Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Claimants Support Job Centre Strikers

plunk | 01.05.2007 12:57 | Mayday 2007 | Workers' Movements | Cambridge

Claimants in Norwich joined the picket line at the Job Centre in support of the demand made by striking PCS union members.

Why
• We want a professional service from well trained and dedicated staff. MPs give themselves 40% pay rises ‘to attract the right sort of people’ surely pay increases above the rate of inflation would help keep experienced staff in the job centres.
• Job cuts will lead to long waits and a poorer service. Some of us have been waiting 3 months for a claim to be sorted out. It can take over 6 months to appeal against a decision.
• We want to talk to real people not phone up some outsourced call centre on the other side of the country or world.

Not Far Enough
However the action does not go far enough. To understand why it is important to realise the role of the Job Centres.
They are not there to help and support people on low income or those looking for work. Their only purpose is to help employers – they provide a source of cheap and willing labour. All the incentives – after school clubs, extra ‘help’ for people on Incapacity Benefit, New Deal… are just to push people into the labour market. This allows employers to pay lower wages with worse conditions – they do not have to attract staff because people are forced into the jobs.
So the staff at the Job Centre are working to enforce a regime which creates the worsening conditions that they are striking about!

Wealth
We are constantly told that there is not enough money to pay pensioners, to build hospitals or provide decent education but this is the biggest lies told to the British people. The cost of Trident (£75 billion) would pay for over a thousand new hospitals but even this does not really represent the real problem.
The UK is amazingly wealthy. The problem is that most of the wealth is in the hands of a few. Over 50% of the UK’s wealth is owned by the top 5% of the population . The top 50% of the population own 99% of the wealth leaving the other 1% of the wealth to be distributed amongst the rest of us.

Benefit System For The Rich
The state sponsored benefit system is not for the poor but the rich. Rupert Murdoch, owner of The Sun, pays no tax despite his papers constant rants about ‘dole scroungers’. What government would commit political suicide by plugging the loopholes that he uses? Companies such as Tesco’s reap in massive profits while the tax payer has to subsidise poverty wages through tax credits.
A local example is when Chapelfield shopping centre was built there was a danger that there would not be enough shop workers. This could lead to the ‘nightmare scenario’ that shops may have to pay more than the minimum wage to attract workers. Don’t worry said the Council and Job Centre. They instigated a massive plan to recruit single parents and the unemployed to fill the vacancies to keep the wages down and company profits up – all paid for by the tax payer.

Fight Back
We cannot trust people such as Blair to protect us from the greed of the employers. We can only do this by taking action ourselves – the national health system, benefit system and all the small amounts of benefits that we get were not given to us by benign leaders but fought for by collective action of ordinary people.
We can win! For example the Coalition of Immokalee Workers which consists of mainly immigrant farm workers in the US have recently taken on Taco Bell and McDonalds to win massive pay increases and won. They are now after Burger King.
Strikes such as the one taken today can win short term gains which will benefit both the workers and users of their services. However, if we are to gain back ground the struggle has to be seen in a wider context with collective action beyond union and workplace boundaries.

plunk
- e-mail: NorwichIWW@dsl.pipex.com
- Homepage: http://www.iww.org.uk

Comments

Display the following 2 comments

  1. fear the miserable state — Danny
  2. Respect My Authoritah — Danny
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech