‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ – hyperbole?

The Salvation army has recently received flak for its involvement with forced labour and the assertion that appears on their web site:  ”The Salvation Army’s key purposes: emancipation through employment“, thus echoing the sign that appeared on the gates of Nazi forced labour, later extermination,  camps “ Arbeit Macht Frei” (“labour makes you free“).

Both Protestant and Catholic Churches in Germany have apologized for the use of forced labour supplied by the Nazi’s and it is regrettable that the SA in the UK is echoing the secular SA (Brown Shirts) of the Nazi era in being involved with forced labour.  Coincidences are just that – coincidences – however, it recalls how the current government introduced forced work for disabled people on United Nations’ International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

Belatedly my attention was drawn to an astonishing article that appeared last year in the Daily Mail which was pulled very quickly after it appeared on Twitter. If you don’t believe in God then perhaps  you might find belief in a round about way by concluding that there is indeed a devil hovering over these isles. Domique Jackson wrote:

“The German slogan ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ is somewhat tainted by its connection with Nazi concentration camps, but its essential message, ‘work sets you free’ still has something serious to commend it.

There is dignity to be gained from any job, no matter how menial, and for young people at the start of their careers, there are valuable lessons to be learned from any form of employment, whether that is on the factory floor, on a supermarket till or in the contemporary hard labour camp of a merchant bank or law office.”

  Coincidentally it was printed on Independence Day in the USA, the country which introduced modern Workfare, during the Clinton administration, and which has been copied by several other countries including our own.

Welfare Sorrows

Yesterday's Labour Workfare Masssacre

Reblogged from Diary of a Benefit Scrounger

 

This morning, like the night after Agincourt, lefties like me scan the bloody, burnt out social media #workfare battlefield in the hope of finding twitching Labour corpses. There are none. Like the French 600 years before, a few generals at the top of the pile made the fateful decision to crush the weak and exhausted. Like the French, they were shown exactly why that's often not a very good idea at all. 

In the three years since Labour have been in opposition, nothing has described their fate better than the welfare debate. With minds stuck in an ideology forged around a gleaming new millennium, welfare was a comforting Blairite hawk to offset the freer doves of education, international aid and health. 

Tough on povety, tough on the causes of poverty. It suited Purnell, and Murphy and Cooper as they forged their credentials as "centrists" and who knows? Future leaders? 

So the argument goes : "It's a no brainer. The public think everyone on welfare is scrounging. (Except them) The tougher we are on welfare, the more people in the "Middle" and the "Shires" and the "City" breathe easy at night. (As long as it's not pensioners and it doesn't affect them.) Combining a little social justice elsewhere, with a good dose of judgement and steel in welfare = the chance of a majority. 75% of the public support workfare. Therefore, supporting the government on this is a chance to show we are still tough on poverty, tough on the causes of poverty. The Daily Mail fall gasping at our feet, they raise a glass in the gentleman's clubs, and no-one will listen to the screams of the anguished or weak, well, because they're anguished and weak."

Some around the shadow cabinet now look uncomfortable, shift in their seats. This is at least progress. Some mention the change in the welfare narrative lately. Opinion polls shifting, disability becoming toxic for the Tories, the increased media interest and above all, that behemoth of opinion formers - social media. But the hawks give the doves a little slap about and logic prevails. 75% of everyone or about 1% of the active, gobby probably-gave-up-on-us-anyway-leftie-activist-Face-Tweeps??? 

As has happened so often before, but had been happening less lately, the hawks won the welfare Agincourt, and they took to the commons. 

We on Twitter and Facebook steeled ourselves. Defeat had been heavily trailed on the blogs and had met with the grim opposition of the archer who knows he may be amongst small and ragged numbers, but he has all the arrows and the mighty have none. 

And so it proved. If the Daily Mail or the BBC even noticed Labour's unprincipled stand yesterday, designed to get them picked for the election team, there is little evidence today on a quick dodge of budget fever. 

But on Social Media? 

Oh Agincourt,

"Those few, those happy few those band of brothers. 

For those yesterday who shed their blood may have been a brother. 

Be he ne'er so vile, election day may have gentled his condition and Englishmen abed may have held their front doors wide as any speaks, that canvassed late, upon election day!!!"

For the return of precisely zero centre ground, floating voting, Mail readers, Labour managed to enrage and alienate 10s of 1000s of active, passionate, left of centre, engaged, knowledgeable, informed, opinion formers who are read by journalists and opposition alike - not to mention their own families and friends. 

Life has changed since 2000. Politics has changed. The economy has changed beyond all recognition. Living standards have fallen. Corruption seems to stalk everywhere now that gossamer veneer of "success" has floated away. 

But most of all, "media" has changed. Numbers of papers sold are plummeting, news figures freefall by their side. 

And every day, social media takes over. Sure, not the majority, but the vanguard. And they are the ones who care and think and devise and solve and organise. Just like any world paradigm change, it is the few who lead you to safety not the many. 

Every time Labour remembers that, they are rewarded with just a little touch of Harry in the night - Murdoch and Leveson, Gas giants and Loan sharks their names in our mouths bitterly remembered. 

We appreciate their company, there in the breach. 

But every time they take what they know is the wrong decision on principle, the response is swift and horrific. 

I won't pain myself more by sifting through the "I'll never vote Labour again" tweets or sifting through the debris of torn up membership cards and broken hearts. 

But Labour squandered so much more yesterday on a battle they could never win, and all the while they go on frittering away principles and viable voters on the wind of a cruel popularity it cannot win, our cause be not just.

 

 

Contact workfare exploiter Salvation Army – Day 2 Workfare Week of Action

Salvation Army International and UK HQs were paid a surprise visit to launch the week of action. [Photo: Sinister Pics]

Join the online day of action on Tuesday 19th March and tell workfare exploiters The Salvation Army exactly what the public think about their use of forced labour.

The Salvation Army released an astonishing statement recently which seems to suggest they will force people on sickness or disability benefits into unpaid work.

In a series of answers to questions asked on social media, the charity are unrepentant about their use of workfare. Responding to a question asking how they “can morally take sick and disabled people and force them to work?” the charity reply that they believe in “emancipation through employment” – a chillingly familiar phrase.

The Salvation Army have shown they are happy to act as Iain Duncan Smith’s workfare foot soldiers and yesterday their fight for the right to use unpaid workers was aggressive. The response to a peaceful protest at their UK head office was heavy handed, leaving one person temporarily arrested (until the police realised the accusation was entirely fabricated) after being falsely accused of assault.

Salvation Army need to be shown just how many people object to their use of forced unpaid labour. Join in the online day of action and tell them what you think!

Salvation Army UK can be contacted on facebook and on Twitter:
Tweet to @salvationarmyuk
Boycott Workfare

The myth of the “welfare scrounger”

A little noticed piece of DWP research shows that four out of five claimants spent at least three quarters of the past four years off unemployment benefit.

BY IAN MULHEIRN PUBLISHED 15 MARCH 2013 14:58

A man stands outside the Jobcentre Plus on January 18, 2012 in Trowbridge, England. Photograph: Getty Images.

In its effort to save money on the working age welfare bill, the government has used some bold imagery. The Chancellor is fond of saying, 

“where is the fairness…for the shift-worker, leaving home in the dark hours of the early morning, who looks up at the closed blinds of their next-door neighbour sleeping off a life on benefits?”

And the Prime Minister has talked of the benefits bill

“sky-rocketing”

while

“generations languish on the dole and dependency”.

The benefit scrounger is the bogeyman of British politics, stalking the corridors of Westminster.

In the real world, it’s pretty hard to find families that have never worked, let alone generations of people on the dole.

But as well as being political cover for the public spending squeeze, this rhetoric reflects an apparent hardening of public attitudes.

The British Social Attitudes survey shows that in 2011 54 per cent of people thought that if benefits were lower people would “learn to stand on their own two feet”, more than double the 26 per cent who felt that way just 20 years earlier. It appears that the idea of dependency is almost synonymous with the dole in many people’s minds. As a result, moves to erode benefits, through things like the 1 per cent up-rating plan, garner widespread public support.

Into this rhetorical maelstrom, was last week released a fascinating – and little noticed -piece of research by the Department for Work and Pensions on the benefit histories of dole recipients.

It’s a precious piece of evidence in an argument that tends to be fuelled by anecdote, prejudice and fear (on all sides). And it rather undermines the picture that our welfare system is awash with people taking advantage of its ‘something for nothing’ deal.

The analysis looks at the benefit claims history, going back four years, of people who made a claim for unemployment benefit in 2010-11.

For a sample group of 32-33 year olds who claimed Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) in 2010-11, 40 per cent of them had not made a claim before in that period.

Sixty three per cent had spent no more than six months of the previous four years on JSA.

And almost four out of five claimants had spent at least three quarters of the past four years off the dole.

The idea that these claimants are ‘trapped’ in a ‘dependency culture’ is absurd.

What all this implies is that the overwhelming majority of people who claim unemployment benefit each year spend at least three-quarters of their time in work.

And for 40 per cent of claimants, the need to claim JSA clearly comes as quite a shock since they have no recent history of having done so before.
But you would never tell that from the tone of the debate.

Only a small minority of adults – 11 per cent of claimants in 2010-11 – have a history of spending more than half of recent years on the dole.

The government is right to want to take action to help that 11 per cent achieve sustainable employment rather than spending half their time on the dole. But when four out of five claimants draw benefits for an unemployment spell that is obviously an unfortunate aberration, it’s clear that the excoriating rhetoric isn’t based in reality.

If all claimants are to be labelled ‘scroungers’, then today’s striver is tomorrow’s scrounger – and that could be any of us.

It’s worth remembering that the next time we hear a welfare squeeze being justified by a pervasive ‘culture of dependency’.

The New Statesman 

True Face of the Salvation Army – Workfare Protest Marred By False Arrest and Staff Aggression

There were shocking scenes at the South London offices of workfare exploiters the Salvation Army today as employees of the charity manhandled anti-workfare protesters, tried to seize personal property and then physically prevented them from leaving the building.

Astonishingly one person who managed to escape from the premises  before staff blockaded protesters inside was falsely accused of assault and then arrested.

The UK offices of the charity were visited by campaigners today as part of the National Week of Action Against Workfare.  Salvation Army are one of the largest charities left who use forced labour – under threat of benefit sanctions -  to staff their charity shops.  Most decent charities have pulled out in disgust at the exploitative nature of the scheme. The Salvation Army have no such principles and recently appeared to admit that they are even happy to use those on sickness or disability benefits as forced unpaid workers.
Today’s action began at the charity’s plush International Headquarters in the City of London.  A workfare army visited the charity holding a sermon extolling the benefits of forced labour in their reception area.  Meanwhile several people went downstairs to the cafe run by the charity and handed out leaflets.

Many people were shocked at the organisation’s open use of workfare, and thanked the protesters for making them aware of it.  The protest (pictured above) was good-natured and non-violent throughout and eventually a Major from the charity agreed to speak to those present.

The Major claimed that as the international headquarters for the charity, they were not responsible for the actions of the UK section of the Salvation Army.  When it was pointed out that protesters were there to show what was being done in the organisation’s name, he agreed that he was happy for the protest to remain in the building until they closed for the day.

He also suggested that campaigners should visit the UK Headquarters in Elephant & Castle who have the ultimate say of the charity’s use of workfare.  Not wanting to disobey an order from a Major that’s exactly what those present decided to do.

On arrival at the charity’s Elephant & Castle offices it was clear that a very different side of this supposedly Christian organisation would be on display.

At first several staff – who may have been security but never identified themselves as such – refused to allow protesters into the building.  In what appeared to be a change of heart they then relented and opened the doors to allow people inside.

Once inside another workfare sermon began and then some of those present began to sing hymns.  This seemed to particularly annoy the charity’s staff who called the police.  The mood quickly turned ugly as the Salvation Army’s bully boys began shouting at protesters that they were blocking fire exists and would be arrested – a claim which was clearly nonsense as there was easy access in and out of the building.

Despite not only having been told to visit by the organisation’s International Headquarters, and allowed onto the premises, they then began accusing people of trespass and demanding that people should give them their mobile phones and cameras.

Shocked at the aggresive response to a completely peaceful and non threatening action, a decision was made by the protesters to leave.  Sadly only one person made it out of the building as the Salvation Army thugs blocked the door and attempted to grab hold of people to physically prevent anyone from leaving.
As this took place the police arrived and one Salvation Army staff member began insisting the person who had escaped from the building had assaulted him, leading to the individual being arrested.  A stand off ensued as those inside were finally freed – the charity presumably deciding that kidnapping people in full view of the police was a step too far even for their shady operation.

Police were heard discussing amongst themselves that they had witnessed people being trapped inside by Salvation Army employees.  After tense negotiations it appeared even the police didn’t believe the charity’s wild claims and the individual accused of assault was de-arrested and allowed to leave.

After the good-natured protest earlier in the day this shocking sequence of events showed the true nature of this charity’s response to criticism.  Physical force, false allegations and abuse replaced the fake cheery PR front that the charity have attempted to portray when criticised for using workfare.

It seems that the Salvation Army are determined to silence any criticism of their dirty little workfare exploitation.  A day of online action in response to these events has now been called by Boycott Workfare tomorrow (Tues 18th March).

The Salvation Army are on twitter @salvationarmyuk
They can be found on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/salvationarmyuk

Spread the word and let’s tell the Salvation Army exactly what the public thinks of their workfare exploitation and attempted use of force and false allegations to silence criticism.

(watch this space for more contact info)

Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid

The Void

Liam Byrne : “Sanctions are vital to give back-to-work programmes their bite”

Yesterday in parliament Liam Byrne said to Iain Duncan-Smith “Sanctions are vital to give back-to-work programmes their bite”. Not only does Byrne believe in forced labour he thinks it should be enforced by withdrawal of benefits. Byrne has also used the strivers v shirkers rhetoric that sought to divide the poorest sectors of society and have them fighting one another.

Byrne is Labour’s  Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, their very own Iain Duncan-Smith.  Byrne “worked for the multi-national consulting firm, Accenture and merchant bankers, N M Rothschild & Sons, before co-founding a venture backed technology company, e-Government Solutions Group, in 2000 before entering parliament.”

It’s not clear what qualification and life experiences Byrne has that makes  him suitable to be head of Labours welfare department.  Baron Freud who is head of the present governments welfare reform also has an investment banking background. I wrote elsewhere that this was like putting the fox in charge of the chicken shack.

Neither Freud or Byrne have any idea at all of what they are doing to ordinary people: Money people who survey the wasteland they are creating from the ivory towers of ignorance  and ideology. Byrne likes to be interviewed beside photographs of Tony Blair. Maybe this indicates the share a common set of values and work within the same moral universe that turns black into white and deception becomes just another word for truth.

That the Labour Party has such a person in charge of its welfare policies shows that it is bust completely. In some way I dislike Iain Duncan-Smith less than Byrne because he is doing what you would expect from a party that represents money. Byrne is just another name to add the list that is headed “Blair” – the list of those who have betrayed ordinary people for mere money or power.

Welfare Sorrows