Please sign the following petition supporting the abolition of Workfare.
We want to abolish work for your benefit/workfare schemes in the UK. The Welfare Reform Bill will cause severe financial and emotional distress to the poorest and most vulnerable in society.
Pathetic. When will people understand that the number 10 petitions are for venting anger and doesn’t give you any power under democracy?
Welfare Reforms will NOT be abolished under either Labour or Conservatives.
When do you think after numerous years and thousands of pounds spent making these laws that a few concerned angry citizens is going to pursuade them into revoking such laws?
This isn’t aimed at Louise but if people really want change they need to unite together on a political level. Campaign etc. and not just post a link hoping people will sign their name. The petitions carry no legal weight and is a rather pointless activity. Have you seen some of the official responses?
FND, I agree there has to be a political campaign highlighting and fighting against these draconian Acts, though that also includes petitions whatever the strengths and weaknesses of these processes it will still come to the notice of No. 10 and they will have to produce an official reply….whether this petition will make a dent on their political radar is doubtful it is still a useful process and for also making people aware of what is happening. Petitions do have a purpose but indeed they are no substitute for political action.
Did you know many Flexible New Deal victims are lost in “No Man’s Land”?
http://flexible-new-deal.co.uk/2010/01/14/flexible-new-deal-millions-stranded-in-no-mans-land/
As soon as you are referred onto Stage 4 you loose all support from Jobcentre Plus and obviously get no support from the FND provider until you get signed up.
This support obviously varies on provider and discrimination.
Those who have missed an interview and are referred for a sanction have an extended “No Man’s Land” period as the FND provider wont contact you – this is although your claim is still active and on Stage 4 in JCP’s eyes. Whether they will ever contact you again is unknown.
I just went over to the petition and found my name already there!
FND – wind your neck in. Saying something isn’t aimed at the author and then aiming at the author doesn’t wash.
I was pointing out in general that there is more to making change than a petition.
Louise understood it wasn’t an aimed attack on her.
I want more people involved in opposing FND and Welfare Reform… doing a petition and voting Labour at General Election hoping they take on board the points made in the petition is solely a wasted vote.
I wasn’t aware of the petition until I visited this site. But have signed, as Tesco says; “every little helps”.
Not many months ago when Jmaes Purnell, then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, put forward these proposals for workfare in Parliament I tried to block them by amending the Bill but the Government guillotined the debate, bizarrely denied their “work for benefits” scheme was workfare and forced them through. Apart from a small number of Socialist Campaign Group MPs voting against the workfare proposals the vast majority of New Labour MPs followed the whips and voted for this further attack on the poorest members of our society. This Bill also contained the next stage of the Government’s plans for privatising the administration of welfare benefits. This does put in context the recent statements by James Purnell, Cruddas, Miliband et al about the need for a new direction in Labour policies. I am a great believer in the power of conversion but have difficulty in envisaging such a crowded road to Damascus at present.
PS Sorry I have mispelt James in first line!!
PPS I have signed the pettion because at least it is one way of letting people know that there are some who do not support the introduction of workfare and will continue to campaign to abolish it. By the way PCS undertook an excellent briefing campaign for MPs on the workfare proposals so no MP can claim they weren’t warned about their implications.
“I am a great believer in the power of conversion but have difficulty in envisaging such a crowded road to Damascus at present.”
Thanks for that John. I certainly agree with the above statement. Yes indeed, PCS did do an excellent briefing campaign for MPs and of course the Lobby of Parliament in early March 2009. Also, Lynne Jones and yourself did an exemplary job putting forward amendments during the early Bill stages of the Welfare Reform Act, but as you say majority of Labour MPs just followed the Whips. and agree with what you say about the petition against Workfare.
[...] Petition to abolish Workfare. Filed under: Campaigns for Unemployed, Workfare — Tags: Workfare — Andrew Coates @ 10:08 am Petition to abolish Workfare [...]
Christopher Grayling, then Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, predicted that a huge revolt of Labour backbenchers would take place when Purnell put his Welfare Reform Bill to the vote. David Cameron assured Purnell that he had full Conservative backing to facilitate the passage of the bill through the two Houses of Parliament, fully expecting that Labour MPs would stand against a bill, introduced by their own side, which represented the polar opposite to everything the Labour Party supposedly once stood for. In the event neither Cameron or Grayling need have been concerned. Only 30 MPs actually had the courage to fight and attempt to vote down the Welfare Reform Bill when push came to shove. Mr. McDonnell was one such worthy soul; lamentably Jon Cruddas was not.
How any Labour MPs could possibly have been convinced that a scheme called “Work for the Dole” involved no work… for the dole! Are they really that stupid? Besides this scheme, filched from Australia, is doomed to fail. In the antipodes “Work for the Dole” was the most unsuccessful of all schemes aimed at getting Aussie participants into jobs: the Australian “Work for the Dole” scheme had a failure rate of 93% can you believe? Yes! Out of every 100 people who were forced to work for their dole for six months, on average only 7 of them ended up in jobs while the other 93 left the programme no better trained and often much worse off financially than they were when they entered it.
Workfare is not supposed to help anybody.
Workfare is a punishment.
How on earth the British Labour Party could have been persuaded to enshrine such a pernicious ideology in British law (especially without mass resistance from its own Parliamentary Party) is almost impossible to understand. Personally, I am completely at a loss to make any sense out of any of it, but am convinced that this mean-spirited and concerted pogrom Purnell and Cooper have unleashed upon the unemployed, sick, disabled, mentally ill, carers, single parents etc., MUST have lost the Labour Party millions of votes from floating voters and former supporters appalled by such blunt, mercilessness neoliberalism?
Workfare is pending a legal battle to overturn it.
[...] Petition to abolish Workfare [...]
No point in having a petition to abolish Workfare. Just don’t vote for any party that supports it. This means don’t vote Labour, Conservative, of BNP. This is one way of abolishing Workfare.
BTW, great news about the death of that c*nt Al Haig who was in Ronald Reagan’s Govt that brought in Workfare. I’m gonna buy a bottle of sparkling wine to celebrate!
I think one way to destroy it will be for the workfare particpants themselves to sabotage it at very opportunity.