The Failings of Capitalism

Looking for an easy to digest and take in explanation of the crisis in capitalism? 

Then watch this video produced by RSA Animate, with renowned academic David Harvey, along with some very clever cartoons, questioning whether capitalism has had its day and why a system that is responsible, just and humane cannot take its place.

ATOS is a Capitalist Organisation First and Foremost

French, British, American, Japanese, Chinese...
who actually cares?

Reader, what has ATOS being a French company got to do with anything? Would we feel better about ATOS if it was British, or American? ATOS is a capitalist organisation, which means its first and last loyalty is to its profit margin. Using French imagery to denigrate ATOS is a distraction.

 

What point is being made by associating ATOS with French-ness? As we are aware, ATOS is now identified by a great many in a negative light. Indeed, up to recently if you Googled ATOS healthcare the first site that came up was 'ATOS Kills'!

 

When I come before ATOS either for the WCA, if I lose my job, or for a PIP medical sometime in the near future, I will not be measuring ATOS' incompetence and greed in national terms; as I doubt do the scores of thousands who ATOS continues to fail.

 

Let's condemn, attack and beat ATOS on its failings to disabled people, not on some simplistic national connection.   

Trespassing Scum versus Elitist Yahoos

A group of anti-tax dodging activists decide to hold an impromptu award ceremony to coincide with a big thank you bash arranged by the filthy rich for the even filthier former head of HMRC, Dave Hartnett.

Hartnett during his tenure as top honcho at HMRC, or the tax office to the rest of us, showed great generosity to the likes of Vodaphone, Goldman Sachs, to name but a couple. Letting Vodaphone off paying a whopping £8 billion!

The group, who go by the name of 'We are the intruders', looked and sounded the part, togged up in black tie with crystal cut accents. However, as their praises for the friend-to-the-filthy-rich became more blatant, so a couple of the cannier diners cottoned on; with one particularly nasty gobshite threatening to set the dogs on them. Another spat out 'trespassing scum' - probably works near St Pauls and gets his rocks off at weekends watching foxes torn to pieces by a pack of hounds.

Trespassing scum? As opposed to tax-dodging-child-starving-youth-aspiration-stealing-disabled-benefits-robbing-NHS-closing-welfare-state-smashing bastards...

Give me the trespassing scum every time.

It is great to see the great and the good in their true light; how exactly they view the rest of us, the 99%, who aren't multi millionaires.

Last week we had the government's Chief Whip, Andrew Mitchell, calling police officers, who guard Downing Street, 'fucking plebs' (this a few days after two women police officers were brutally murdered in Manchester) because he was asked to a use a side gate, an exit more convenient both for the officers involved and security purposes.

In many ways I am pleased that the dinner guest at the HMRC boss's leaving party and his close relation, Mitchell, are speaking in this way about those they perceive to be inferior. The more the merrier. Let's have more accusations of pleb and scum directed at us. Hopefully they'll broaden out, 'chavs', low-life, working class drudges, riff-raff, rubbish, detritus, shit...maybe, sub-human.

The more the privileged open their mouths and minds in our direction the greater the opposition to them will become. The working classes will only tolerate this kind of abuse for so long. Cameron and his cadre of millionaire and billionaire Bullingdon Club Yahoos are an anachronism; one which we should have done away with decades ago. 

KELVIN MACKENZIE DOORSTEPPED BY CHANNEL 4 NEWS OVER HILLSBOROUGH

I agree with all the descriptions of McKenzie penned on many blogs and emanating from the mouths of decent people everywhere, but especially women and men from Liverpool. The man is a disgrace to humanity.

However, aren't the tactics used by Alex Thompson exactly the same as those used by Scum reporters. That McKenzie is a bully there is no doubt. In fact he reacted the way most bullies do when the balance of power is switched; that is he tried to run (drive) away from the threat.

If an outsider watched the video clip without any sound, the good guy could very easily be mistaken for a bully himself.

My point is that the Sun, Mail, et al are the real bullies. Whether it is misreporting, through hateful lies, the circumstances the deaths of the 96 people at Hillsborough, and in doing so smashing through the grief of thousands; or demonising disabled people to such an extent we are experiencing unprecedented levels of violence, this is their modus operandi.

Channel 4 is a decent media organisation; it does not need to resort to door-stepping scum like McKenzie. Let's leave those kind of reporting tyactics to the likes of McKenzie and his acolytes.     

The Glory of Sport

Single leg amputees playing football on a beach
in Sierra Leone

Not for these young men the splendour or glory of the Paralympics. No TV cameras projecting their feats across the globe; no stadiums full of appreciative supporters cheering on their sporting endeavours. 

These are the single leg amputee footballers of Sierra Leone. Years of civil wars have left a stark legacy in this West African country. Scores of thousands of people disabled, mainly, as a result of land mines indiscriminately seeded around the countryside.

This picture put the whole Paralympic and Olympic Games, bread and circuses into perspective for me. 

Unconditional Love

Ordinarily I avoid feel good stories, especially were animals are involved. However, when I saw the captions below on Facebook my heart melted. Lily, was blinded by a bizarre medical condition; and Madison has become her sight. A true case of unconditional love and kindness.

Lily and Madison are inseperable

Stop Using the Medical Model as a Blunt Instrument

“The easiest way to check for cheats is to check hospital records for continued attendance to a consultant, pain clinic or whatever the persons disability and their respctive hospital department the cheat wont have these records will they as they will never have attended ,”

The above statement was taken from a response to an article on: "Free Conference – Outsourcing and Austerity: Civil Society and the Coalition Government" on the Hardest Hit Website, and in my view is a very ‘medical model’ take on disability, presupposing that ‘genuine’ disability can only be measured by medical means; as though medicine has all the answers to disability.

There are lots of conditions that don’t necessarily respond to medical treatment; or can be treated by routine visits to a GP. If a person has a condition that has stabilised or reached a point where medical intervention, at consultant and hospital level, is no longer required, then what is the point of them visiting hospital?

Many disabled people get on with their lives without a continuous round of consultant appointments, visits to clinics or respective hospital departments. A person does not have to be perpetually ‘under’ a consultant to qualify as disabled or indeed to qualify for benefits such as DLA.

Regular visits to a GP can keep people abreast of the medical side of their conditions. If and when conditions worsen the GP can then refer the person to a hospital consultant.

Conflating the issues of a need for medical intervention with the needs of disabled people only serves to reinforce the medicalization of disability and does not recognise the fact that disability cannot be measured in medical terms alone.

Facebook court ruling: What you share on Facebook is admissible as evidence

Remember when posting to Facebook, it is a public site read by other people, including the authorities!

Just a thought, but maybe circumspection is the best policy when posting across the ether. I love the way the piece opens in YTech:

"Did you know that what you say on Facebook can be used against you in a court of law? If you're sharing something with your friends, you may as well be sharing directly with the judge and jury:"

As though you're going to be dragged before the beak for LOLing at a mates dodgy photo; or have Lily law kicking your door down at dawn because you OMGed at a nasty story from the Daily Fail.

No, what has occurred here is an Internet eejit has threatened others online as well as boasting about violent acts he has committed. Jesus Christ, the man's a fucking moron, a liability to himself.

Keyboard heroes. Little people with egos the size of elephants who can't get it on in the real world think it is ok to act like gangsters on the internet.

Net the minnows: But also go after the whales

Oh dear, what a rogue's gallery of ne'er-do-wells, mountebanks, cutpurses, blaggards and rascals that the scum press have dug up for our delectation. 

Great, now they have identified these minnows why not seriously take on the big boys

Exchequer secretary David Gauke, said: "The government is absolutely committed to tackling tax evasion and fraud.

"These criminals have collectively cost the taxpayer over £765m and HMRC will pursue them relentlessly."

Quite right to set up a hue and cry against this assorted bunch of ciggy smugglers, illegal baccy producers, rum runners and allied trades. What sort of a country are we that allows such flagrant criminality to flourish without the full weight of the law to come crashing down to smash it from existence.

Well, we're the sort of hypercritical, two-faced, duplicitous, class-ridden shit house of a country where the scum press in connivance with a scummier government appoints itself judge, jury and executioner when dealing with common criminals such as the twenty exposed in papers today; yet, this same shower of self-important bumptious disgraces to the press fail to raise their voices with quite the same indignation when presented with the real tax cheats and frauds that cost this country not a poxy £¾ of a billion, but somewhere in the region of £120 billion every year.

So, scum press of the UK, fuck the small fry. Why don't you expose the big boys. The rats that deprive our kids of a decent education; the scum that cause our hospitals to close; the filth who are to blame for disabled and elderly people being denied proper care.

Why not shame:      

Philip Green for dodging personal tax bills of almost £300 million?

Vodaphone who were let off a whopping bill of £4.8 billion?

George Osborne who has the audacity to smash our Welfare State on the grounds of deficit while dodges £1.6 million in personal taxes?

Barclay's bank who were ordered to pay HMRC over £500 million in avoided taxes?

The PM himself, whose own father was one of the first to use 'off-shoring' to cheat on his taxes. Indeed that's where Cameron's own wealth stems from.

Sure, go after the 20 they have in their sights. But, don't take the piss and leave the big fish to swim safely to their off-shore tax havens.

Remploy's Final Chapter

Years ago I worked in the Remploy factory in Brixton. Tucked away off the main road a short distance from Brixton Town centre it stood in its own yard a 1960s build one-storey factory abutting a two-floor office building; much like any other light industrial unit in any of thousands of yards up and down the UK.

Indeed the similarity didn't end there; for once you pushed open the factory doors you entered into a veritable hive of industry. Casting an eye around the open-plan factory you'd have seen several production lines employing 30 or 40 people; while others sat or stood at individual workstations carrying out tasks such as soldering, complex wiring operations and testing of delicate computer boards and cards.

Bells would sound; signalling to small groups of workers break times. Off they'd traipse to a canteen at the far end of the shop floor, chatting to one and other; some engaging in horse-play, laughing and calling out to mates across the factory divide.

This toing and froing, hustle and bustle sound-tracked by the thrumming of tools, laughter and banter was the very theatre and music of industry.

However, this was a Remploy factory; and while replicating the average light-industrial workplace found in any city, town or edge of town industrial estate anywhere in the UK, there was one difference...all the shop floor staff and many of the white coats, indeed, were disabled.

In 1945 Britain had experienced six long and hard years in a state of war; now she was ready for a welfare state; and so Remploy was born. A company that employed disabled people giving them meaningful employment in a safe organised working environment.

From its first factory in 1945 at Bridgend, making violins, Remploy would over the years spread across Britain growing to over 10,000 factory employees in 84 sites.

So, what went wrong?

Thatcher and neo-liberalism is part of the problem; and, a lack of understanding of Remploy and disabled workers' choice, especially by the Left, and in particular by the purists within the disability movement, both contributed to the demise of Remploy factories.

Even six years ago when Europe eased public contract procurement regulations for supported employers, Remploy's board of directors sat on their hands. Instead of fighting for these contracts they made no effort; never bringing in more than around 20% of public contract work.

Then the axe came to drop; and 4½ years ago, to their everlasting shame, a Labour government began the mass closure of Remploy factories - 30 closed in March 2008.

A survey carried out, earlier this year, amongst the 2,500 Remploy workers who took redundancy in 2008 pointed to 85% of them no longer in full-time employment. The Class of 2012 can expect to fare far worse.

As an ex-Remploy worker and Branch Secretary (from 1996 to 2012) I have been involved with my Branch and membership in struggles to keep factories open since 1999. In that time my Comrades, from within and without Remploy, have tirelessly fought and supported the concept of disabled workers' choice.

In the last Campaign, beginning in 2007 and ending in 2008, the trade unions threw all their political and organisational weight behind the Remploy Campaign. Unite (still in its component Amicus and T&G state), the GMB and Community produced an alternative business plan; we embarked on a Remploy Crusade touring the country Remploy factory site by factory site.

I criss-crossed Britain with other Unite Branch activists attending rallies and demos in England, Scotland and Wales; yet, despite our efforts the factories closed.

Four years on the war recommenced. This time the government went right to the heart of the established disability movement and handed a purse of silver to Liz Sayce, then the CEO of RADAR (an organisation along with others that had helped stab us in the back in 2007), to supply them with a report on disability employment support.

Sayce played up to the gallery, just as her paymasters expected. She condemned both Remploy and residential training courses as too costly while recommending Access to Work to the government.

What you won't find within the pages of Sayce's partial findings is the true feelings of thousands of Remploy workers who she chose to ignore; instead she cited the views of the minority whose agenda chimed with her own.

Needless to say, Liz Sayce's reputation within the disability movement, as well as that of her new organisation (DRUK) who are still vociferously backing the government's closure programme, is much damaged. 

Fast forward to today. Despite a number of strikes across almost all Remploy factories; despite thousands of letters written to MPs, ministers, councillors and politicians of every stripe and stature by workers, their families, friends and supporters; despite bill-boards attacking this disgraceful action; despite a 100,000 signature petition handed into the PM; despite the double-dip recession with its attendant hardships of cuts and mass unemployment (most yet to happen); despite all these actions, this stony-hearted government, which seeks solace in its ideology, refuses to budge from destroying the jobs, hopes and aspirations of 1,518 disabled Remploy workers.

Comrades in Remploy, the fight goes on, as it must. Unite remains steadfastly behind your cause. If your factories close in the next few weeks it will not be from the want of effort from you and the trade unions, Unite, GMB and Community.    

"PLEDGE: Stop The Government From Taking Benefits From The Truly Disabled"

I have some very deep reservations with the above statement. While politically and morally supporting the fight against this government's onslaught on disabled people's benefits and rights, I take issue with the term 'The Truly Disabled'.

Here are the 'Truly' Disabled. Those 'Worthy' of our Respect.

Terms such as this only serve to bolster a view of deserving and undeserving disabled people; a view all too readily subscribed to by the right and, sadly, other working people looking for scapegoats.

A constant drip-feeding of stories in the Daily Fail, and other scum rags, about people fraudulently claiming disability benefits has captured the imaginations of all too many people who are willing to believe the worst in all of us. So much so that the incidence and reporting of disability hate crime is at an all time high.

People with visible disabilities are being challenged by strangers as to the veracity of their conditions. Strangers are shouting abuse at disabled in the street. Vision impaired men and women are being told that they are putting it on, that there is nothing wrong with their sight.

Very soon the distinctions between the worthy (or truly) disabled people will be brought into high relief through the Paralympics. Those doughty women and men giving it their all for Team GB will be applauded and lauded for bringing glory to the country - and good for all Paralympians from across the globe.

Disabled people fighting against ATOS will be compared with the brave disabled athletes who despite adversity are making a go at things instead of complaining about loss of benefits. Stories and issues will become conflated; and once again we'll hear of the truly disabled and the worthy disabled, as opposed to the rest of us benefits' claiming fripples.

Back of a Stamp or a Library...

A wag on Facebook posted the picture below, with the legend "Hey cool, the library on how to understand women"

Women are of such variety complexity and profundity of nature that it takes a library, as above to house the writings thereof

Preferable, I'd say to have enough depth and complexity of understanding to need a library of such proportions. Sadly, the type of men who post such things can probably have their personalities and characteristics outlined on the back of a stamp!

Sadly, the back of a stamp suffices for all too many of my own sex!

ATOS Slogan...

During a tea break at work yesterday the subject of ATOS sponsoring the Paralympics was, again, raised. Of course the irony of this situation, given the widespread contempt for this company by many disabled people, excited a great deal of sarcasm.

Ideas for slogans bounced around, such as 'ATOS Kills all Known Scroungers', to paraphrase a famous advert for a loo cleaner.

Someone then decided to Google 'ATOS Slogan'; and the first thing that appeared was ATOS Stories: "ATOS Kills"

 

I rest my case...

   

The Pogues - Danny Boy

'Oh Danny Boy' tells me the story of an old Irish mother, very likely alone with only her memories with which to hold on to life. All her children are gone, long departed from Ireland to the far flung places destined for the Irish Diaspora. 

Kept warm by the hope that one day her Danny Boy will gladden the glens and her heart with his presence she carries on. Yet, if he doesn't make it, hopefully, he'll visit her grave to reaffirm his love for her. 

Or, is it just a sentimental old tear-jerker, one that is sure to bring a tear to the eyes of the Irish Diaspora and their descendants whenever we congregate with a glass in our hand and a desire for sadness in our soul.  

Whatever, I do like this song; and I like edge given to the song by Shane McGowan.  

Let's Have Some Crip Power Salutes at These Paralympics

In the summer of 1968 two African Americans sent out a powerful message to the world at the Mexico Olympics. The message invested in their colour, bare feet and raised black-gloved fists spoke of the poverty, iniquity and democratic deficit endured and faced by millions of Black Americans.

Tommie Smith, centre, and John Carlos,
on the right sending out a message
that shook the very heart of the
American establishment

Earlier in the day Tommie Smith had won the 200 meters and John Carlos had finished third. Later in the day they climbed the podium to pick up gold and bronze medals respectively. When the Star Spangled Banner began, instead of fists beating hearts and heads thrown back to sing the anthem, both athletes dropped their heads as if in mourning while raising arms in a black-gloved salute.

To me this was a powerful message. A message that says the human spirit is indomitable; and we as human being can rise above and defeat even the most cruel of suppressors.

I sincerely hope that amongst the athletes about to compete in the Olympics and Paralympics there are some Smiths and Carlos's who will mount the podium, eschew the baubles of these capitalist games whilst ignoring the maudlin music that celebrates inequity and anachronism. Why shouldn't disabled athletes make political statements against the tyranny of flawed medical assessments; why not throw the medals back into the faces of pitiless profiteers who cheer them on while impoverishing the rest of us.

For God's Sake Amend the Second Amendment, USA

Oh come on, guns don't murder people; people murder people. However, the easy acquisition of guns in the US is the major cause of so much gun crime, and especially death.

James Homes, the alleged gunman, is a highly intelligent young man. A young man with excellent qualifications, a BSc in Neuroscience. According to colleagues he is a personable man, if "...a bit socially awkward...not to a dgree that would warrant suspicion of mass murder or any atrocity of this nature."

Sadly, the recent killing of 12 people and injuring of a further 60 by a lone gunman, apparently, using automatic weapons legally bought and held is a recurring theme in the land of the free. Time after time presidents have appeared on TV screens after such incidents - there are an average 20 mass shootings every year in the States.

However, in recent times this figure seems to have exploded. Apparently, there have been some 60 mass shootings in the USA since the 2011 massacre in Arizona where 19 people, including the gunman, died in a supermarket car park.

http://www.newsroomamerica.com/story/264089/60_mass_shootings_in_u.s._since_2011_massacre_in_arizona.html

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution may well state that "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." However, laws are not written in stone; nor are laws passed in order to remain unchallenged in perpetuity.

With the passage of time comes change; and the 'well regulated militia' of some 220+ years needed to be ready to suppress and defend the State against tyrant European Princes is no longer needed.

It is not needed, nor has it been, for a long time. The USA has a national structure of armed forces as well as diverse law enforcement agencies. The idea that a European power, or any other power coming to that, will begin imposing unfair taxes and laws upon a modern US is not feasible. The very reason for the existence of the Second Amendmet, and for the right of ordinary citizens to bear arms is an anachronistic freedom; it is a indefensible freedom claimed by those of a conservative leaning, particularly those on the political right.

While amending the Second Amendment in order to put greater regulation on gun ownership would not necessarily stop people killing one and other; nor would it entirely stop people murdering others with guns. What it would probably achieve is to put an end to these senseless mall, cinema and high school massacres that occur with too great a regularity.

The Right to Access Buses

Ray Bellisario (pictured) has endured terrible treatment at the hands of some bus drivers.

Ray Bellisario in the 'offending' mobility scooter

However, people such as John Murphy who responded in an ill-informed way on Facebook do not help the situation:

"Ok everyone's saying poor this poor that, time to throw a spanner in the works, he could have arranged a private ambulance to his hospital appointment with ease, the bus drivers were following the correct procedures, after the wake of the 7/7 bombings they have to be more stringent when it comes to Health and Safety! Also they mobility scooters are a monstrosity to say the least, saying to sack the drivers for following the correct procedures just shows the ignorance surrounding this. 

He is also eligible to the mobility scheme! Which he can easily purchase a car from if not he can get it for his primary carer.

Again this is the PC police out in force as well."

To John Murphy, yes he could have opted for transport to the hospital, most London hospitals offer such a resource. However, arranging such transport is not at you put it, easy. When using this form of transport you often have to be ready to travel hours before your hospital appointment time. For people with chronic pain conditions, or for someone like me who has a neurogenic bladder, being without the means to use a toilet for more than 40 minutes creates a crisis.

Your contention that post-7/7 wheelchairs or mobility scooters, that fulfil the measurement criteria, are not allowed on buses is simply untrue. Calling an aid such as a mobility scooter a monstrosity, a piece of equipment that helps someone who cannot walk without great difficulty and pain, sums up your humanity.

Your knowledge of the Motability scheme is also lacking. In the first place you don't purchase the vehicles, they're leased for a three or five -year term; secondly how do you know he can afford to run the vehicle; and third, you are assuming the man in question has a primary carer.

Finally, I do agree to a some degree to your defence of drivers. Calling for people to be sacked in such circumstances is not always the most helpful way to go. Most bus drivers are decent people; and will go the extra to help out elderly and disabled passengers. Some, sadly fall short of proper disability awareness, and need training.

However, the answer to the problem of bad drivers lies with trade union organisation within the industry. Where there is poor organisation in garages you are more likely to have drivers who are intimidated by management and who will follow bad instructions and advice from managers whose only concern is the maximisation of company profits.

Therefore, the sooner we get 100% organised bus garages, especially in large conurbations such as London, the sooner we will see all drivers fully trained in disability awareness training. In fact we could go one better and bring the buses back into the hands of the public sector; bring back bus conductors and dignity for all travelling on our buses.  

Remploy Strike Details

Dear Comrade

As you are now aware the government has published a list of 27 Remploy factories it intends closing within the next few weeks. Our Comrades in Remploy would appreciate any and all support from sisters and brothers across the trade union movement, as well as people from their own communities.

The two dates for strike action already planned are Thursday 19^th and Thursday 26^th July. Though I don't have actual times of the actions (I imagine from 7.30 am to mid afternoon) I will get actual times out when I'm informed.

Please try to get to one, or more of the sites (see below for addresses) on the given days to show our Comrades in Remploy that they are not alone in this struggle; that their fight is indeed everyone of our fights.

Remploy Acton
2 Portal Way
Acton
London
W3 6RT

Remploy Barking

Long Reach Road

Barking

IG11 0JW

Unit 14

Crusader Industrial Estate

167, Hermitage Road

London

N4 1LZ

In Solidarity

Seán

Remploy Workers Vote to Strike!

Remploy strike dates set, as ministers wield axe on 54 factories

Remploy workers faced with the dole queue are to stage two 24-hour strikes as the coalition gears up to close or sell-off the 54 factories that provide employment for disabled workers.

Unite, the largest union in the country, announced today (5 July) that its members will stage the strikes on Thursday, 19 July and Thursday, 26 July. A continuous overtime ban starts on Thursday, 12 July.

Remploy workers, members of the Unite and GMB unions, voted by large margins to take industrial action.

The workers are devastated by the coalition’s plans and have voted to strike because they believe the proposed closure negotiations were ‘a sham’; in protest at the intention to make disabled people compulsorily redundant for the first time at Remploy; and that the redundancy pay will be less than previous voluntary redundancies.

Unite members voted 59.7 per cent in favour of strike action and 76.1 per cent voted in favour of industrial action short of a strike.

The GMB members voted 79.5 per cent in favour of industrial action, including strike action and 87 per cent for action short of strike action.

Unite’s national officer for the not-for-profit sector, Sally Kosky said: “This vote for strike action demonstrates our members’ disgust at the way they have been treated by the government’s policies which are designed to throw them on the dole queue at a very difficult economic time.

“Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith - the uncaring face of the coalition – has provoked this strike at Remploy by refusing to listen to the economic arguments. His decision is based on right-wing dogma.

“Our members are desperate to work in an environment that takes account of their disability and where they can make a valued contribution to society and pay their way.”

Phil Davies, GMB National Secretary, said: “The government's intention to destroy thousands of disabled workers jobs in Remploy has given rise to an overwhelming vote for strike action against the proposed closures of their 54 factories.

“These closures are going ahead without any consideration of the feelings and needs of these workers and their families or their future job prospects. To close a factory that employs disabled people in the present economic climate is a sentence to life of unemployment and poverty."

Unite and the GMB have been campaigning to keep the Remploy factories open as viable businesses and cite the recent upbeat assessment of Remploy’s future prospects from Alan Hill, Managing Director, Remploy Enterprise Businesses who wrote that: “We have grown our sales by 12.2%, a fantastic achievement.”

A total of 36 Remploy sites are due to close or be sold off in the near future, with the remaining 18 due to close or be sold-off next year.

The 27 factories where Unite has members can be viewed on the link: http://www.unitetheunion.org/remploynotforsale

Ed Miliband and Britain’s anti-immigrant backlash

Ed Miliband and Britain’s anti-immigrant backlash 

http://t.co/iXytre62

Ed Miliband and Britain’s anti-immigrant backlash | | Independent Eagle Eye - Breaking views from...

ind.pn/LGmaj8

The politics behind Ed Miliband's long-awaited speech on immigration are pretty straightforward. Polling - and Labour activists' experience on the

What is wrong with Miliband? In just under three years there will be a general election. When the punters come to look at the manifestos of each party they will see the Tories attacking immigrants, and Labour doing likewise; the Tories and Labour will have the same policies on social care; the Tories will be pressing ahead with deficit reduction in the only way they know, by slashing public spending, and Labour will make similar commitments to public spending.

Tell me, why would the British electorate vote Labour when we're seen to be selling the same tired old policies as the Tories. Better the devil you know?

Labour needs bold new policies; policies that grow the Britain out of recession, not a strategy that merely differs from the Tories by a few degrees. For instance, instead of using the excuse that welfare is costing too much; why not be bold and say tax cheats are the real cause of our deficit, for if the Carrs and Camerons of this world didn't spend oodles of boodle to inventive accountants in order to shrink their tax bills to almost zero, we'd be out of this mess far quicker.

Living at the sharp end

Never in my lifetime have I sensed such an atmosphere of trepidation over both the present and the future.

Even during the Thatcher years when the nasty party declared all-out war on our class, things did not seem as bleak as today.

While it took Thatcher a few years to begin her outright attack on working people, the Tory-Lib Dem coalition came straight out with its hit list pre-prepared, imposing its austerity programme that punishes all but the wealthy.

The last few years of Labour's time in office must have been a dream for the Tories as Brown and co prepared the ground by increasing their attacks on the poorest and least able to protect themselves.

Groups such as single mothers and disabled people were daily held up by the gutter press and dubious TV documentary-makers as cheats, scroungers and generally feckless.

That shining example of humanity Rod Liddle advised Sunday Times readers: "Next time you see a young person in a wheelchair, tip it over and drag the occupant down to the nearest jobcentre, lecturing him or her all the while on the dignity of labour."

Just a bit of fun? A remark made in jest?

No. Not when hate crime against disabled people is growing.

This hatred is fuelled by an official narrative of blaming disability benefit recipients for the deficit. Systematic media attacks on benefit claimants have enjoyed both tacit and vocal backing of successive governments.

This demonises disabled people, making us targets for abuse and sometimes violence from people who believe what they might read in the Sun or the Mail.

So, with disabled people duly vilified, the government has a ready-made setting to carry out its attacks on benefits.

Although the trade unions and more progressive elements in society condemn the coalition's cuts, we have still to get great swathes of the population on side.

The disability movement and trade unions are working together to resist the cuts agenda, disability hate crime, discrimination against disabled job-seekers and the proposed Remploy factory closures.

Last year's March for Jobs on March 26 was perhaps the catalyst that helped to build this unity. The trade unions are working with groups such as Disabled People Against the Cuts, Black Triangle and the Hardest Hit Campaign.

Alliances with groups such as UK Uncut are also being forged, as we saw a few weeks ago in London's West End when disabled activists chained themselves together across a main road to block traffic and when Nick Clegg's street was invaded last Saturday by UK Uncut and disability protesters who then held an impromptu "alternative jubilee" party.

Bit by bit we are getting our message across. Those working in government "back-to-work" and medical examination organisations such as A4E and Atos are coming under increasing pressure over the inherently unfair ways in which they operate.

Last week the British Medical Association local medical committee conference, which represents GPs, voted unanimously in favour of a motion on Atos Healthcare's work capability assessments (WCA).

"Conference believes that inadequate computer-based assessments that are used have little regard to the nature or complexity of the needs of long-term sick and disabled persons" and that "WCA should end with immediate effect and be replaced with a rigorous and safe system that does not cause avoidable harm to some of the weakest and most vulnerable in society."

Here we have the body representing front-line GPs calling for an end to the notorious work capability assessment with immediate effect.

Recent months have also seen various organisations linking up to defend Remploy factories.

Groups such as Inclusion London and Disabled People Against the Cuts have joined up with Remploy workers and trade unions to help fight the factory closures.

Even though some within the disability movement question whether supported employment is a good idea, these groups have put aside such differences of opinion, recognising that the forced unemployment of around 1,600 disabled workers overshadows the ideology of mainstream employment "good," supported employment "bad."

The Remploy factory closures have been "justified" by the government using the report by Disability Rights UK chief executive Liz Sayce, Getting In, Staying In And Getting On: Disability Employment Support Fit For The Future.

This gave the government the excuse it was looking for to close down Remploy factories and get rid of residential training courses for disabled people, effectively consigning hundreds of disabled people to a life without work and a poverty existence.

Sayce's report allowed the government to use the level of subsidy as a lever against Remploy factories, claiming that each Remploy worker cost £25,000 to keep in a job, whereas Access to Work (A2W) averaged out at £2,600 per worker.

What it failed to point out was that in order to qualify for A2W you had to have a job - small comfort for the 1,600 displaced Remploy workers if the closures go ahead.

If the government was sincere in assisting disabled people into work, it would open A2W to jobseekers.

And instead of making a mere £5 million per year for the next three years available to A2W - if it closes Remploy factories and stops residential training courses it will have an extra £81m at its disposal - it would pump in millions.

It could also relax the criteria around A2W, making it more readily available for uptake and lessening the bureaucracy that constrains users.

Surely advertising the A2W scheme to doubtful employers might go some way to dispelling the myth that disabled people are an extra cost to businesses.

Toughening the law against employers caught discriminating against disabled workers and jobseekers would be a positive step.

And of course there is the bonus that for every £1 spent on A2W the government collects £1.41 in taxes and insurance, not to mention that the disabled worker becomes more economically active.

Sean McGovern is TUC disabled workers' committee chairman.

Tanni Grey-Thompson: Paragon of the Paralympics

Tanni Grey-Thompson, warned a week ago, without mentioning the four-letter A-word, that disability benefit cuts would undermine the loudly proclaimed legacy of the Games.

Can Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, be a champion of an ATOS Paralympics

 and speak for ordinary disabled hit by ATOS assessments?  

Not nearly half as much as it will undermine the health and independence of disabled people who lose benefit, Tanni!

Come on Tanni Grey-Thompson live up to your reputation as "...articulate  spokesperson for the rights of disabled people."  Lend your voice to those objecting to this disgraceful company, ATOS. The Paralympics will last a couple of weeks. ATOS assessments cause years of misery. 

Which National Newspaper is most at Fault for causing Rising Hatred toward Disabled People and Benefits Claimants?

The Social Welfare Union site is running this Poll: Which National Newspaper is most at Fault for causing Rising Hatred toward Disabled People and Benefits Claimants? These results below were current at my time of posting.

Daily Mail - 47.83%

The Sun - 41.3%

Telegraph - 6.52%

Daily Express - 2.17%

Other - 2.17%

As I suspected, the Hate and the Sun are fairly close in their bid to rid the world of disabled people and benefits' claimants. What a pity they don't use their massive resources of money and bile to track down the real cheats among us, namely the wealthy million and billion-aires who rob the country of scores of billions of £££s every year.

Surely stories of how the rich and powerful spend their time and ill-gotten wealth would make for far more salacious reading than the 'single mother in receipt of housing benefit while living alone with her child and no husband' world exclusive regurgitated, ad nauseam . Wouldn't it be great to see pictures of tax guzzler Philip Green's wife luxuriating in Monaco at our cost.

Or journalists rediscovering the investigatory talents they've so cleverly covered up over the past few years. Wouldn't they feel the better for stretching their journalistic skills. You know, reporting the news; not taking press releases from the DWP and submitting them as copy.

A Response to Breakthrough-UK's Stance on Remploy Factories

Last week Breakthrough-UK (B-UK) publicly released an email explaining why they would not put their name to a letter (this appeared in the Guardian on Friday 11^th May) posted by Inclusion London, and others, calling to keep Remploy factories open.

http://www.breakthrough-uk.co.uk/OurWork/policy/remploy

B-UK, while not wishing disabled workers to lose their jobs, nonetheless proceeded to explain why, for the greater good of the disability movement, Remploy workers should willingly surrender to their fate, thus consigning themselves and 'segregated' employment to the footnotes of social history.

Unless you happen to be a blue-collar factory worker...

B-UK contend: "Firstly, the social context has changed: the focus now for disabled people – for which we have fought long and hard – is on rights and independence, on mainstream employment and inclusive education, on user-led organisations and organisations controlled by disabled people. We have rejected segregated provision."

The above statement contradictory. On the one hand it calls for the mainstreaming of disabled people into employment, while at the same time promoting user-led organisations controlled by disabled people.

Which is it? Disabled people should either enter mainstream employment and be given a fair chance to compete on level terms (this could by using means such as Access to Work and reasonable adjustments); or, we should form user-led organisations which we control and run.

The idea of disabled people running a company from top to bottom is great. But, wouldn't this create a more complete disability 'ghetto' (I use this word in honour of Margaret Hodge who first, charmingly, used this term to describe Remploy factories) than Remploy. For now you'd not only have disabled workers, but the managers would also be disabled!

Incidentally, the use of 'segregated' when discussing Remploy's supported employment model is both provocative and misplaced. Most people who work are, to a greater or lesser degree, segregated. The very nature of most work means the individual has sold their skills/labour to an employer for a given period of time. During periods of work it is generally accepted that this is not one's own time. The nature of work, which for a great many workers takes us away from friends, family, and the general public, can crudely be defined as segregation.

Remploy factories do not differ in this sense. Indeed, they replicate workplaces up and down the country in both the private and public sector. Remploy workers clock-in from 7.30 am to 9 am, depending on the factory and nature of their work. They can be sacked; and they can invoke grievance procedures against their employer. They work, mostly, around a 35-hour week; have progressive holiday and sickness entitlement schemes; and good health and safety conditions. None of this was gifted to them. No, they were union organised and fought hard for these Ts and Cs, just as thousands of other workplaces have fought over the years.

B-UK continue their thesis, thus: "Secondly, the general economic context is vastly different to that of the immediate post-war years; the strong manufacturing base that we had, and which supported the Remploy model, is no longer: it has been replaced by the service sector and the economy is also rapidly developing into an IT and communications base. Remploy planning and development has not really taken account of these changes."

There is grain of truth in B-UK's reasoning here. However, manufacturing still accounts for 12% GDP (whereas financial services only account for 9%) employing around 2.2 million workers.

But, you're right Remploy should have kept up with the markets and began diversifying 15-20 years ago. They should have looked to other industries to tap into. Indeed, some factories did invest in some areas of modern industry such as telesales and security monitoring.

But we, in the trade union movement, have been complaining to successive governments that depending on old trades and businesses was not the way forward for Remploy. Back in 2007 we even put forward an alternative business plan to Price Waterhouse Cooper (who were carrying out a Review of Remploy) that would have better exploited reserved contracts for supported factories and businesses. Our plan would have brought down the government subsidy per head in the factories massively; but, we needed time to make good decades of decay. One union officer felt that given the right kind of work and some time Remploy could go it alone without government money!

B-UK then decided to state the obvious, with: "Thirdly, of course, the current economic climate is dire with ever more austerity on the horizon, the decimation of welfare support for disabled people, and rising unemployment for the whole population. This third factor is often used - misguidedly, we believe - to justify the current calls to keep Remploy factories open."

As a trade unionist, misguided if we follow your line, I believe there is a very good reason to keep Remploy factories open. Because, they maintain a few thousand disabled people in meaningful employment. B-UK, your way points to despair and poverty for the overwhelming majority of Remploy workers should they become unemployed. There is a perversity, almost of a masochistic nature, in your reasoning around the existence of Remploy.

If Remploy was a co-operative or social enterprise ran by disabled workers for disabled workers you would doubtlessly bestow upon it a mark of approval. Would you then criticise it for segregating its workforce; or decry the fact that it was still publicly funded because now local authorities and councils were handing out subsidies and grants and contracts - where do you get your funding?

Your idea of handing factories over to User Led Organisations is not new. When the York factory closed several years ago throwing 54 people out of work; from its ashes rose a co-operative phoenix. This enterprise is still operating. It employs 3 people making garden furniture and two others to run the co-op (a buyer and manager I imagine). Sadly, the co-op is struggling; and I understand being helped by trade union donations.

Is this the model you think the rest of the Remploy factories should consider? There is nothing wrong with the concept of co-ops and social enterprises (except that SE's usually lead to privatisation, downsizing and a general race to the bottom for their employees). However, if you hadn't noticed we are in the middle of a double-dip recession; one that, if we look at what's happening in mainland Europe (which is like a 'get-out-of-jail-free-card' for this government) could make things even worse here.

Double-dip recessions, an increase in unemployment and the slashing of local authority and council budgets to the bone are hardly conditions conducive to starting up scores of co-ops and SE's in individual regions or several hundred nationally. Even if such enterprises were opened, they would still need the life blood of any business venture, orders in their books. Giving groups of people £10,000 to start up on their own account may sound generous; but, in reality it is like putting a band-aid on a gaping wound.

B-UK goes on to reveal: "This barriers approach, or the social model, identifies the real problems – barriers and discrimination - and points the way to real solutions."

At last we arrive at the crux of the matter. Remploy factories only exist because of societal barriers and discrimination against disabled people; and the social model of disability will save the day. Except of course, in the real world the 'social model', a social policy I wholeheartedly embrace, is always trumped by its bigger bullying brother the 'economic model' .

Finally B-UK, I see by your statistics that you supported 43 people into paid employment last year. Well done. From my experiences I am willing to bet the people you helped into employment were well educated and relatively young. In order for the nearly 2,000 unemployed Remploy workers to be re-employed it would take 46 B-UKs, as well as a mountain of employer prejudice to shift.  

If the government figures of 1.2 million unemployed disabled people wishing to work are true, then I ask you Breakthrough-UK how exactly you think adding another two-thousand people to the queue will do anything but add misery and heartache to another 2,000 people, their families and friends. Not to forget the economic impact of another 2,000 wage packets no longer contributing to the Treasury and local economies. Do you think that the social model of disability will somehow bring down this regime that purports to govern us. Do you suppose Iain Duncan-Smith is going to sometime soon have an epiphany that causes him to embrace the social model. At what point in our troubled history do you think employers will banish disability discrimination from their recruitment processes and open the door to us...

In the struggle

Seán McGovern

Unite the Union Disability Executive Rep

Remploy Vs Access to Work

On the Remploy page on Facebook someone stated that Access to work no longer funds adaptations to workplaces. Let us not get mired down in propaganda, that is the way of this government and its attack-dog press. Therefore, stating that there is no government spending on Access to Work; or that A2W no longer assist in workplace adaptations is not the case, this only applies to adaptations to new premises.

A2W and Remploy
need not compete

As a disabled person in work I receive A2W for a support worker (for which A2W picks up the whole tab); when I began the job, around 6-months ago, I applied for a bespoke chair, which I now use (and for which A2W met 90% of the cost and my employer 10%); and I'm in the process of applying for a wheelchair hoist for my car.

Let's be clear about A2W. It is an excellent scheme that is in dire need of greater funding. Common sense, and prudence, should dictate that the government pump scores of millions into this scheme, as for every £1 invested they see a return of £1.41 through tax and NI contributions!

However, here lies the rub. Sayce in her review of disability employment support praises Access to Work as the way forward; while consigning Remploy factories and residential training courses (RTC) to the dustbin of history. Using Sayce's figures, the combined government funding for both Remploy and RTC's adds up to over £80 million. Yet, the government has only announced an extra £15 million over three years to A2W.

Disabled Remploy worker carrying out skilled work

Investing in A2W could be carried out while keeping Remploy factories open. The two do not have to compete. Remploy factory subsidies are falling. Given the correct market impetus (the full exploitation of reserved contracts for supported factories and businesses); and a complete root and branch restructuring of Remploy's senior management corps and board of directors, could still allow Remploy to reduce its state subsidy. But, such major changes need time to show results.  

So, as this government strips non-waged disabled people of their benefits, telling them that work is the solution to their being lifted from poverty it shows just how committed it is by offering a measly £5 million extra per year - a paltry 6.25% that it will save by shutting down Remploy factories and closing RTC schemes. Hardly the actions of a government seriously looking to help anyone out of poverty.