Dear All
See below
Colin
Claimants oppose Welfare Reform Bill
Dear sisters and friends
Here is our joint statement from a number of groups, sent today to some
MPs and the press. You are welcome to contact your own MP to ask them
to raise these issues.
The Welfare Reform Bill, which has its second reading in Parliament
today, brings in a new Employment and Support Allowance with increased
penalties against those who don't comply. It gives new powers to
private agencies in the benefits system, opening the way for more
disability discrimination, bullying, racism and other prejudices.
Doctors are enlisted to get patients back to work - a breach of doctors'
independence and focus on healthcare. Housing Benefit will be severely
cut, impoverishing people on benefits and in low-waged jobs.
* Women and men with disabilities and long-term ill-health,
single mothers on benefit, pensioners and other claimants are opposed to
the Bill, aimed at forcing people "back to work" whether we can manage
it or not.
* We are already working. Having to cope with our disability,
getting around, communicating, surviving in an inaccessible and
prejudiced world is hard work. In addition, many disabled women are
also carers - for children, family and friends, in the community,
meeting other people's needs while needing help ourselves. When wives
become disabled, or focus on the needs of disabled children with little
State help, we are often deserted by partners. One quarter of single
parents (mostly mothers) have some kind of disability*.
* The Disability Rights Commission (DRC -- funded by the DWP)
and charities meant to represent low-income people are largely to blame
for promoting jobs as the answer to poverty and discrimination. DRC
Chair Bert Massie complained that 84% of mothers of disabled children
are "not working" (Guardian, 13 March 2006). He dismisses the demanding
unwaged caring work of looking after children and other people, also
done on top of waged work. What is supposed to happen to those who need
our care if we are all out at work, then exhausted and short of time
when we get home?
* Since the point of the Bill is to cut our entitlement rather
than meet our needs, and given what has happened with previous
legislation, we know that most disabled people will be labelled as able
to work regardless of ill-health, job stresses, discrimination by
employers and inaccessible workplaces. Those of us who are immigrant
will face increased racism. People seeking asylum are already excluded
from the welfare system. JobCentres press us to take unsuitable jobs.
The government barely funds practical support in employment, and is
closing Remploy factories, leaving many disabled workers without
alternative jobs.
* Disabled adults are getting poorer at the same time as more go
into waged work. For the jobs most of us can get, like supermarket
work, we receive very low pay.** We want jobs of our choice, with
access, when we are ready.
* People with mental health problems or addictions, people in
our 50s with industrial injuries from jobs which already have destroyed
our health, are particularly targeted. We face benefit cuts if we don't
take up training, therapy or medical treatment which the DWP - and the
private companies and voluntary organisations acting for them - say we
must have. Pressuring us to take medication or undergo risky or
damaging procedures takes away our basic right to consent to treatment.
* Mothers and children's benefits are also threatened if mothers
don't attend the more-frequent work-focused interviews.
* If our benefits are cut or taken away, suicides, destitution,
rape and exploitation of women forced to depend on violent men will
increase. People will be forced into shoplifting or prostitution to
survive, leading to Anti-Social Behaviour Orders and prison.
People with disabilities, single mothers and others in vulnerable
situations need financial support not benefit penalties. Our
contribution is not acknowledged and we are treated as if society and
the economy could not afford us - a burden. At the same time, the
military budget continues to go up, bringing death and disability to
thousands of people, with little or no discussion about whether we can
afford it. Those of us with least are increasingly paying with our
benefits for a war we do not want. We refuse to be used in that way.
We refuse any further impoverishment and erosion of our rights and
entitlements.
WinVisible (women with visible and invisible disabilities)
Single Mothers' Self-Defence
Bolton TUC Unemployed Advice Centre
Save Our Day Centres
Sheffield Mental Health User Representatives
Brighton and Hove Unemployed Workers Centre
Legal Action for Women
Women of Colour in the Global Women's Strike
Payday men's network
Contact 020 7482 2496.
*Source: Child Poverty Action Group response to the Green Paper on
Welfare Reform, 2006.
**Three out of 10 disabled adults of working age live in poverty, and
the proportion is increasing despite more disabled adults taking on
waged work. See Joseph Rowntree Foundation Findings Dec. 2005, ref:
0665.
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