I Joined The Underclass

Some Ten Years Ago, I Joined The Underclass - The Time Is Coming To Report The Reality.

Nigel

Reilly Good News

Tuesday 12 February 2013 

Taxpayers 'facing multi-million-pound compensation bill' as judges rule back-to-work schemes are unlawful in Poundland test case

"Cait Reilly has won her Court of Appeal claim that requiring her to work for free at a Poundland discount store was unlawful,

She and unemployed HGV driver Jamieson Wilson, from Nottingham, both succeeded in their claims, in the legal aid funded case,

The ruling will not affect the schemes’ existence but will mean the way in which they are written and enforced will need to change,

Lawyers say today's ruling could mean those whose benefits were stripped for refusing part in back-to-work schemes could now reclaim them,

But DWP say it is 'adamant there are no grounds for repayment'."

Neutral Citation Number: [2013] EWCA Civ 66

Court of Appeal Rules that the Government’s “Back to Work” Regulations are Unlawful and Must Be Quashed
 
Back-to-work scheme ruling explained
 
This Poundland ruling is a welcome blow to the Work Programme

Landmark workfare ruling, “govt acted unlawfully #workfare is quashed”

Graduate wins court fight that 'slave labour' at Poundland was unlawful
 
Back-to-work scheme breached laws, says Court of Appeal

Poundland ruling: Back-to-work schemes in disarray as no-pay placements judged unlawful
 
Poundland ruling 'blows big hole' through government work schemes

"Back-to-work scheme breached laws"

Government training scheme unlawful
 
Poundland ‘breached forced labour laws’
 
Graduate’s Poundland victory leaves government work schemes in tatters
 
Court of Appeal will this morning rule whether ConDem employment schemes constitute forced labour
 
Back to work schemes quashed in huge victory for ordinary people
 
Cait Reilly and Jamieson Wilson: Court Rules Workfare Unlawful.
 
Public Interest Lawyers Limited: Court of Appeal Rules that the Government’s “Back to Work” Regulations are Unlawful and Must Be Quashed
 
Back-to-work ruling 'undermines welfare reform'

Small Victories

Court of Appeal Rules “Back to Work” Regulations Unlawful And Must Be Quashed
 
Workfare Is Broken! New Court Ruling and Charity Exodus Are Death Knell For Forced Labour!
 
Unpaid work scheme is illegal, says court - with comment
 
Did you turn down Workfare and lose benefits? Claim them back now!

Poundland Made Me Feel Like I Was Free Labour, Says Cait Reilly – Video
 
DWP Response To Todays #Workfare Judgement

Back-to-work scheme regulations unlawful, not schemes themselves, says expert 

What was the real reason for the work experience decision?

In praise of … Cait Reilly
 
Politics and the Poundland ruling
 
The Poundland Principle: The Only Thing To Gain From Unskilled Labour Is A Wage
 
Nigel

Did You Speak?

Yellow Triangle - Christy Moore

Nigel

Assured

13 November 2012 – Providers announced for online identity scheme (DWP)

"The Post Office, Cassidian, Digidentity, Experian, Ingeus, Mydex, and Verizon are the successful providers chosen to design and deliver a secure online identity registration service for the Department for Work and Pensions. The identity registration service will enable benefit claimants to choose who will validate their identity by automatically checking their authenticity with the provider before processing online benefit claims." "

Identity assurance – Stepping Up A Gear

Nigel 

Moral? Priceless

Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill (Hansard)

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The Welfare Bill: A government of millionaires just made the poor poorer - and laughed as they did it (Independent) 

MPs’ pay demand signals end of ‘Austerity Britain’

MPs call for, in private at least, a 32% pay rise

All in it together?

Who are Britain's real scroungers? (Hint: they want a 32% pay rise (Herald)

 Deconstructing Iain: Coalition benefit lies fall apart at debate

In work benefits – who really benefits from them?

Stuff the workers: Osborne mugs 1.7m breadwinners with Tory welfare reforms (Mirror)

Capping welfare benefits is the moral thing to do (DT)
 
Pensioners could face universal benefit cuts after election, says Iain Duncan Smith (DM)

Clegg criticises Cameron's 'irrational' pledge to protect pensioner benefits while imposing cuts on everyone else (DM)

MPs vote for 1% benefits cap (ITV)

Benefits cuts for ‘shirkers’ passed after angry debate (Scotsman)

MPs vote on 1% benefits cap: Politics live blog (Guardian)

Duncan Smith defends benefits squeeze (Guardian)

There is a problem with welfare, but it's not 'shirkers' (Guardian)

Poorest households will be hit hardest by benefit changes, Whitehall admits (Guardian)

The Welfare State, 1942-2013, obituary (Guardian)

The Tories’ Big Lie on Tax Credit Cuts

Tell a lie often enough….

The BBC: helping the Tories force-feed falsehoods to the masses

8 January 2013

Demonisation of people on benefits is a 'stain on our society' (PCS)

"The comparison between benefits and wages is unfair and misleading. The main unemployment benefit has dramatically fallen in value from just under 21% of average wages in 1979 to 11% now. At 21%, jobseekers allowance would be £135 a week today, instead of just £71."

Nigel

Moral? Priceless

Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill (Hansard)

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The Welfare Bill: A government of millionaires just made the poor poorer - and laughed as they did it (Independent) 

MPs’ pay demand signals end of ‘Austerity Britain’

MPs call for, in private at least, a 32% pay rise

All in it together?

Who are Britain's real scroungers? (Hint: they want a 32% pay rise (Herald)

 Deconstructing Iain: Coalition benefit lies fall apart at debate

In work benefits – who really benefits from them?

Stuff the workers: Osborne mugs 1.7m breadwinners with Tory welfare reforms (Mirror)

Capping welfare benefits is the moral thing to do (DT)
 
Pensioners could face universal benefit cuts after election, says Iain Duncan Smith (DM)

Clegg criticises Cameron's 'irrational' pledge to protect pensioner benefits while imposing cuts on everyone else (DM)

MPs vote for 1% benefits cap (ITV)

Benefits cuts for ‘shirkers’ passed after angry debate (Scotsman)

MPs vote on 1% benefits cap: Politics live blog (Guardian)

Duncan Smith defends benefits squeeze (Guardian)

There is a problem with welfare, but it's not 'shirkers' (Guardian)

Poorest households will be hit hardest by benefit changes, Whitehall admits (Guardian)

The Welfare State, 1942-2013, obituary (Guardian)

The Tories’ Big Lie on Tax Credit Cuts

Tell a lie often enough….

The BBC: helping the Tories force-feed falsehoods to the masses

8 January 2013

Demonisation of people on benefits is a 'stain on our society' (PCS)

"The comparison between benefits and wages is unfair and misleading. The main unemployment benefit has dramatically fallen in value from just under 21% of average wages in 1979 to 11% now. At 21%, jobseekers allowance would be £135 a week today, instead of just £71."

Nigel

The Poor Sheeple

Support for benefit cuts dependent on ignorance, TUC-commissioned poll finds

"Ministers cannot assume that voters will continue to back them in their plans to cap welfare benefit rises, according to a new poll commissioned by the TUC from YouGov and published today (Friday).

Voters least able to give accurate answers about benefits are the most likely to back the government's policy on cutting benefits. The poll shows that once people learn that the benefit up-rating cap will hit workers in low-paid jobs, support moves away from the government, with 40 per cent overall opposing the cap on low-paid worker benefits and only 30 per cent backing them.

The TUC's poll, carried out in the run-up to Christmas, found widespread ignorance about spending on welfare, the reality of unemployment, the generosity of benefits and the level of fraud.

TUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady said: 'It is not surprising that voters want to get tough on welfare. They think the system is much more generous than it is in reality, is riddled with fraud and is heavily skewed towards helping the unemployed, who they think are far more likely to stay on the dole than is actually the case. Indeed if what the average voter thinks was true, I'd want tough action too."

TUC Benefits Survey is Bad News For Tories

"The TUC report which was splashed across the front page of The Independent yesterday shows that the Tory’s benefit bashing obsession may yet unravel as the impact of the vicious welfare cuts becomes increasingly visible."

YouGov / TUC Survey Results: Fieldwork: 11th - 12th December 2012

Why working people should fear the Coalition’s social insecurity

Welfare Reform: What Do The Public Really Think?

Nigel

And He Is Not Even Directly-Affected

Published on Dec 20, 2012

Benefit cards, Universal Jobmatch

Nigel

Modern-Day Tattoo

11:33AM GMT 20 Dec 2012

Jobless to be remotely monitored by Government

"Benefit claimants will have their online job applications remotely monitored by the Government to see whether they are making serious attempts to find work.

Mr Duncan Smith said the website will mean Job Centre advisers are able to target their help at jobseekers with problems

From the beginning of next year, the unemployed will have to look for work through the Coalition's new Universal Jobmatch website or potentially risk losing their benefits.
The website will scan the CVs of benefit claimants and automatically match them up with job openings that suit their skills.

It will also allow employers to search for new workers among the unemployed and send messages inviting them to interviews.

However, the activities of benefit claimants can also be tracked using devices known as "cookies", so their Job Centre advisers can know how many searches they have been doing, suggest potential jobs and see whether they are turning down viable opportunities.

Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said the scheme would "revolutionise" the process of looking for work."

Monday 10 December 2012 UK

Universal Jobmatch: the key questions

"The new Universal Jobmatch website has left many jobseekers worried about the safety of their personal information - and claimants uncertain about whether they are obliged to register."

In 2013 Universal Jobmatch to be mandatory?

20 December 2012 Last updated at 15:13

Iain Duncan Smith's 'tough' site for jobseekers

"Jobseekers in England, Scotland and Wales will have to use a new government website that can automatically tell jobcentres about their applications - or risk losing their benefit payments."

Friday 21 December 2012 

Unemployed to be forced to sign up to Universal Jobmatch website at the centre of security concerns 

"Jobseekers complain that they don’t want to upload sensitive information, such as a CV"

December 20, 2012

Universal Job Search IS to be Made Compulsory

"Jobseekers in England, Scotland and Wales will have to use a new government website that can automatically tell jobcentres about their applications – or risk losing their benefit payments."

Last updated: December 20th, 2012

Internet snooping on job seekers: not just creepy but a shocking waste of money

"The system simply won't work. The tech-savvy will simply switch off the cookies and carry on supplying paper evidence; professionals will struggle to find realistic jobs on the government mandated site; the non-tech-savvy but corrupt will apply for the minimum quota of jobs per week and stay on their sofas (just as they do now); the only people who will suffer will be those genuinely in need of work who are forced to choose between being "internet babes" or being forced to stack shelves or lose benefits, or those completely lacking IT skills, who will not apply for things online, and suffer the consequence of losing benefits or being sent into the work programme."

"The Government shouldn't be making a system designed to distrust citizens and make those who don't check the boxes suffer. If ministers want to check people are applying for jobs, they might consider sorting out the massive flaws in the Job Centre online site first; and then do it by simpler methods – for example, BCCs of emails sent to specific mailboxes would serve the same purpose, but without the creepy 1984 aspect, or insisting that jobs must go through the Government's web portal. Iain Duncan Smith would do well to remember that the state is supposed to be the servant of the people, not the master."

Saturday 22 December 2012 20.45 GMT

Iain Duncan Smith's advisers warn of consequence of benefits crackdown 

"Committee says withdrawing benefits for those judged unwilling to seek work risks driving claimants into 'crime or prostitution'

Iain Duncan Smith's own advisers have urged a softening of his benefits crackdown after hearing evidence that it risked pushing the poorest in society into "crime or prostitution".

Thursday 20 December 2012 16.20 GMT

Unemployed to be forced to use government job website

"Duncan Smith said it would be mandatory for jobseeker's allowance (JSA) claimants to use the site from early in the new year, but no JSA claimant would be required to allow their jobcentre adviser to see any of their activity on the site."

Thursday 20 Dec 2012 10:33 pm

Log on or stop signing on, Iain Duncan Smith says in warning to job seekers

"Benefit claimants will be hauled before job advisers every day if their online activity shows they are not looking for work, Iain Duncan Smith has warned.

Launching the government’s new Jobmatch website, the work and pensions secretary said people would be expected to apply for at least three jobs a week.

He said that signing up to the website, which matches job seekers with employers, would become mandatory for claimants from next year.

Under European law, people have to give permission to allow job centre staff to remotely look at what vacancies they have applied for. But Mr Duncan Smith told Metro doing so would be a ‘trip wire’ which would flag up to a job centre that they may not be looking hard enough for work."

Unemployed to be forced to use Universal Jobmatch

Web-only universal credit 'will leave thousands in crisis'

Empty Threats and Tantrums Are All Iain Duncan Smith Has Left In Universal Jobmatch Fiasco

So many coalition successes so far, but few match the brilliance of the Universal Jobmatch website

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Universal Jobmatch: Seeker home page and actions for advisers (DWP) 

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2 December 2012

Universal Jobmatch (FOIR)

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20 December 2012

Universal Jobmatch re-clarification is required after the statement made by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (FOIR)

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24 December 2012

Information returned from cookies on universal jobmatch (FOIR)

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Cookies - New EU cookie law (e-Privacy Directive) (ICO)

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Nigel

You Are Undone If You Once Forget That The Fruits Of The Earth Belong To Us All, And The Earth Itself To Nobody

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Goodbye welfare, hello workfare

"The social contract between state and individual is being rewritten. Aided by media rhetoric of ‘dole queens’ and ‘benefit scroungers’, workfare is part of a wider narrative arguing that countries can no longer guarantee the welfare of their citizens.

This narrative exposes the real thinking behind workfare: to deter people from claiming welfare and reduce welfare expenditure.

Unemployment is no longer a consequence of competition for jobs in a globalized market, or the failure of governments’ economic policies. Instead, it is the personal failure of the individual to gain employment, regardless of financial crisis or recession.

Yet blaming the individual looks increasingly weak. The International Labour Organization recently issued a report which concluded that the global economy needs to create 600 million jobs in response to the employment crisis.

As workfare decreases paid employment, it also undermines economic recovery.

This creates a paradox: while the concept of welfare is eroded and those who receive it are expected to get less for doing more, companies involved in workfare benefit from higher profits without employing more people.

Tesco has acknowledged that it has profited from approximately 300,000 hours of unpaid work from 1,400 placements in ‘recent months’.

Neoliberal governments and the workfare industry are actively intervening to restructure the labour market by suppressing wages and increasing the pressure on people to accept low-paid work.

The labour market is becoming a workfare market."

Nigel

Contemporary Slavery In The UK

"What is forced labour?

What is the problem?

Forced labour is any work or services which people are forced to do against their will under the threat of some form [of] punishment. Almost all slavery practices, including trafficking in people and bonded labour, contain some element of forced labour."

Home \ English \ Slavery Today \ Forced Labour

Forced labour: contemporary slavery in the UK

"Influencing the development of policy and practice to reduce forced labour in the UK.

Our overall goal is to contribute to a reduction in forced labour in the UK by highlighting the issue with new, strong evidence on the extent of forced labour and interventions that might help eradicate it; and identifying practical solutions and sharing best practice in supporting victims of forced labour."

Home / Our work / Forced labour: contemporary slavery in the UK

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The Queen (on the application of) Caitlin Reilly and Jamieson Wilson -v- Secretary of State for Work and Pensions

Neutral Citation Number: [2012] EWHC 2292 (Admin)

Reilly - CO/260/2012 and Wilson - CO/1087/2012

"174 ... it does have to be said that the sbwa scheme, and indeed the CAP, are a very long way removed from the kind of colonial exploitation of labour that led to the formulation of Article 4. The Convention is, of course, a living instrument, capable of development to meet modern conditions, and views may reasonably differ about the merits of a scheme that requires individuals to “work for their benefits” as a means of assisting them back into the workplace. However, characterising such a scheme as involving or being analogous to “slavery” or “forced labour” seems to me to be a long way from contemporary thinking.

Mr Walsh’s first witness statement refers to details of research which it is suggested shows that schemes like the CAP can and do have a beneficial effect in relation to the obtaining of work by the long-term unemployed. It is no part of the court’s function to evaluate that evidence or to comment on its Judgment Approved by the court for handing down. Reilly & Wilson v DWP validity. However, if valid, its existence would reinforce the view that a scheme like the CAP does not offend Article 4.

175. Whilst the argument in Nikiforova concerned different Regulations (see paragraph 52 above), the approach of Bean J and the Court of Appeal in that case supports this conclusion.

176. For these reasons, briefly stated, I do not consider that either scheme is contrary to Article 4, nor do I consider that there has been any breach in Miss Reilly’s case."

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Welfare Reform Act 2012

The Jobseeker’s Allowance (Sanctions) (Amendment) Regulations 2012

The Jobseeker’s Allowance (Mandatory Work Activity Scheme) Regulations 2011

March 2011

Report

"The Purpose of the Mandatory Work Activity Scheme

15. The Committee, along with some respondents, set out a concern regarding the intention of the scheme, likening it to a punishment, rather than a supportive employment programme.

16. The Government does not accept this position. The Mandatory Work Activity Scheme is targeted at those customers who have demonstrated that they require support to gain work related disciplines and re-engage with their search for work, as well as failing to voluntarily engage in the support that is offered by Jobcentre Plus. The Mandatory Work Activity Scheme is not a sanction, or a punishment, but has been developed in recognition that some customers require additional support."

The Jobseeker’s Allowance (Employment, Skills and Enterprise Scheme) Regulations 2011 

Jobseekers Act 1995

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Posted on December 14, 2012

Could Mandatory Work Activity be on the Brink of Collapse?

"An evaluation of the Government’s Mandatory Work Activity (MWA) scheme, commissioned and published by the DWP, reveals that welfare-to-work companies are struggling to find enough placements for all those forced into unpaid work. In a further blow to the DWP’s plans for mass workfare, this report was released before several major charities, including Scope, British Heart Foundation, Age UK and Cancer Research announced they were pulling out of the scheme."

RR 823 Evaluation of Mandatory Work Activity - December 2012

Read summary
Read full report

Mandatory Programmes Official Statistics - November 2012
Mandatory Programme Statistics August 2012

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November 11, 2012

Government So Ashamed of Workfare it Blocks Information about it

"The Department of Work and Pensions is refusing to publish the names of charities and businesses where tens of thousands of unemployed people are being made to work without pay for four weeks at a time."

Is the Work Programme really Forced Labour/Slavery in the UK?

Between decent work and forced labour: examining the continuum of exploitation
 
Between decent work and forced labour: examining the continuum of exploitation
 
Nigel

Why Am I Here?

On Anger ...

"... anger is the common substitute for logic among those who have no evidence for what they desperately want to believe."

Isacc Asimov, The Tyrannosaurus Prescription

Faith & Reason: The wisdom of the streets will fail us on child sex abuse

"Treating paedophiles as we did witches in medieval times is not just bad theology - it is also the strategy least likely to produce change

"There was something in the eyes of the people interviewed in the street where a 73-year-old man was battered to death in Redcar at the weekend. The man was a paedophile who had been jailed for a year for indecent assault in 2001. Police investigators were shocked at the "wall of silence" which met their request for help. But those looks said more even than the silence, looks of indignant satisfaction, half-smiles of gleeful vindication."

 Paul Vallely, The Independent, 6 December 2003

'That's one less on the streets'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/dec/02/ukcrime.childprotection

Man charged with murder of paedophile

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-204178/Man-charged-murder-paedophile.html

Life for killer of peadophile [sic]

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/archive/2004/07/28/The+North+East+Archive/6983136.Life_for_killer_of_peadophile/

- so, how far have we come, in nearly ten years? (more to the point, what has the establishment done to reduce or stop it?):

Greens protesters to bring town to a halt every week

http://www.scotsman.com/news/greens-protesters-to-bring-town-to-a-halt-every-week-1-2438326

Get Robert Greens out Midlothian

https://www.facebook.com/groups/409489742423495

Robert Greens – Brutal rapist in Midlothian

http://chris-ukorg.org/robert-greens-brutal-rapist-in-midlothian

BNP chief’s terror in clash with protesters

http://www.thesun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/4460654/BNP-chiefs-terror-in-clash-with-protesters.html

MBS?

That is why.

Nigel.