Tues 24 Oct 2017 KUWG Public Meeting against local jobcentre closures

Agenda for KUWG Public Meeting Against Jobcentre Closures,
Tuesday 24/10/17 6.30pm-8.30pm Kingsgate  Community Centre, 107 Kingsgate Road, NW6 2JH

How to get there

6:15pm: Room set up and grabbing a seat!

6:30pm-to-8:15pm: Meeting

8:15pm-8:30pm: Room clearance

Chairperson: A KUWG member who uses Neasden Jobcentre

Speakers

• Giselle as KUWG and Chair of Unite Community Brent, with the aid of a big map, highlighting how people especially with walking problems will be seriously affected, and thus more easily sanctioned
• John Kilvington from Somali Cultural Centre, on the absurd cases he has had and how it obviously will make people with language and cultural issues prone to misunderstand and get sanctioned. 
• Winvisible [Women with Visible and Invisible Disabitlities] to confirm our experiences and offer their campaigning skills.
• Pete Firmin as Chair of Brent Trades Council will speak about how workers could be affected, and mention how other closures of public buildings impact the community.
• Tulip Siddiq MP has sent message of support. 
• MP Dawn Butler has been asked to come or send message of support. 
• Siân Berry Green Party Member of the London Assembly has sent her apologies. 
• Brent Green Party member Peter Murry will speak from a Green Party Trade Union Group perspective
• Green Party Member Alan Wheatley has sent KWUG placards as room decorations, while he cannot attend in person
• Councillor Shama Tatler (Brent Council) who wrote to DWP about proposed closures has been requested to attend.
• PCS [jobcentre workers union] speakers invited, but no response.

PS: WinVisible add:

Tues 24 Oct - WinVisible speaking at KUWG meeting vs Jobcentre closures

Tues 24 October 2017, 6.30-8.30pm

Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group (KUWG) have invited us to speak at their:

 

Public meeting on the proposed Jobcentre closures of Kilburn & Neasden JCPs

the impact on claimants and what we can do

at Big Hall, KINGSGATE COMMUNITY CENTRE,

107 KINGSGATE ROAD, NW6 2JH

(wheelchair accessible)

Speakers include: Giselle Winston (“Benefit Tales” blogger, KUWG member); John Kilvington, welfare rights worker at Camden Somali Cultural Centre.

We’ll be speaking about how the closures will affect people, and what we’ve been doing, including pressing the exemptions from ESA/PIP exams, and about the latest benefit concessions won by public pressure.

(See our blog for self-help info, search “exemption”.) 

In March, we attended the PCS (DWP staff union) meeting in Parliament against Jobcentre closures.

Come along if you can!

Tuesday 24 October update: Cllr Sham Tatler writes:

Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately I cannot attend due to a prior engagement.

I too share your concerns over the closures and the impact they will have on vulnerable residents, particularly as they are in areas in most need.

I had written to the previous minister, and am currently engaging with the DWP over the closures. I have asked to see their equality impact assessment as I am not certain they have taken into account the difficulties our residents will face. I have told them, that we do not understand the rationale for the decisions and am seeking assurances on making sure our residents are protected and not under-served.

I will be continuing to raise the issue and happy to engage with you.

Kind regards

Cllr Shama Tatler

Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Growth, Employment and Skills

Labour Councillor fo Fryent Ward

London Borough of Brent

TUC Welfare Conference 27 February 2015

Kwug was there!  

From a Star Blogger in the Making (She has been tentatively dubbed 'Can-Do Cat Woman' though she claims that she has no idea what her 'byline' should be.)

Welfare conference at Trade Union Congress on Friday 27 February 2015 — Outline Summary

11.00-11.30 am:  

We were welcome by Kevin Flynn, Chair Trade Union Congress NCCUW (National Coombine for Centres for Unemployed Workers?)

1. Introduction of Helen Flanagan (PCS): Vice President of the DWP Group of Public & Commercial Services Union who is responsible for Jobcentre issues.
2. Introduction of Eleanor Firman (Disabled People Against the Cuts) who is a member of  the DPAC Steering Committee and Unite Community.

11.30 am: Workshops:

KUWG members who assisted at the Welfare Conference were Alan, Ben, Gisele, Joan, Abby, Liam, Leigh and Pauline. (Robin was one of the organisers.) There were about 100 people who attended the conference and these were divided into four groups:

1-Sanctions, Conditionality and Work Capability Assessment.

In this group people  shared their experience on how to challenge sanctions and the reasons behind sanctions.  A jobcentre’ Adviser apologised for the inhuman application of jobcentre policy. 

People present included among others, 

• DPACactive members,
• Boycott Workfare
• London Coalition Against Poverty (Mohammed),
  some members of PCS,
• a disabled claimant and
• similar group as ours and many more.  

2- Contribution or a right? Who gets what benefits, when and why?

The group looked at contribution schemes and debated on unconditional basic income. How can we achieve real economy and social equality?  People on the whole have accepted that there should be a safety net for everyone.

3- Work: Workfare, internship, apprenticeship and traineeships.

The group looked at the  government workfare which exploits and undermines employed workers. They also debated on how we could challenge such procedures, the defending of workers' rights and free education. Everyone agreed that volunteering and training should be voluntary and proper jobs should be paid, with over 100 charities signing against mandatory workfare.

4- Equality: Making it a reality in Welfare.

They looked at the Increase of discrimination and multiple problems that have been created through the stigma that politicians and the media have brought up around benefit claimants. And how it resulted for the most vulnerable in losing touch with services and other issues such as socialising (being marginalised). 

 

They concluded that we should implement services to help with more complex needs especially for those who can’t communicate or are unable to move because of their physical disability.

12.45: Feedback from workshops with what should be included in the DWP legislation (the combination of all the above workshops).

13.30. Lunch

After lunch pictures were taken from the group in front of TUC offices with the banner against benefit sanctions.

14.15: Plenary.

Short history of the UWC (Unemployed Workers Centres) movement by Alec McFaden. I missed the talk. At lunchtime there was so much food left over.I put all the sandwiches in bags and ask Tom Mellish “the organiser” to give me a hand to bring them to St Mungo's. He helped me to carry the food to St- Mungo.

14.25: Richard Exell (TUC)

Richard is the TUC’s Senior Policy Officer responsible for work and on Employment and social security, writing and commissioning TUC guides and reports. I missed the talk part of the talk but I do remember hearing that the sanctions were there to foot the bill for Tax Credit instead of asking the employers to offer decent wages. They take the money from the claimants to pass it onto the underpaid.

14.45 Ideas sessions. Mapping a welfare system.

Discussion in mapping a Charter (more or less):

1. Unconditional income that hasn’t been defined completely

2. Banned sanctions for good
3. £10 hourly work rate ('Living Wage')
4. Jobcentres should advise the claimants. (This advisory role should not be surrendered to an external agency.)
5. Workfare that is mandatory should be banned
6. Free Education and proper training
7. Only doctors, specialists and the claimants should be involve in assessing ESA and other health benefits not ATOS or MAXIMUS.
8. Financial Help for families’ carers.

16.15. Report back and brain storming from ideas above.

A final Charter will be revised and published in later date.

17.00

Liane Grove spoke about what Unite is doing. Her own experiences and the hard work that the group is contributing to in changing the policies of this government through workshops like this one.

17.15 The End.

LUS Claimants survey, July 10th and the Low/No pay connection

By Nick Phillips

London Unemployed Strategies Report to Southern and Eastern Region of the Trade Union Congress [SERTUC, that includes London in its catchment area]

1) CLAIMANTS SURVEY, JULY 10th THE LOW/NO PAY CONNECTION

I have been going through the 400 LUS surveys which claimants have filled in across London over the past few months.

The detailed findings will soon be publicly available. As they emerge, many things are perhaps sadly predictable. Key issues include:

• The large number of claimants (around 40%) who feel they are treated with contempt by Jobcentre Plus and the Work Porgramme.
• The even larger number (around 55%) who feel the Information, Advice and Guidance they get on careers, jobs and training is minimal.
• The large number of older claimants (over 50s) who feel they are perceived as being 'on the scrapheap' by both JCP [JobCentre Plus] and employers.
• The increased pressure, even on people who are older, highly experienced and qualified in specific fields, to take any job under any terms and conditions under threat of sanctions.

This information correlates strongly with the findings of the recent PCS [Public and Commercial Services Union] survey. This reported increasing verbal and physical attacks on PCS staff, coupled with a belief that the increasingly harsh sanctions regime instigated by the DWP [Department for Work and Pension]/JCP was a strong contributory factor.

Through exerting this pressure on claimants to take anything on offer, the DWP and Jobcentre Plus perpetuate the legitimacy and increase the number of zero hours contracts and minimum wage jobs.

This clearly embeds the issue of unemployment firmly within the TUC 'Britain Needs a Payrise' agenda and underlines the common cause of workers on low and no pay. This is why we involved unemployed workers in the July 10th strike day and were happy to march alongside the PCS banner to demonstrate our common cause.

LUS will continue to address the problems faced by claimants, JCP/housing benefits staff and others who are all suffering from the effects of the crackdown on access to decent benefits and other forms of support. To this end I shall be making further efforts to link up with the key unions, voluntary organisations and claimants representatives to see how we can take these initiatives further forward.

Swheatie of the KUWG comments:

Kate Belgrave asks:When will the #PCS leadership act to stop #sanctions?

Kate Belgrave asks:When will the #PCS leadership act to stop #sanctions?

Forwarding note by Swheatie of the KUWG: While forwarding the link below, I note that yesterday I attended a Department for Work & Pensions 'Customer Compliance Section' interview at Kentish Town Jobcentre, where I was told that HM Revenue & Customs had passed on to Jobcentre Plus information that in 2010/11 over £800 interest accrued on a Co-operative Bank a/c registered at my address that I had not told them about — and that I knew nothing about. The really great thing was that I had a friend with me from Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group and so I did not fall to pieces as I would have done otherwise and my accompanist was so brilliantly practical that after I had signed a statement that I had never had a Co-operative Bank a/c, she said to me, "How about walking to the Co-operative Bank branch along this street and enquiring there, rather than doing everything by post?" and so we got a letter of confirmation from that branch stating that according to their records no such a/c existed, leading to a smile from the 'Customer Compliance Section' interviewer and a much relieved but still shocked me. But is the witch-hunt drive to uncover 'undeclared income', coupled with involvement of private companies on 'payment by results' in public service delivery leading to a state of 'guilty until proven innocent'?

Anyhow, on to Kate Belgrave's blog:
http://www.katebelgrave.com/2014/05/when-will-the-pcs-leadership-act-to-stop-sanctions/