The meeting resulted in the founding of a local Unemployed Workers Union. The founders of the new union for claimants reflected the diversity of those on the dole – divided between those on Job-Seekers Allowance (JSA) and those on incapacity benefits.
Cambridge UWU is dedicated to fighting for better welfare benefits, respect in the Job Centre and the scrapping of the government's National Welfare Reform Bill and “Workfare” schemes. The National Welfare Reform Bill will attack single parents and the disabled who receive incapacity benefits. Workfare, the controversial program to make the unemployed work for theirbenefits (without being covered by National Minimum Wage!), is in the pipe-line to be tested in Cambridgeshire.
The unemployed activists also welcomed the presence of Steve Sweeney, Secretary of the Eastern Region Shop Stewards Network whichfights for rank 'n' file power in the trade unions. Steve kindly offered his and the SSN's help. Itwas felt all round that it was important to build solidarity between all working-class people -- employed and unemployed.
You can get involved in the Unemployed Workers Union by e-mailing them at
![](/img/maillink.gif)
Comments
Hide the following 11 comments
Dole Scroungers
30.09.2009 22:29
Taxpayer and Worker
lol
30.09.2009 23:12
respect to the cambridge crew for starting this off.
Anarchist worker
Lol
01.10.2009 00:00
Play a role, and stop paying taxes to this war criminal regime. its your right to withdraw your labour and end support for the criminals that run your world.
Go on permanent strike, demand change.
Fact £68 billion of your tax payers money per year is spent on the interest for the loans the gubment took out to 'bail out' fat twats in the city so they can continue plating roulette with your kids future. thats more than is spent on EDUCATION every year. Workers and Taxpayers are being royally screwed. Wake up! Disobey
Workshyscrounger
oxymoron
01.10.2009 07:06
seriously.... if you "want" a job (i assume you do because you call yourself workers) then you need to spend less time and effort spent on campaigning for more benefits and more time/effort in self training and applying for jobs
>>>Thats just too funny to comment about. Its obvious that the millions out of work aren't just trying hard enough!
What are you talking about!?!?!?!?!?! Theres tons of jobs and work out there
- The company i work for has been looking for over 6 mths for a particular programmer. We cant find one. There simply isnt any available. There is a job that needs a worker and we cant find one.
- I've just paid 1200 to 2 plasters to do a load of work. They seem to be able pick and choose the jobs they want to do. They are regularly turning down work because there is toooooo much to do!
so there you go. White collar and blue collar. Plenty of work and no one to do it.
Its not a case of no work out there. Its a case of people not looking what there is a shortage of and not going out and learning the skills.
If you dont want to work and want to live on benefits then fair enough, but stop moaning about how small benefits are. They are meant just to cover survival not pay for skytv, cigarettes and the betting shop.
kaiser
Recruitment
01.10.2009 09:48
I can help you with recruiting a programmer. Can you email your phone number to
Matthew
kidding?
01.10.2009 09:57
RobA
Re: "On yer bike"
01.10.2009 16:46
unemployed workers union because the unemployed are the reserve army of labour getting a social wage from the state for not rioting and overthrowing capitalism. we aim to get a better social wage AND overthrow the state & capitalism! also as working class people the unemployed people have common class interests with workers in employment and vice versa. job insecurity and high unemployment can be used as a stick to beat the working class about with, in terms of what conditions and wages we'll accept -- unless we stick together and build solidarity. as they told me at the job centre today, "Because of high unemployment (4,400 in Cambs) it's the employer's job market." Fuck that.
General Anna Key
Homepage:
http://cambridgeanarchists.wordpress.com
Its too difficult
01.10.2009 16:52
Yes!! Or something else. I reckon its a great job. The last thing i'd do is sit around blaming the government. The government are a bunch of f***wits and there are 2.47m people unemployed. So what? If you sit waiting for the government to do anything for you, you'll be dead before you get it.
When a wild Lion cant find food, does it sit around saying "its the government's fault; where my handout?" The only animals that sit around waiting for handouts are domestic animals who expect their masters to look after them.
My cat is perfectly capable of catching food for itself. But it chooses not to because it knows i will give it a handout and therefore there is no incentive to do work. People are the same. If the government abolished unemployment benefits then I'm sure many of the those 2.47million people would suddenly find jobs. If they doubled benefits, unemployment would go up. I wouldn't turn up to work if I didnt get paid - and people wouldn't sign onto benefits if they didn't get paid. Yacking on about how its the governments (or anybody elses) fault is purely academic gossip that just wastes time. Its called whinging, rather than doing.
People can choose to listen to bean counters like RobA telling them whats possible and whats impossible. Or they can forget all that and just do it anyway!
Theres always someone telling you that you wont be able to achieve something in life.
People who say something is impossible need to stand aside for those who can do it.
Kaiser
Capitalism needs a pool of unemployed to keep wages down.
01.10.2009 20:58
If there were jobs for everyone, wages would go up massively because workers would be able to pick and choose their employers. Then employers would be whining that their wage costs are too high. C'mon, this is basic economics. A large pool of unemployed means a lot of people going after each job, so they will always find people willing to do shit jobs for low pay.
If you accept that capitalism is a good way to run a society, you have to accept that a certain percentage of the population will always be out of work at any one time.
work is suicide
lol
01.10.2009 22:33
The employers wouldn't be whining. There would be f-all they could do about it apart from pay more.
Some would go bust and then there would be more people than jobs again. And so it goes round.
When the building boom was going on quantity suveyors and other similar positions were paying loads of money because it was really hard to find quality people. But now things have been real tough. In a few years things it will be great again. Its supply and demand. It oscillates according to growth and recession which is totally natural.
Hell - you see it in the natural world. A certain species of animal will thrive if there is lots of food. But when there are too many of them, there is too little food to go round, so their population will drop again. Then it will thrive again because there is so much food and too few consumers again. Up and down. Its a natural phenonemon. We aren't "above" it. Its sooooooooooo unfair
I'd love to know what system would magically create a Quantity surveyor job to appear when no one needs that work doing.
kaiser soze
F**K OFF KAISER
02.10.2009 14:59
Sort It Out Frosty