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.
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.
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?
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.