Good template for attacking workfare........ Dear , insert nasty name here. It was a real shame to hear that you are involved in so-called Community Work Placements, part of so-called Help to Work, the most punitive variant yet, of what is known by the umbrella term workfare. To clarify, what you have signed up to is really not anything to do with helping anyone, besides the DWP to cook the ONS statistical books, by removing claimants forced onto workfare, along with all those under sanction, from the unemployment total, so it *can appear* to have fallen: rather cynical dont you think? Workfare is of course all about individualizing what is a social, societal problem, as individual moral failings: the fault of the individual not-pulling-themselves-up-by-their-own-bootstraps etc. etc. etc. This can be seen in the favoured homily of the billion pound workfare industry, as that loathsome and opportunist business being about, removing barriers to employment, deliberately ignoring of course, the fact that the biggest barrier to employment, remains what it always was: unemployment. In advance of you claiming you dont force anyone to be there, it should be said, please dont insult my intelligence. Just because you dont have a gun to the head of the unfortunate workfare-indentured claimants working unpaid for you, does not mean you are not implicated completely in something that is both exploitative and thoroughly degrading. The fact that you call yourselves a social firm, also doesnt get you off the hook, LAMH Recycle Ltd. Those actual charities still involved in variants of workfare, like to try and justify that on the grounds of the delivery of their services, to their client group. That is also thoroughly disingenuous, and does not justify the use of workfare, simply because the supposed end result is a greater good - not that ruthless managerial and policy-hack decision making really has that much thought involved, its just another source of free or voluntary labour. Presumably you think that because you are a recycling organisation, that means the unemployed should be grateful they are not stacking shelves unpaid at Tesco? They shouldnt be however. They should be angry: both with you, and with all those further narrowing their limited choices even further. A choice you cant refuse, is no choice at all, but that is what you are a link in the chain of. The insipid DWP legislation that underlines sanctioning of claimants - when they are not sanctioned for the slightest petty detail, like being 10 mins late - calls it refusing the help that is offered, but material compulsion and constant pressure to be jumping through hoops on demand, is not, and never has been help or support. Please end your involvement in this cynical nonsense forthwith - thank you.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 09:04:39 +0000
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