Here's the Indymedia article about our protest:
Friday, December 10, 2010
Protest at Waitakere WINZ
On Friday 3rd December, International Disability Day, 60 friends and members of Unite Waitemata Branch and Auckland Action Against Poverty, gathered outside Waitakere WINZ in Henderson to protest the increasing attacks upon beneficiaries by the National/Act Government and the Welfare Working Group, especially the attacks upon the disabled , many of whom have lost $50 per week off their incomes and are expected to be available for work, which is what the Welfare Working group has in mind for nearly all beneficiaries including mothers of babies.
It was a very lively demonstration: with those present including representatives from the Auckland Women's Centre, anarchists, the Green Party, and people with disabilities and those working in the disability sector, workers, students , beneficiaries, mothers grandmothers and pensioners, the National Distribution Union, Socialist Aotearoa and the Unite union.
After the protest, Waitemata Unite members talked to a large number of WINZ clients who were very interested in the protest and in what our union can do for beneficiaries. Some joined up on the spot and others have expressed interest in keeping in touch with us.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Raise All Benefits Now!!!
Call for 50 per cent rise in benefits
By Simon CollinsWednesday, December 1, 2010
Australia-StandUp : Privatised Welfare.
StandUp is an organisation for unemployed in Sydney. This report shows what can happen when employment services are contracted out to private providers-something the Welfare Working Group wants to happen here.
Xmas. No joy for us
Christmas is supposed to be the festive season when everyone eats, drinks and parties. The problem is that we can’t afford to. It is difficult enough for us to survive on what we get, let alone have a party.
Standup believes we will need a wage rise. Thanks to our low pay it is a struggle to pay the bills or the rent. For some it’s a struggle to get enough to eat. Of course, you can’t afford a decent Christmas!
StandUp wishes you all the best for the festive season and the new Year.
Contact Standup! phone 95164486 e-mail standup_@hotmail.com
You are welcome to participate!
Dodgy Job network agency
On Illawarra Rd near the corner of Marrickville Rd Marrickville you will see a door to Workfutures which is full of unopened mail. There is a notice telling you that the entrance is around the corner , in a laneway. Well if you go around the knock vigorously on their highly secure door, usually you won’t get a response.
We thought this was one of the failed job network agencies. Well there are many of these. But , one day, someone told us he had an appointment there. He knocked on the door and got no-one. He went around the side and got no-one also. He was on time for the appointment he was supposed to go to.
Getting no answer, he went to Centre Link as he was concerned about the possibility of being penalised for missing an appointment. They believed him and rang the co-ordinator’s mobile and only got an answering machine.
We do not know how a dodgy operation like this is recognised. It certainly shouldn’t be.
The owner provided little evidence that he is providing service to the unemployed. Meanwhile he is taking tax payers money.
If this institution is ever open, it certainly is not open enough for any unemployed person to utilise its services adequately. We think they should be scrapped as a job network agency.
We should have the right to adequate access to our job network agency. They control when they are open and when we have access. We know of someone else who complains that her agency doesn’t allow her in for long enough for her to adequately look for work. This is wrong!
Many private job network agencies work hard for their clients. We think though many are just ripping off public money. We oppose private job network agencies totally!
The End of the Block
For decades Aboriginal people have enjoyed cheap accommodation in the part of Redfern known as The Block Apart from providing affordable housing. The Block has been a community centre and a symbol of black pride. Unfortunately the block has suffered from poverty, unemployment, violence, drugs and alcohol. The Block is not alone. Many communities Black and white have been ravaged with these problems. The Block has been visible though and this has meant much pressure to “deal with the problems”. For many “dealing with problems’ means eviction
The value of the land is immense. Developers stand to make millions if land is sold on the open market.
StandUp! Is critical of the fact that houses have been run down and become derelict. There has been mass eviction by stealth as houses become unliveable. Now there are only fourteen houses left.
We think that those remaining should have the right to remain there if they want to. We think it is the responsibility of landlord Aboriginal housing company to make these houses habitable.
More criticisms of WWG report
Tapu Misa says the Welfare Working Group Report is a waste of money:
On the one hand, it says things like: "Most people on the unemployment benefit are motivated to find paid work." "Sole parents face extra challenges in undertaking [parenting] roles alone."
On the other hand, it goes on about "benefit dependency " and with nearly 7% unemployment, Minister of Social Development Paula Bennett has the nerve to talk about a "a lifestyle choice".
Mike O' Brian professor of social policy at Massey University says the obvious that:"the critical consideration is the availability of work and the personal and social supports surrounding that, not the alleged behaviour and lack of motivation of beneficiaries." Around 2007, When jobs were available before the latest capitalist crash, numbers on the unemployment benefit had dwindled to tiny amounts. In other words, "benefit dependency" is a myth.
O'Brien notes that not only are some dependents more politically acceptable than others - the more than 257,000 getting tax credits under Working for Families, for example,(which is denied to single parents on benefits even if they are also working) or the superannuitants who make up our largest and most expensive beneficiary group - but that "dependence" has overtaken "poverty" as the greater evil to be avoided.
Tapu Misa: "Well, of course. Dependence is the beneficiary's problem; poverty might imply responsibility on the part of the state."
In some kind of twisted logic, the WWG report seems to think that the poverty of people on a benefit is not caused by lack of money; but by by getting any money at all!
The obvious way to eliminate poverty is to raise all benefits immediately to liveable levels and to create real jobs for all who need them. ( Labour didn't do this when it was in power, and is not even whispering about doing such a thing now.)
But that would not leave starving people competing desperately on an over-crowded labour market labour enabling employers to pay sub poverty wages in appalling work conditions and make super profits.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10690690
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
