Protest Against Benefit Cuts and Poverty Pimps

Event published by Tcu

Event date: January 24, 2011 11:00

A4e Newcastle (meet at Manors Metro)

Called by Tyneside Claimants Union

tynesideclaimantsunion@googlemail.com">

Part of the National Day of Protest Against Benefit Cuts

Everyone welcome, whether you are a benefit claimant yourself, or want to give your solidarity: please tell your friends.

Bring: banners and placards, music, drums and whistles, food to share, and your ideas, enthusiasm and solidarity.

We say
NO
- TO CUTS TO WELFARE AND HOUSING BENEFITS

- TO COMPULSORY WORK FOR BENEFITS

- TO “THE WORK PROGRAMME”
- TO BENEFITS SANCTIONS
- TO CASUALISATION AND ATTACKS ON WORKERS' RIGHTS
- TO POVERTY PIMPS LIKE A4E AND WORKING LINKS

After a certain amount of time signing on, unemployed people are forced to attend private companies like A4e and Working Links as part of the “New Deal”. This is supposed to help the unemployed find work, but many unemployed people who have been forced to go to these companies complain of a total lack of any useful courses, training or facilities and denounce the disrespectful and bullying way these companies treat unemployed people. The ConDems are replacing “New Deal with “the Work Programme”, which will mean that more benefits claimants (including disabled people currently on ESA/Incapacity Benefit, and single parents with children as young as 5 (its now 7)) will be forced to attend these companies and more of us will be made to work for our benefits (i.e. for as little as £1.27 an hour).

Benefit Cuts and Poverty Pimps

The government wants to make massive cuts to the benefits system, for example forcing many disabled people off Employment Support Allowance/Incapacity Benefit, abolishing Education Maintenance Allowance and making 20% cuts to Disability Living Allowance. According to the Chartered Institute of Housing, ¾ million people across the UK will lose their homes as a result of the cuts to housing benefit alone. We can't let them get away with this!

Emma Harrison, the owner of A4E, lives very well off benefits. She has a £40m fortune and a 100 acre country estate. Yet people forced to attend A4e in Newcastle and Gateshead complain that there aren't enough computers or even pens and that there is a culture of disrespect and bullying in the company. Whilst millions of people face a spiral into poverty, debt, stress, and homelessness, the gravy train is being extended for poverty pimps like A4e and Working Links which seek to profit from the misery of others.

Don't get fooled by divide and rule tactics

People who are unemployed for whatever reason, either through ill health, or the recession, or because they are caring for a child or disabled person, are not scroungers, but human beings with real needs for food, housing and health! Only 1 in 10 housing benefit claimants is unemployed – most have low paid jobs. Many people with jobs also rely on benefits tax credits, child benefit, and council tax benefit to make ends meet. Carers and single parents do the toughest – unpaid – jobs there are!

The “Work Programme” and the benefit cuts are not only an attack on the unemployed and other claimants, they are an attack on workers in jobs. Making people work for their benefits won't reduce poverty or improve life chances. But it will allow employers to bypass the minimum wage. If the government get their way the current 4 week compulsory work placements will become much longer. We all have to organise to stop workfare and benefit cuts.

Let's get together to take some real action to stop these injustices!

Come along to this demonstration, contact Tyneside Claimants Union.

Isolated we can be bullied but together we can turn the tables !