Action is being called for around the UK as fake hippy bankers, the Co-operative Bank, consider whether to continue using the service of disability deniers Atos to provide Occupational Health services the company.Atos carry out the notorious Work Capability Assessment, the crude computer based test which is used to strip benefits from sick disabled people by finding them ‘fit for work’.
Last year it emerged that the Co-op currently use Atos to provide Occupational Health to their staff. This led to furious protests both on and offline with the Co-op attempting to weasel their way out of trouble by claiming they couldn’t do anything about it for contractual reasons. Now the contract is up for tender and astonishingly the Co-op have refused to rule out using the services of Atos again.
Many workers of other companies have found themselves laid off for health reasons after recommendations made by Atos, only to be found fit for work as part of their benefits assessment. The company have previously boasted on their website that they have “a team of Organisation and HR professionals who undertake the analysis, design and execution of headcount reduction.”
Atos are equal opportunities wankers, they treat workers every bit as badly as they treat people who cannot work due to sickness or disability.
Two pickets of the Co-op have already been called in Glasgow on the 17th and 19th of January calling on the company not to renew their contract with Atos: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2013/01/505265.html
Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/events/488541864531259/
Pickets are currently being planned elsewhere in the UK.
A Communications Blockade has also been called for the 17th January, details at: http://www.dpac.uk.net/2013/01/co-op-campaign-stop-the-atos-contract/
Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/events/357131177718217/
You can contact the Co-op on twitter @TheCooperative or on facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/TheCooperative
Action called by the Crutch Collective, Clydeside Industrial Workers Of The World and Glasgow Solidarity Federation
