Save Our Job Centres — a 1 minute 45 seconds video by Shootroot

Video of demo outside DWP HQ, Caxton House, Monday 6 November 2017

This video was originally posted at https://youtu.be/p8jnYVjqtfQ
with this description:

Job centre closures will affect the most vulnerable who need personal and human support to find employment. They will also mean job losses and a reduction in civic spaces. There has been almost no consultation with those affected and no equalities impact studies have been done. Shame on the DWP!

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See also the Kwug Blog blog post Kwuggies and friends at Caxton House as protectors of jobcentres, Monday 6 November 2017
http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/kwuggies-and-friends-at-caxton-house-as-protectors-of-jobcentres-monday-6-nov-2017.html

Universal Credit 'helpline's' glib response: "Call a friend"

My friend and Honorary Kwuggie Kate Belgrave writes on her Kate Belgrave | Talking with people dealing with public sector cuts blog http://www.katebelgrave.com/:

Learning/literacy difficulties & can’t use online Universal Credit? “Find a friend to help,” says DWP. This is dire

Posted on October 12, 2017

11

Yesterday, I rang the Universal Credit helpline number (0345 600 4272) to ask about DWP support for Universal Credit claimants who have learning and literacy difficulties, and who struggle to use computers. (I’ve posted a transcript of a recording I made of the call at the end of this article).

This is crucial.

Universal Credit is an online system which claimants must manage online. There is a charged-for helpline which people can call if they get stuck. [£33 per hour, Dude Swheatie adds] The charges for this are controversial. People who have no money can’t afford the calls.

This is crucial.

Universal Credit is an online system which claimants must manage online. There is a charged-for helpline which people can call if they get stuck. The charges for this are controversial. People who have no money can’t afford the calls.

10am 11 October 2017:

UNIVERSAL CREDIT: Is that a case of [someone] sort of not being able to do the online procedures?

KB: Yes. [This man] has learning and literacy difficulties and he’ll be moving to [town name removed] which I think is rolling out [Universal Credit later this year]?

UNIVERSAL CREDIT: Right, okay. So, I would normally say unless there is any source of help local, whether it be friends, family in the area that they are familiar with, if they’ve got friends over there… what we would normally recommend is that a friend or family member help out…separate to that, see if they’ve got a local Citizens’ Advice....

 And so I came up with the following placards in response.

"Call a friend" was a feature of 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire Quiz Show'
Where are the friends with the expertise required to help someone
navigate a tricky Universal Credit online form?
Where are the Citizens Advice Bureaux that are not in meltdown?

The quiz show referred to here was 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire', hosted by Christ Tarrant. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Wants_to_Be_a_Millionaire%3F_(UK_game_show)

The UN disability committee Chair has described what is going on in the UK regarding the benefit sanctions impact on claimants as a "human catastrophe." https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/uk-faces-un-examination-government-cuts-caused-human-catastrophe/

Enforcing people to do what they cannot do with non-existent help furthers such 'human catastrophe', and it must be stopped. Adapting a sentence from Rabbi Joachim Prinz, President of the American Congress of Jews in a speech made at the same event at which Revd Dr Martin Luther King Jr made the famous [but too little understood] 'I Have a Dream' speech, "Britain must not become a nation of onlookers [in the way that Germany did with the rise of Hitler.]" https://www.haggadot.com/clip/rabbi-joachim-prinz-march-washington-speech-august-28th-1963

We need to get others to join us, to form a 'critical mass' sufficient to
halt the perpetrators of this human catastrophe in their tracks

Placards by Dude Swheatie of Kwug, Human Placard Flower of the KUWG

The Top 10 Kwug Blog Posts for the past month

Entry	Pageviews
Terra firma benefits services closures leave the economically vulnerable more in the lurch 24 Apr 2017	339
Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group's verdict on Donald Trump's US Presidential Pospectus 19 Jan 2017	304
A Universal Credit case study by Revd Paul Nicolsolson 17 Apr 2017, 1 comment	265
Polls close 5pm on Weds 19 April in Unite the Union General Secretary 2017 Election 18 Apr 2017	237
Revisiting Kwug Blog's 2015 UK General Election post 'Pollsters' vision excludes those offline ? 27 Apr 2017	236
National Society for Prevention of Cruely to Children and 'Crown Immunity' over Dept for Work & Pensions neglect 29 Apr 2017	206
Placard designs to help tackle and question the dominance of the pollsters 6 May 2017	194
Next KUWG meeting will be on Thursday 5 January 2017 20 Dec 2016	191
Abusive bullies avoid embarrassing questions 7 May 2017	171
Lowest-bidder-wins contract systems for vulnerable people's services degrade the skills involved and the service users 4 May 2017	157