Even after the film, I,Daniel Blake, and even after a recent National Audit Office report stating that, although sanctions are widespread in the benefit system, it "does not mean they are well designed, fairly administered or effective" (see here), the Tory Government's imposition ploughs on.
The Salford Task Force last year concluded that the welfare regime has not led to an increase in employment, only 'hardship and destitution' through "inappropriate and potentially unlawful" practices (see here).
These include sanctions being handed out for what the Unite union calls "ridiculous reasons such as: Arriving minutes late to a meeting: Not applying for jobs when waiting to start a new job!: Missing an appointment on the day of the funeral of a close family member".
Today, Unite called a National Day of Action Against Sanctions, which included two pickets outside Salford Job Centre and Eccles Job Centre.
Outside Salford Job Centre, on Churchill Way, campaigners handed out Stop Benefit Sanctions leaflets and stickers to people going into the centre...
"It's been a good response, and there's been a lot of positive conversations with people who feel isolated; and that they're being bullied into doing stuff they wouldn't normally do" said Glynn "There's been people who had been sanctioned for a short while and said it was awful being without any money and that they had to go to the food banks and stuff like that to keep food on the table."
Fellow campaigner, Geoff Brown, added that "Anybody who wants to know what's really going on in this country should come down and stand with us on this picket line to get the truth of what sanctions really mean...There's women signing on here after going to Loaves and Fishes, which is the one place they feel they can go without feeling guilty or ashamed, and be sure of getting a cooked meal today"
He compared the current welfare system to the infamous Victorian hard times regime... "There is a brutality here, a viciousness which I think takes us back to the workhouse of two hundred years ago, only I like to call it the virtual workhouse" he explained
"It's not an actual building, it's a series of rules and regulations" he added "You have to apply for jobs through an agency... you never actually get to ask an employer. And you have to prove that you've done this meaningless task, which is comparable to the meaningless tasks people in workhouses were forced to do, like picking oakum and breaking rocks.
"It was done in order to humiliate people, and it was designed to make people who were not in the workhouse, who are not in this sanctions, regime fear it; so that you discipline the entire workforce that do work" he insisted "It's a way of creating fear.
"People who are constantly worried about whether their job is going to go, therefore are going to do whatever the employer says in order to stay in work" he said "Which means that employers can design contracts that are so disgusting in terms of the conditions they impose. Zero hours are just the best known but there are many other examples of how they can get workers to dance to their tune, whatever they want."
In other words, that the fight against benefit sanctions is everyone's fight...
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