Working on a few things atm, so back soon.

In the meantime – enjoy the excellent David Cameron Is A Wanker video by the Kilburn Unemployed Workers’ Group. And share share share! Widely 🙂

To Central London today, where Disabled People Against Cuts blocked roads outside Maximus HQ in Queen Anne’s gate and then the DWP at Caxton House and Victoria Street in protest at the Maximus contract to run the work capability assessment for disability benefits.

The turnout was good and the intention clear. Disabled people and campaigners will not stop until the Maximus contract is in tatters. Protestors managed to kick Atos out with its tail between its legs, so there is every reason to target Maximus with confidence.

Which people did today. Confidence is the word, too. The campaign against Atos was ultimately very successful, which means that people know they can do this. Doesn’t matter what sort of effort Maximus puts into the so-called “Customer Experience” that sick and disabled people who must go through the work capability assessment have when they apply for Employment and Support Allowance. Everyone knows the real point of the government’s WCA exercise is to throw people off disability benefits – and very likely to eliminate disability benefits altogether. People in real need died after Atos found them fit for work and their benefits were stopped. It’s very hard to imagine that’ll change simply because Maximus has decided that it’ll be pleasant to people as it recommends that their meagre benefits are cut.

These protests are significant for everyone. When Atos was running this shambles, DPAC and campaigners proved that it was possible to end a corporate contract by destroying a corporate reputation. That was a very useful result in an era where so many vital public services and functions are outsourced to companies like Maximus. You could argue that the New Era campaigners got a similar result. Removing a major corporate from the picture is something that people can do. And want to do, by the looks of it.

Disabled campaigners block Victoria Street:

Blocking the roads at St James station

Maximarse

Blocking Victoria Street and reading captions written by campaigners:

Now isn’t this charming.

On Thursday, I went again to one of the northwest London jobcentres to meet up with Eddie (named changed), the 51-year-old man with learning and literacy difficulties who I’ve accompanied to JSA signon sessions for coming up to six months. Eddie’s signon time changed last week and I met him at the jobcentre just as he came down the stairs from his appointment.

He was furious. He felt that he’d been threatened. He said the jobcentre had told him that his next sign on appointment would take place at 2pm on a Thursday afternoon, rather than in the morning as usual. Eddie told the jobcentre that he preferred morning appointments. It suits him. He finds that routine easier to manage. But that is too bad, it seems. Eddie said he was told off for arguing the toss about the new afternoon signon plan. He said the jobcentre made it clear that if he kicked up a fuss about afternoon signon times, he’d be forced to attend every week to sign on instead of every fortnight. No matter that absolutely nothing ever happens at his signon meetings. He’d just be forced to attend more of them and get no help more often. Great.

I hear this sort of thing too often now: people with learning difficulties, or mental health problems being threatened with some sort of backlash if they object to jobcentre regimes. Maggie (named changed), a woman in Northamptonshire who has a long-term schizophrenia diagnoses, told me that she was recently warned by the DWP not to say “Never” when she told the department that her partner Sean (named also changed), who has severe depression and Asperger’s syndrome, would never attend the work-focused interviews that the local jobcentre very much wants to make him attend (here’s that story and the letter that Sean’s local jobcentre sent calling him to such an interview). Sean is in the Support Group for Employment and Support Allowance. People in the Support Group for ESA are supposed to be exempt from all work and work-focused interviews, because of the severity of their health conditions. The idea that some people simply can’t work is clearly being eased out of the DWP, and society, altogether, though – people in Sean and Maggie’s situation are getting letters and phone calls “inviting” them to job-focused interviews. They know they’ll be asked again and that the ante will be upped in a serious way if they refuse. Maggie and Sean are already worried about that “Never say Never To Us” they got from the DWP. They wonder if there will be repercussions.

They have reason to worry. The DWP’s contempt for benefit claimants is often very poorly disguised. And let’s face it – there are times when it isn’t disguised at all. If you want to hear that contempt in full roar, just listen to this recording recently taken at a jobcentre group induction meeting for new JSA claimants:

As you can hear, throughout that meeting, one claimant kept interrupting and challenging the adviser who was in charge of the session. The problem is that the jobcentre didn’t seem to have a plan in place to deal with a disruptive claimant. In lieu of such a plan, the adviser just spat the dummy and yelled at the claimant. Which wasn’t much of a plan, really. Shrieking your head off generally isn’t. Continue reading →