March Against Job and Benefit Cuts

http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2010/03/green-shoots-of-protest.html

Supporters of the Unemployed Centre, together with Trade Unionists and others fighting for their jobs joined Brighton’s biggest trade union demonstration for over a decade on Saturday 6th December for a march from The Level to Bartholomew Square by the Town Hall.

There was a range of speakers from Dave Hill, Parliamentary Candidate for the Trade Union & Socialist Coalition in Brighton Kemptown to Gary Hassell of the RMT and a speaker from the successful campaign to keep open a nursery at Brighton University, Tony Greenstein from Brighton Benefit Cuts and the Chair was Bill North from Brighton & Hove District Trades Union Council.

The march was lively and good natured and represents a turning point in the lethargy that has afflicted the movement recently. It was noticeable that only one Labour Party member was in attendance and no Councillor we could see. New Labour has literally corroded that Party from within.

Employment Support Allowance

As part of their ‘Welfare Reforms’ the Government has abolished Incapacity Benefit and is moving everyone off onto Employment Support Allowance. Less than 10% of people are still being classified as sick, in what is known as the ‘Excluded Category’ who obtain a higher benefit that normal JSA.

Most people are being put in a ‘Preparing for Work’ Category and receiving an additional premium or are being declared fit for work and put directly on JSA.

The new tests are basically being assessed by a computer programme and the doctor at your medical test merely inputs information to the computer. If you are having problems and need to appeal or seek advice contact us.

What We Stand For

We are wholly opposed to Workfare and to the various make-work schemes such as Flexible New Deal which involve working for your benefit. Historically Labour Governments have always been more sympathetic to the unemployed and it was the Attlee Government in 1948 that first introduced the Beveridge proposals for a Welfare State, which included National Assistance as well as the National Health Service. New Labour under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown changed all that.

The first thing New Labour did when they came into power was to cut lone parent benefits. They have been consistent ever since. They privatised much of the Benefits Service merging it into the Employment Service and calling it JobcentrePlus. They have abolished Incapacity Benefit and Income Support and they recently tried to abolish Disability Living Allowance in order to pay for their new National Care Service. It was only because of the extremely hostile reception, including a 20,000+ petition on the Downing Street website, that New Labour backed off. However all the indications are that they intend to abolish Attendance Allowance and DLA for those aged 65 and over and we can have little doubt that DLA is only safe for the time being.

The ‘Welfare Reforms’ introduced over 2 years ago, and disgracefully supported by a number of welfare charities such as Child Poverty Action Group and Disability Alliance, is forcing lone parents with young children to be ‘work ready’. The intention is that after a child reaches the age of 7 the parent must go out to work. On the one hand the government introduces ASBOs and on the other they create the conditions for anti-social behaviour. New Labour call it ‘joined up thinking’.

The ‘Welfare Reforms’ abolished Incapacity Benefit in the belief, as encouraged by the Daily Hate Mail and other taboids, that the level of benefits provided an incentive for people to go sick. As a result of the introduction of the new Employment Support Allowance (ESA) there have been a whole raft of outrageous decisions that sick people are in fact well. More than 90% of people are being deemed fit for some kind of work as the government’s intention becomes every clearer – to save as much money at the expense of the sick and disabled as possible. These decisions about whether people are fit to work are being made by private companies through a computer system that is both arbitrary and capricious.

In Brighton we have set up the Brighton Benefit Campaign to oppose these attacks on claimants and benefits generally.

The strategy from the start has been to turn Britain into a low-wage economy. Thus a minimum wage was created in order to create what they term a level playing field and prevent a race to the bottom, though migrant workers (especially those deemed ‘illegals’) often don’t benefit from this. On the other hand people, be they single parents or the sick, have been forced into work in order to increase profits. A new tax credits system, which in many cases is nothing of the sort, replaced another benefit Family Credit. Although more generous it was also fiendishly complicated and led to people having the benefit reclaimed because of overpayments and the system’s systemic inefficiency. An easier solution would have been to make Family Credit levels more generous.

We have also seen large-scale migration from former East European accession countries, Poland in particular, the effect of which has again been to put pressure on wage levels. The answer to this is not to engage in chauvinism and racism but to accept that just as capitalism is international so must the labour movement be. Divisions among workers should be opposed not encouraged. Migrant workers need to be unionised, as a way of ensuring employers can’t play one worker against another.

We OPPOSE all benefit cuts. The best way out of poverty is to increase benefit levels and wages. WELFARE NOT WARFARE

We OPPOSE all attempts to get the unemployed to inform on each other. This is the mentality of the Police State. Most people who earn something extra do it to feed the kids and pay the bills. Utility bill for example have increased massively compared to benefits and it is the multi-national companies that own them that have benefited. Rupert Murdoch made £1.4 Billion profit in 10 years and not paid a penny in taxes. The Bankers have been paid over £170 Billion. It’s strange that we have adverts targeting ‘Benefit Thieves’ rather than ‘Bankers’ or ‘Honourable Members of Parliament Thieves’!

We CONDEMN ALL SANCTIONS. People have the right to look for the job that suits them, at a wage that doesn't leave them in poverty. Threats to STARVE people, if they don't take the first job they are offered, lowers wages for everybody except the rich. New Labour called this their 'anti-poverty strategy'.

We OPPOSE workfare and cheap labour schemes like New Deal. They are used by employers to replace well-paid jobs with low-paid temporary work contracts. In New York, where New Deal originated, half the public sector workers have been fired and replaced by cheap non-union workfare workers.

We OPPOSE all racist Asylum and Immigration legislation. Refugees are caused by wars and arms sales. Despite tabloid headlines they constitute a small number of people who are deliberately targeted to get us to focus away from those who are really responsible for poverty in Britain.

We SUPPORT universal benefits and are opposed to means-testing. Universal benefits like child-benefit have the highest take-up. If they cost more, then increase taxes on the rich!

We are opposed to any privatisation of the benefit system. Accountants and multi-national companies are not interested in individuals and their problems. Their only concern is making as much money by pushing people into the first low paid job they can find. It is little wonder that these privatised companies – Working Links not Maxima – have themselves been found guilty of corruption and dishonesty. The whole system is dishonest.

We are NOT controlled or funded by the Council. We are determined to retain our independence and criticise and campaign against all attacks on the unemployed, wherever they come from.

But the main thing is for the unwaged and unemployed to get organised!

Palestine

Don’t Buy Israeli Goods

5 members of Brighton Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods and the International Solidarity Movement disrupted a concert by the Jerusalem Quartet at the Wigmore Hall nr Oxford Circus London, on Monday, March 29th. Five us stood up, one after the other at intervals. The JQ, which is described as ‘Distinguished IDF Musicians’ and who act as Cultural Ambassadors for Israel, were forced to defend their stance.

The protest has generated huge publicity – Guardian, Independent, Sunday Telegraph, Jewish Chronicle, Spectator, New York’s Jewish Forward and London’s Jewish Chronicle as well as Israel’s Yediot Aharanot and the Jerusalem Post.

As Israeli atrocities show no sign of ending - the Boycott is gaining support.

Palestine Stall

Every Saturday between 12.00 and 2.00 (or 1.00 and 3.00) Brighton Palestine Solidarity Campaign have a stall and leafleting in Western Road outside Waitrose or opposite Churchill Square – come and join us!

Latest News: 5 members of Scottish PSC were acquitted on Thursday April 8th of charges of ‘racially aggravated trespass’ by the Edinburgh Sheriff’s Court, after they disrupted the JQ at a concert at the Edinburgh Festival.

http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2010/04/scottish-psc-protestors-cleared-of.html

Industrial Disputes

Brighton & Hove Unemployed Workers Centre has consistently given support to workers in dispute with their employers.

- SITA
Just a year after the Centre had opened a French company , SITA, which had been given the refuse contract by the Council’s New Labour administration, launched an attack against the refuse workers at the Hollingdean Depot. In response the workers occupied the depot and the Centre lent them our computer equipment to produce leaflets and we also acted as a base to organise actions such as activists blocking in scab vehicles in Moulsecoomb.

- The Firefighters when they went on strike.

- PCS – workers at JobcentrePlus in particular have faced continual attacks by the government as a result of the Gershwin proposals.

- UNISON – we have supported the Teaching Assistants strike and other workers in local government. UNISON in turn have given continuing support to the Centre every since its foundation, for which we would like to give our thanks

- UNITE – we supported UNITE members last year in their battles with a hostile administration at Sussex University.

- RMT – in their battles with the different private companies that now run our jigsaw puzzle rail network.

- VESTAs - when this Isle of Wight company, which manufactured wind turbines, closed its factory in the Isle of Wight, the workers occupied in the summer of 2009. This became the focal point for a campaign uniting green/eco campaigners and socialists & trade unionists. We sent a minibus of supporters over at least twice and helped build a large public meeting in Brighton aimed at supporting the workers at Vesta. We were quite amazed how in the Isle of Wight, despite its conservative politics, there was almost unanimous support for the strikers.

Local Campaigns

The Centre has given support to a variety of local campaigns such as No Borders, Abolish EDO-MBM, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the Incinerator Campaign in Newhaven, anti-fascist and anti-racist groups, No2ID Cards, the Mass Trespass marches against people like Nicholas Hoogestraten. Indeed we have supported any group or campaign that aims to change society for the better.

We have a minibus which we have also loaned to various groups in the community and radical campaigning groups. Because of this the Police have put the minibus on their national intelligence database and if you drive in it outside Brighton it is possible you may be stopped for ‘suspected road offences’!

Asylum Seekers & Refugees

We have always rejected racism and scapegoating. Unemployment isn’t caused by immigration or migrants, but is endemic to a capitalist system that treats workers as commodities and doesn’t hesitate to sack or lay them off in the needs of profitability. That is why we organise annual outings for the children of refugees and asylum seekers, as well as other outings. We have also been heavily involved in anti-deportation work with groups like NCADC and No Borders as well as financially supporting the Medical Foundation Against Torture.

In 2006 we launched the campaign to save an Iran’s first web journalist Amir Hassan. We were only 4 hours away from preventing his deportation at one point and he spent time in 3 different detention centres, the last Dungavel in Scotland, before he was eventually freed. After raising the money to pay for decent lawyers, since legal aid is now confined to just a few hours work, we were pleased to learn last year that Amir has been granted indefinite leave to remain. Amir has now brought his family over here.

Mumia Abu Jamal

Do not let an innocent man be executed

Mumia Abu Jamal is in danger of execution as the Supreme Court reaffirms the death penalty.The Supreme Court on Tuesday 19th January 2010 threw out a ruling that had set aside the death sentence of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former Black Panther and interna­tionally known political prisoner. We demand that Mumia Abu -Jamal who is innocent of all charges be released unconditionally and immediately.

Abu-Jamal, has been on Pennsylvania's death row now approaching 30 years after being falsely accused of killing a policeman. Mumia was a radio journalist known as the "Voice of the Voiceless." He exposed the racist and class oppres­sion of the Afrikan and other oppressed working class people. In 1985 he defended the Move family whose home was bombed by helicopter which killed 13 defenceless and innocent people including women and children.

Mumia Abu Jamal’s case is symptomatic of the racism and class nature of the criminal justice system in both the US and the UK. The criminal justice system in the UK is similarly brutal and racist. The so-called War on Terror is in fact a War of Terror allowing people to be held with­out cause and for the Afrikan and Muslim community to be targeted. The US prison population is now 2.5 million. While in Britain it has now reached 100,000 and rising.

As of now, the brutal prison system in the US as in Britain is disproportionately filled with young Afrikan men. Robert Bryan lawyer for Mumia Abu-Jamal says people continue to use the false term "reinstating the death penalty" concerning Mumia. He has always been under a death sentence.

When there has been a victory, the prosecution has gone to a higher court, thereby suspending the effect. In 2008 the Court of Appeals reversed the death judgment. The state petitioned the Supreme Court, so the reversal of the death penalty never took effect.

What is clear today is that Mumia Abu Jamal is in imminent danger and the way has been cleared for his execution by the decision on January 19th 2010.

There are approx 2.5 million prisoners in the US Gulag with thousands on death row approximately 50 percent are Afrikans.

We the following organisations in the Britain undertake to raise the profile of Mumia Abu Jamal with publicity, demonstrations and meetings throughout 2010 and demand his immediate unconditional release.

Join the Campaign and build support in your Trade Unions and work place organisations.

Organised by George Jackson Socialist League & Pan-Afrikan Society, Community Forum, Democracy and Class Struggle, supported by Fight Racism Fight Imperialism/RCG, Global Afrikan Congress, Co-ordinating Cttee of Revolutionary Communists of Britain.

Contact; Tongogara 020 8801 4731
email: otewodros@yahoo.com
BM Box 2978, London WC1 3XX
PASCF: 07940 005 907

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