Wednesday 16 June 2010

No to Welfare Abolition fights for an end to privatisation of the benefits system and of ‘work for your benefit’ schemes

What is the Flexible New Deal and why is it bad news for the unemployed?

Since October 2009 those unemployed for 12 months are being placed on the “Flexible New Deal”. Under this scheme, private companies have been given £500 million in handouts to make the unemployed jump through hoops and compete for non-existent jobs. As part of this, the unemployed are expected to work up to 30 hours a week for a month just to be able to claim their benefits. This means working for a meagre £1.60 an hour – less than a third of the minimum wage. In some areas, young people under 25 are already being forced to take jobs below the minimum wage under the guise of ‘training’.

Pilot areas

However, from October this year, in pilot areas (Manchester, Cambridge and Norfolk), claimants who have been unemployed for two years will soon be obliged to work for their benefits for up to six months. A4E will be the major private slave-driver.

Who gains and who pays: private profiteers and benefit fraud

This is happening at a time when the bankers’ crisis has caused unemployment to more than double. With the prospect of brutal cuts to the public sector and mass redundancies after the election, unemployment is likely to continue to increase. The response of the government has been to victimise claimants and push ahead with the privatisation of the benefits system. The Flexible New Deal neither creates new jobs, nor helps claimants back into work but instead creates massive profits for private companies who are able to force claimants off benefits into casual and low-waged work. It has recently emerged that major slave-driver contractors who are running this scheme have been investigated for fraud in the UK and USA. Too much public money has already been given to these private profiteers, who are the real benefit thieves.

It is an attack on those out of work as well as those in work

The Flexible New Deal is not merely an attack on those out of work: it is also an attack on those in work, as it will undermine existing wages and working standards. The minimum wage is under assault, being undercut by the ‘Work for your Benefits’ component of the Flexible New Deal where an enslaved workforce will work for £1.60 an hour instead of £5.80, and without the already meagre safeguards that ‘protect’ workers at the moment. Claimants and workers must fight together to put an end to using the unemployed to undermine workers’ conditions. Workers, particularly those organised in trade unions, should be involved in kicking these slave labour schemes out of workplaces.

It is an attack on all claimants

Last, but not least: the Flexible New Deal is part of a general attack on all benefits claimants. The new welfare reforms are aimed at forcing everybody to compete on the labour market. As part of this attack, the welfare reforms have, for example, introduced new draconian testing for the sick who cannot work and have obliged lone parents to be jobseekers. All claimants, the unemployed, the sick, the disabled, lone parents, the young, and old-age pensioners are targeted by the government as a whole – we must be united in fighting against this attack.

We are fighting for:

• An end to the Flexible New Deal and any compulsory work scheme.
• The abolition of the Welfare Reform Acts 2007 and 2009, which have introduced dole slavery (2009) as well as punitive measures against lone parents and sick claimants (2007).
• A shift in the distribution of wealth – tax the rich and increase the level of benefits for all to at least the recommended poverty level. Such an increase will affect both those out of work and those in work as it will raise the amount of Housing Benefit, paid to millions of workers.
• Jobs to be paid at a living wage.
• A U-turn on privatisation of the benefits system: investment of public money into the public sector – not on private profiteers.

We call upon benefits claimants and workers to join in the National Day of Action. Get involved in your local campaign to fight back, and take any action which is possible to do in your personal and local situation no matter how small in order to build up this campaign. Demoralise A4E or other private providers of harassment and slavery in your area. Turn the welfare reform into a national issue.

• For more information or to get involved, email us.
• Links to individual actions

• info on local events will be published soon