of big cuts in benefit and very very disturbing, the long term plan is to give the contractors/brokers of the cheap labour schemes, the power to decide when
sanctions are applicable. So a return to the Poor Law Board then.

Please note there will be a Coalition Day Of Action on December 4th, please support it.

 

[treelover]

The below is making me realy angry, imo,nothing shows the bizzare and kafkaesque situation british politics is in when nu labour accuse the tories of being too tough on those on welfare!, This is spin of the most ugly type as it is going to make the general public think the govt is introducing benign reforms when in reality they will mean cuts, harrassment, and much more stress and anxiety for disabled people. Having said that, all the parties are now on the reform bandwagon, all using spin and weasel words, i am beginning to despair to be honest.

Cameron pledges reform of disability benefits

Matthew Tempest and agencies
Monday October 16, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

David Cameron today pledged that a future Conservative government would get more disabled people back into work and simplify the current benefits system.
But Labour immediately seized on what it claimed was a gaffe from Mr Cameron, alleging that he had "wildly inflated" current unemployment figures to suggest that seriously ill and disabled people might be forced back into the jobs market.
The Tory leader suggested scrapping separate application forms for different conditions, and floated the possibility of bringing in just one single benefit for disabled people.
Claiming the mantle of the champion of disabled people, Mr Cameron - who has a son with cerebral palsy - used a speech in Edinburgh to point out that it was John Major who, when prime minister, first introduced the Disability Disability Act, making it illegal to refuse someone a job because of a physical impairment.

more

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1923812,00.html