UNISON is supporting tomorrow’s lobby of Parliament on Welfare Reform, called by our sister union, PCS.
PCS are opposed to plans to privatise the public employment service and social fund.
They argue that the flexible new deal tendering process and the proposals contained in the bill should be abandoned. It is wrong to allow organisations to make profits out of the sick and unemployed.
They want to see the government focus on safeguarding and creating jobs instead of punitive sanctions and increased conditionality for claimants.
It seems ironic that the Government should step up the pressure to force claimaints into work just at the point at which the recession means that there are fewer employment opportunities – but this is not ironic at all.
During an economic crisis employers will seek to restore profitability by reducing labour costs and measures which increase labour supply, and encourage those thrown out of work to accept lower paid employment contribute to this objective.
This has nothing to do with modernising public services, except in the sense that the New Poor Law represented “modernisation” in the 1830s. There is further online comment here.
For those of us who cannot make it to the lobby of Parliament tomorrow – there is an online petition to sign.
Showing posts with label welfare reform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label welfare reform. Show all posts
Monday, March 02, 2009
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Purnell's Victorian Values
It's something of an understatement for PCS to describe the Welfare white paper as “regressive”.
The odious creature James Purnell has managed to combine Workfare with privatisation to bring us the worst of all possible worlds founded on openly Tory ideology (with open – and necessary – Tory support).
The idea of making the poor work for nothing (or very little) in a recession is not new and certainly not modern. In the 1930s the state built “Instructional Centres” - labour camps to which the long term unemployed could be sent to work.
In the 1830s the New Poor Law was founded on the concept of “less eligibility” - the idea that the lot of the “pauper” should be worse than that of the labouring poor.
The purpose of this approach has nothing to do with welfare – and nothing whatsoever to do with the interests of “hard working families” - on the contrary, the state is stepping in to try to ensure that the “reserve army of labour” is forced out into the labour market in order to do its job of depressing wages and holding down working class living standards in order to restore profitability.
New Labour of course bring a novel little twist to this toxic rehash of right-wing ideology by proposing that the whole thing be done in the private sector. I hope UNISON will be joining those who condemn this outrage.
The odious creature James Purnell has managed to combine Workfare with privatisation to bring us the worst of all possible worlds founded on openly Tory ideology (with open – and necessary – Tory support).
The idea of making the poor work for nothing (or very little) in a recession is not new and certainly not modern. In the 1930s the state built “Instructional Centres” - labour camps to which the long term unemployed could be sent to work.
In the 1830s the New Poor Law was founded on the concept of “less eligibility” - the idea that the lot of the “pauper” should be worse than that of the labouring poor.
The purpose of this approach has nothing to do with welfare – and nothing whatsoever to do with the interests of “hard working families” - on the contrary, the state is stepping in to try to ensure that the “reserve army of labour” is forced out into the labour market in order to do its job of depressing wages and holding down working class living standards in order to restore profitability.
New Labour of course bring a novel little twist to this toxic rehash of right-wing ideology by proposing that the whole thing be done in the private sector. I hope UNISON will be joining those who condemn this outrage.
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