Picket & Demonstration outside Poundland, on Union Street in Birmingham City Centre calling for them to withdraw from workfare schemes. If they have withdrawn before the 3rd of March, we will picket Tesco on New Street instead. If Tesco have withdrawn make sure you check here to see who else remains.
Saturday 3rd March
11:30-12:30
Poundland, Union Street, City Centre, Birmingham
Part of the national day of action. See www.bocyottworkfare.org for more details and locations of other events. At the time of posting events are confirmed in Liverpool, London, Leeds and Brighton with Sheffield and others known to be planning.
Poundland are a local firm, based in Willenhall. They are using workfare in stores around the West Midlands, including the one in Kings Heath that was featured in a Guardian story in November last year.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/nov/16/young-jobseekers-work-pay-unemployment
It has been reported that they are reviewing their involvement in the scheme, thanks at least in part to a legal challenge brought by Birmingham firm Public Interest Lawyers.
We can put pressure on them to withdraw completely - following a picket in Brighton, the local store there has apparently withdrawn from the scheme: http://intensiveactivity.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/brighton-campaign-victory-on-poundland-workfare-placements/
If we make this demo big enough, we can get them to pull out entirely - if they don't we'll be visiting their HQ in the future. Invite all your friends, make this is big as possible. Remember, if they pull out, we'll go to Tesco instead, who have been advertising for night shift workfare placements - putting unpaid labour in place of the highest paid positions possible.
Workfare means that those who need welfare are forced into unpaid work for multi-million pound companies. Instead of a living wage, they receive only JSA - a tiny £53 a week for the under-25s - far below minimum wage.
Workfare means those in paid positions may see their jobs replaced by this unpaid labour. Why would a company pay for people to do these jobs when they can get free labour from the Job Centre?
Under the government’s highly disturbing welfare reform bill, disabled people could be forced off DLA and onto JSA and find themselves being forced onto workfare.
We can put a stop to this forced unpaid labour - over the last few weeks companies have been withdrawing from the scheme, starting with Waterstones, then Sainsbury's, the Co-op, TK Maxx, HMV, 99p Stores and Matalan along with charities Shelter and Marie Curie (and I'm not claiming this as an exhaustive list either).
The other companies, like Poundland, Tesco or Asda, just need a bit more encouragement to stop this exploitation.
We demand an end to this exploitation and call for welfare rights and living wages for all!
11:30-12:30
Poundland, Union Street, City Centre, Birmingham
Part of the national day of action. See www.bocyottworkfare.org for more details and locations of other events. At the time of posting events are confirmed in Liverpool, London, Leeds and Brighton with Sheffield and others known to be planning.
Poundland are a local firm, based in Willenhall. They are using workfare in stores around the West Midlands, including the one in Kings Heath that was featured in a Guardian story in November last year.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/nov/16/young-jobseekers-work-pay-unemployment It has been reported that they are reviewing their involvement in the scheme, thanks at least in part to a legal challenge brought by Birmingham firm Public Interest Lawyers.
We can put pressure on them to withdraw completely - following a picket in Brighton, the local store there has apparently withdrawn from the scheme:
http://intensiveactivity.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/brighton-campaign-victory-on-poundland-workfare-placements/ If we make this demo big enough, we can get them to pull out entirely - if they don't we'll be visiting their HQ in the future. Invite all your friends, make this is big as possible. Remember, if they pull out, we'll go to Tesco instead, who have been advertising for night shift workfare placements - putting unpaid labour in place of the highest paid positions possible.
Workfare means that those who need welfare are forced into unpaid work for multi-million pound companies. Instead of a living wage, they receive only JSA - a tiny £53 a week for the under-25s - far below minimum wage.
Workfare means those in paid positions may see their jobs replaced by this unpaid labour. Why would a company pay for people to do these jobs when they can get free labour from the Job Centre?
Under the government’s highly disturbing welfare reform bill, disabled people could be forced off DLA and onto JSA and find themselves being forced onto workfare.
We can put a stop to this forced unpaid labour - over the last few weeks companies have been withdrawing from the scheme, starting with Waterstones, then Sainsbury's, the Co-op, TK Maxx, HMV, 99p Stores and Matalan along with charities Shelter and Marie Curie (and I'm not claiming this as an exhaustive list either).
The other companies, like Poundland, Tesco or Asda, just need a bit more encouragement to stop this exploitation.
We demand an end to this exploitation and call for welfare rights and living wages for all!
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