"Gove + DWP set kids up for life of misery," says Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group Secretary
"When the market rules people's lives and workers become commodities, the market also colonises children and their childhood," he said. "Testing is used to measure the value or otherwise of children rather than monitor the support they require. Against that backdrop, successive UK Governments have sided with turning children's impairments into disabilities as money spent per child to support their development is cut and misappropriated by channelling it into endless testing. A June 28, 2002 Times Educational Supplement article by Ted Wragg is aptly headed 'Humane rights of the tested'.
"The impact of cuts in poor families' income is recognised in a Kellogs televised commercial that pledges to give money to sponsor poor children's breakfasts when people buy a Kelloggs breakfast cereal. Cuts in housing and council tax benefits also lead to disruptions in children's home life as councils such as LB Brent have become renowned for implementing central government cuts. At the same time, overseas millionaires leave UK properties unoccupied as gambling chips in a bid to increase house prices beyond the reach of even public service workers such as teachers."
Details of the London teachers' march can be found on the Camden Trades Council website. "It is great that the teachers unions are co-operating in strike action," Mr Wheatley said; "in that, they have a lot to teach the jobcentre unions." PCS Union members in jobcentres take far more industrial action than the more-short-term-contract GMB members in jobcentres, and this lack of joint working has led to apparent apathy of even PCS union members at Kilburn Jobcentre who have demonstrated great reluctance to so much as form a picket line on an official strike day.
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