Training provider Instant Muscle went into administration last week, leaving staff unpaid for February and unemployed trainees turned away from the doorsteps of their training centres. Staff were given termination letters as they arrived at work on the 27th.
As reported by Nottingham Evening Post, 
http://tinyurl.com/ypzavz:
'Instant Muscle was established in 1981 as a charity providing recruitment and training. It works with Jobcentre Plus and its clients include Government departments, local authorities, the NHS and other public bodies.
Employee and father of two, Paul Kelly, 34, said: "We have turned away people today, who have turned up for training, as well as us losing our jobs and not being paid." Staff said Instant Muscle director Tony Garrett took over about a year ago. He was unavailable for comment at home.'
Instant Muscle was one of the organisations that jumped on the workfare gravy train when the Conservative Party introduced 'Project Work' in the 1990s, which became New Deal for the unemployed after the Labour Party got into power. The idea was that you would get work experience for 10 pounds on top of usual benefits. This is an example of the so called Intermediate Labour Market endorsed by the European Social Fund.
As the Tories started up Project Work pilot schemes in various parts of the UK, Instant Muscle were identified early on by activists in Groundswell (an anti-Job Seekers Allowance action network in the 1990s) as one of the main companies involved. As recalled on the Aut-op-sy discussion list:
'Apart from Grand Met, Edinburgh Claimant's Group claimed the other culprits in the Project Work provider racket include: Instant Muscle, The Training Network, Career Ahead, and East Yorkshire County Council who have been paying the jobless £10 plus benefits to paint the railings on the seafront at an East Coast seaside resort'.
In Notts, a private company Work Directions Ltd recently won the contract to run Pathways to Work, which is a new government scheme to 'help' incapacity benefits claimants into work. The Employment and Support Allowance replaces Incapacity Benefits from October 2008, alongside a new medical test to assess work capability, the Work Capability Assessment. Just before it went into administration, Instant Muscle was due to start running Pathways to Work in Surrey and Sussex.
More news:
* Redundancy for 250 staff as Pathways to Work charity goes into administration: http://tinyurl.com/yvu4mv
* Staff shock as jobs are axed (Nottingham Evening Post): http://tinyurl.com/ypzavz
* Staff shocked as training jobs are axed (South Wales Echo) http://tinyurl.com/2jqxmz
Information:
* European Social Fund case study, Instant Muscle:
http://www.esf.gov.uk/archive/2000_2006_esf_programme/case_studies/case_studies_-_east/instant_muscle.asp
* Pathways on track for national roll-out (DWP press release, Dec 2007): http://www.dwp.gov.uk/mediacentre/pressreleases/2007/dec/drc061-201207.asp
* Work Directions Ltd.: http://www.workdirections.co.uk
Internet forum discussion:
* Instant Muscle - Workfare racketeers - gone gone gone: http://libcom.org/forums/news/instant-muscle-workfare-racketeers-gone-gone-gone-29022008
* Aut-op-sy archive: http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/aut-op-sy/1997-03-23.192/msg00001.htm
Indymedia:
Welfare Reform, Not Welfare Destruction: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/2006/10/352351.html
http://tinyurl.com/ypzavz: 'Instant Muscle was established in 1981 as a charity providing recruitment and training. It works with Jobcentre Plus and its clients include Government departments, local authorities, the NHS and other public bodies.
Employee and father of two, Paul Kelly, 34, said: "We have turned away people today, who have turned up for training, as well as us losing our jobs and not being paid." Staff said Instant Muscle director Tony Garrett took over about a year ago. He was unavailable for comment at home.'
Instant Muscle was one of the organisations that jumped on the workfare gravy train when the Conservative Party introduced 'Project Work' in the 1990s, which became New Deal for the unemployed after the Labour Party got into power. The idea was that you would get work experience for 10 pounds on top of usual benefits. This is an example of the so called Intermediate Labour Market endorsed by the European Social Fund.
As the Tories started up Project Work pilot schemes in various parts of the UK, Instant Muscle were identified early on by activists in Groundswell (an anti-Job Seekers Allowance action network in the 1990s) as one of the main companies involved. As recalled on the Aut-op-sy discussion list:
'Apart from Grand Met, Edinburgh Claimant's Group claimed the other culprits in the Project Work provider racket include: Instant Muscle, The Training Network, Career Ahead, and East Yorkshire County Council who have been paying the jobless £10 plus benefits to paint the railings on the seafront at an East Coast seaside resort'.
In Notts, a private company Work Directions Ltd recently won the contract to run Pathways to Work, which is a new government scheme to 'help' incapacity benefits claimants into work. The Employment and Support Allowance replaces Incapacity Benefits from October 2008, alongside a new medical test to assess work capability, the Work Capability Assessment. Just before it went into administration, Instant Muscle was due to start running Pathways to Work in Surrey and Sussex.
More news:
* Redundancy for 250 staff as Pathways to Work charity goes into administration:
http://tinyurl.com/yvu4mv * Staff shock as jobs are axed (Nottingham Evening Post):
http://tinyurl.com/ypzavz * Staff shocked as training jobs are axed (South Wales Echo)
http://tinyurl.com/2jqxmz Information:
* European Social Fund case study, Instant Muscle:
http://www.esf.gov.uk/archive/2000_2006_esf_programme/case_studies/case_studies_-_east/instant_muscle.asp * Pathways on track for national roll-out (DWP press release, Dec 2007):
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/mediacentre/pressreleases/2007/dec/drc061-201207.asp * Work Directions Ltd.:
http://www.workdirections.co.uk Internet forum discussion:
* Instant Muscle - Workfare racketeers - gone gone gone:
http://libcom.org/forums/news/instant-muscle-workfare-racketeers-gone-gone-gone-29022008 * Aut-op-sy archive:
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/aut-op-sy/1997-03-23.192/msg00001.htm Indymedia:
Welfare Reform, Not Welfare Destruction:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/2006/10/352351.html 
Homepage:
Update in evening post today
06.03.2008 22:41
anon
Writing on the wall
07.03.2008 14:32
chad
Products back on the market
07.03.2008 19:45
Maybe the staff will be forced into a change of world view, as on the course I attended we were all encouraged to think of unemployment as some sort of mental affliction, and told that the reason that we weren't in work was that we didn't have the right attitude: we simply needed to understand that we were products - like anything else bought and sold by a business - and we just needed to learn to think of ourselves in this way and sell ourselves accordingly.
I know I'll always harbour a special resentment for the teacher in our class (Julie somebody, I think), whose patronising attitude set my teeth on edge. I can still recall this little impromptu speech she made when someone challenged her authority on some issue. She proceeded to respond by impressing on us how successful she was (how she had an expensive car, rode horses and got to go on expensive holidays) so we could recognise how much better she was than us, and how hence just shut up and listen to what she said.
Sure, in the context of the system they'll just be replaced by some other goons, but there's a very enjoyable irony in the Instant Muscle workers finding themselves out of work, sort of like when the son of Jack "Blame the Parents" Straw was cautioned for dealing cannabis.
Return the gift
Back to work
07.03.2008 23:06
However, I find all this cheap sneering at Instant Muscle staff being made unemployed without getting their last months wages all rather pathetic. I know some of these people and I'm pleased to announce that many of them have already found new jobs, not that that helps cover their bills and mortgages this month but good news anyway.
quick off the block
Some history of direct action against Instant Muscle
08.03.2008 13:51
Quote:
"DEAD TOAD HITS BACK
Recent resistance to the compulsory slave labour scheme Project Work (PW) should inspire opposition to the New Deal
Bristol Claimants report that anti PW action late last year included
* Musicians playing inside the Job Centre.
* Job Centre and Job Club windows smashed 3 times
* Deer fence and dry stone wall built by PW slave labour both destroyed
* PW provider Instant Muscle suffering - an invasion by a Welsh choir - a boss covered with red dye - a dead toad in their mail.
* Stencilled slogans on windows of charity shops using PW - THIS CHARITY USES SLAVE LABOUR.
In Brighton active opposition from led to 6 organisations withdrawing from PW. On 6 Feb. 30 antiPW protesters pushed past police into David Lepper MPs surgery in the Brighthelm Centre, a PW exploiter. This so worried Brighthelm that they pulled out of Project Work.
Groundswell c/o Claimants Action,, E.Oxford Community Centre, Princes St., Oxford. 01865 723750. Groups in Bristol, Oxford, Brighton, London, Nottingham, Sheffield, Manchester area, Blackburn, Edinburgh, etc.. Next conference 13-14 June, Oxford."
Nottingham Sparrow
Homepage:
http://www.afed.org.uk/nottingham
Working Links
08.03.2008 16:35
Working Links - a raw deal
Oh, and this is worth a look:
Nottingham Job Seekers To Face Lie Detectors
Anyone fallen foul of this system?
working stinks
instant muscle
10.03.2008 06:52
aurora
Is this lot to keep people in? or to keep people out?
11.03.2008 21:56
Is this lot to keep people in? or to keep people out?
Project work and workfare in general is a government service to help people, through training and assistance, back to work. Yea, right!
I haven't met anyone with a kind thing to say about their 'services'. It is simple a method by which people are punished for their unemployment. Further, by coercive methods, is an organisation on contract, the whole object of which is to help the government manipulate their unemployment figures.
I include these pictures to give you an idea of the 'welcome' and jolly homely ambiance that greeted their clients. Now, I ask you, did this look like a place people would attend, without coercion?
____________________________________________
ALAN LODGE
Photographer - Media: One Eye on the Road. Nottingham. UK
Tash [alan lodge]
e-mail:
tash@indymedia.org
Oh yesss
09.07.2008 19:09
The general view banded about by IM is that you are unemployed because you are lazy, thick and worhtless.
Dan Factor
e-mail:
danfactor@lycos.com