The SLRCG took to streets of Peckham again yesterday, and held a protest and an info-stall outside the Peckham Job Centre.
Peckham Job Centre is notoriously sanctioning more people than any other
Job Centre in London. In the hour or so we were there, the number of
people who came out of the Job Centre saying they'd been sanctioned grew
to 10.
The Job Centre staff really didn't want us anywhere near them and came
out to remove the messages from their windows, threatening to call the
police if they were put up again. Shamefully, they refused to speak to
any of us but just shouted their piece, took off the 'offensive'
messages and ran back inside, to carry on sanctioning people.
The stories of people coming out of the job centre, on the other hand,
were truly distressing. People were being sanctioned for spurious
reasons, including for being minutes late for their 'interview'. None
were told a word about their right to appeal let alone given any advice
about how their loss of JSA would impact their housing benefit, ability
to survive, nothing.
The SLRCG made plenty of noise about the scandalous profiteering on the
backs of the vulnerable (recently, a whistleblower stated staff are
given targets for how many people should be sanctioned), and gave out
leaflets with information on how to fight back. Their next meeting is on
Wednesday 21st May, 14:00 at the Old Dispensary pub on Camberwell New
Road (Camberwell Green, next door to the GP surgery). If you are in any
way affected by the cuts to the benefits and need support to do
something about this, please come along and/or spread the word.
Also on Wednesday 21st, from 09:45 - 11:30, Southwark Benefit Justice
Campaign will be outside the London Bridge Job Centre, Coburg House,
63-67 Newington Causeway SE1 6LS, with leaflets about the benefits and
sanction cuts. If you can join them, please get in touch with them
directly by email to
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
peoplesrepublicofsouthwark
...
The Peckham job centre gave double the number of sanctions against
benefit recipients as the rest of London. The inhabitants of inner city
borough of Southwark were so outraged they installed their own
functioning complaint desk outside the centre.
With Pictures…
Demotix
