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workfare

  • December 18, 2014
    Low pay or no pay

    With growing numbers of working people struggling to survive, immigration is often blamed for suppressing wages. The police raid on a factory in Rochdale where immigrants were allegedly forced to work for £25 per week, reminds us that there are exploitative employers willing to take advantage of immigrants. But it could also be argued that government policy plays a major role in suppressing wages.

  • June 2, 2014
    Workfare scheme delayed again after voluntary sector boycott

    A policy of forcing unemployed people to work full-time for six months for no pay is facing further delays following a boycott by over 300 voluntary organisations.

  • May 30, 2014
    Now unemployed people are sent on army training schemes

    Poverty and militarism feed over each other. Unemployment has always been good news for army recruiters in need of people desperate for a livelihood. So it's no surprise that the recruitment of unemployed people has been formalised in a scheme in the English Midlands. Could this be a sign of the way things are heading? The government is already forcing unemployed people to carry out unpaid labour through 'workfare' schemes. Will they soon be forcing them into army training?

  • April 28, 2014
    Charities refuse to host forced unpaid labour for unemployed

    A new scheme that will force unemployed people into unpaid work is in trouble on its first day, with dozens of charities and faith groups refusing to take part.

  • April 18, 2014
    Faith groups urged not to be 'tricked' by new workfare scheme

    Faith groups and charities have been warned that they could end up exploiting people if they take part in the government's new "Community Work Placements".

  • April 2, 2014
    YMCA faces protest ahead of new workfare scheme

    YMCA England has faced a protest at its London offices over its continued participation in “workfare” schemes that force unemployed people to work without pay.

  • December 2, 2013
    Week of Action against Workfare targets further changes

    The Boycott Workfare campaign network has kicked off a Week of Action to Stop Workfare and Sanctions across the UK. It runs through to 8 December 2013.

  • October 30, 2013
    Human cost of sanctioning jobless revealed

    The UK supreme court has confirmed that the government had broken the law through failing to supply adequate information about its work-or-starve schemes for jobless people. Yet, by and large, ministers are succeeding in inflicting terrible hardship on many unemployed and sick people, as Citizens Advice Bureau research reveals.

  • June 16, 2013
    Not the G8 - digital activism in Leeds

    I am on a train that’s just pulled out of Leeds, following a great day at ‘Not the G8', a conference run by the World Development Movement (WDM).

  • April 17, 2013
    My new book on activism has now been published

    My new book, Digital Revolutions: Activism in the internet age, has now been published by New Internationalist.