Fighting Poverty and Beneficiary Bashing Saturday

Come to the workshop:Fighting Poverty and Beneficiary Bashing at the Conference this Saturday 27th November at the Unite hosted Conference: "Another Aotearoa is Possible" at 15 Canning Cres Mangere, and discuss ways beneficiaries and workers can unite for a living income for all, workshop presented by Waitemata Unite.

http://gpjanz.wordpress.com/2010/11/21/356-sat-nov-27-%E2%80%9Cstand-up-fight-back-another-aotearoa-is-possible%E2%80%9D-unite-sponsored-day-of-dialogue-with-activists-against-injustice-and-inequality/

WWG and 90 Act Attack Beneficiaries and Workers

The Working Welfare Group issued its Options Paper today with suggestions for horrrific cuts to beneficiaries' welfare and incomes. They want to force all but 20,000 out of 144,000 single parents, sick and disabled to be available for work and do not bulk at sending mothers with babies as young as one year old out to (unavailable of course) work. They threaten to cut benefits altogether in one year with only a hardship allowance, or at the latest, five years! And they propose contracting out what should be the government's welfare work to private contractors! And this is almost the same day as they pushed through their 90 Day Act that means that sick and disabled beneficiaries and those with babies, can be forced into any work at all under threat of losing their benefits- including having to accept 90 Day Fire at Will Contracts where they can be sacked at any time for no reason at the employers' whim (for example for making a complaint about sexual harrassment or joining a union)-and then face another 91 Days Benefit Stand Down with no income at all as a punsihment for being sacked!!

These gross abuses of beneficiaries and workers' human rights have to be stopped!

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10689939

Radical Changes to Social Welfare System

Excellent article from the world socialist website about what the Government was doing earlier this year:

New Zealand government attacks beneficiaries

By Tom Peters
12 July 2010

New Zealand’s conservative National government is preparing radical changes to the social welfare system, designed to cut costs by restricting access to benefits for tens of thousands of people. The government, like those in Europe and elsewhere, has launched a policy of austerity to reduce its sovereign debt in line with the demands of international investors. This entails imposing the cost of the global economic crisis on the poorest and most vulnerable people in society.

Legislation due to be passed later this year will introduce mandatory work-testing for sickness beneficiaries and force single parent beneficiaries to look for work once their youngest child turns six. Social development minister Paula Bennett said the new laws would apply to 43,000 single parents, while 9,000 sickness beneficiaries had already been found fit for work and would be expected “to do what they can to support themselves”. The Social Assistance (Future Focus) Bill will also require people on unemployment benefits to undergo a “comprehensive work test” every 12 months. Those unable to prove they have been looking for work will face sanctions, including having their benefits halved or cut off entirely.

Despite its rhetoric about an “unrelenting focus on work,” the government has no intention of funding new jobs to replace those destroyed by the economic crisis. Instead, its new policy seeks to harass and hound people off welfare and into total destitution or reliance on family networks and private charities.

The new laws will further restrict access to emergency hardship payments for food, power bills and other basic needs. Bennett railed against welfare recipients, telling a press conference that “too many people view welfare not as a last option but as a way of life”. She called for “a shift from a mentality of entitlement to one of self-responsibility”.

In a cabinet paper, Bennett said the government would carry out “a stricter application of the eligibility rules for hardship assistance”. Desperate beneficiaries who receive three or more hardship payments in a 12-month period will be forced to “complete compulsory budgeting activities”. They will be denied further assistance if they cannot “demonstrate that they have done something of their own initiative to improve their situation”. Bennett told the media: “Last year the government paid out over $250 million in hardship payments and that, frankly, is unsustainable”. Provocatively, and without giving any evidence, she accused beneficiaries of attempting to “milk the system”.

In fact, the high number of hardship payments—over one million payments were granted by Work and Income in 2009—is a measure of the devastating impact of job cuts and rising prices since the onset of the recession and demonstrates that benefit levels are grossly inadequate. As of March, 324,814 people—close to one in eight of the working-age population—were reliant on poverty-level welfare payments, which amount to a maximum of just $194 a week for adult unemployment and sickness beneficiaries and $278 for single parents. For 18 to 19-year-olds living at home, the rate is only $129.

While official unemployment fell in the first quarter of 2010, from 7.1 percent to 6 percent, it remains well above the 3.5 percent level in 2007. Food prices have risen by about 8 percent in the past two years. The food parcels and emergency assistance given out by the Auckland City Mission increased by 50 percent last year.

The government is taking steps to shift people from the invalid’s benefit, which pays $242 a week, onto the sickness benefit, which pays $194. From September, Work and Income case managers and designated doctors will “vigorously” assess applicants for the invalid’s benefit—many of them people with mental health problems or serious disabilities—to determine if they are capable of part-time work.

Paul Blair, a beneficiary advocate from the Rotorua People’s Advocacy Centre, told the New Zealand Herald in April that there was already “a nationwide campaign to kick [people] off the invalid’s benefit”. Blair said Work and Income regional health advisers were ringing doctors and “cross-examining” them about whether their patients were really incapable of working 15 hours a week.

More attacks are being prepared. In April, Bennett appointed a Welfare Working Group (WWG) to address “long-term welfare dependence and to look for ways to turn around the growth in beneficiary numbers and expenditure”. Bennett told parliament on June 15 that the Group would look at recent welfare restructures in Ireland, Australia and the UK. She praised the UK government’s new “welfare-to-work” programme, which will strip the unemployed off benefits if they refuse to take a job offer and use “tougher” medical tests to drive the sick and disabled off benefits.

A WWG forum held on June 9-10 also discussed proposals such as time-limited benefits, as in the United States, and a worker-funded unemployment insurance scheme. The WWG will report to the government in December.

The Maori Party and Whanau Ora

Another element of the government’s assault is the Whanau Ora (“family well-being”) policy devised by the Maori Party. Following the 2008 election, the Maori Party entered into a “confidence and supply” agreement to support the National government on key policy issues. In return, National is backing policies designed to benefit the thin layer of Maori elites that the Maori Party represents.

read more at:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jul2010/nzwf-j12.shtml

Single Parents and Suicide; Presentation

Many single parents face depression and other mental and physical health issues directly resulting from the stress they are under. Loneliness, social exclusion, poverty, and denigration take their toll. This can even lead to suicide in extreme cases.

Single Parents Trust has organised a presentation in South Auckland, aimed at raising awareness and helping to to prevent suicides in single parent families.

Venue: Papakura Senior Citizens Hall, 8 East Street, Papakura – see MAP HERE

Cost: Gold coin donation for the petrol cost of speakers (only if you can afford it)

We are very grateful to ‘The Geeks’ and our 4 lovely speakers for giving their time and sharing their knowledge. If you could bring a plate to share with the group like a packet of biscuits or a home made cake, crackers, cheese, dip or chips, we’d really appreciate it. I’m sure you are going to gain a lot from this.

For enquiries contact: Email: info@singleparents.org.nz or phone: Julie Whitehouse, on (09) 813 9138

http://singleparents.org.nz/2010/11/07/suicide-prevention-presentation/

"Safety Net" to be Replaced by Forced Labour, Prostitution?

In the UK the government has announced plans to force beneficiaries to do manual labour in order to get their dole. This is of course supposed to be "good" for them, helping them to develop "work habits" when it is really slave labour. It's another wing in the government's strategy to make make the people pay for the bankers' crisis by instituting extreme cuts in public spending.

In New Zealand, as the PPTA points out, the government spends $1.6 billion to bail out South Canterbury Finance investors, $35 million on private schools, $30 million + on Warner Brothers, $9.8 million+ on Rugby's Party Central, but says it can't afford to pay for public education.

It also says it can't afford to maintain benefits at the current level which have been estimated at somewhere between $2.8 billion per year to a maximum of about $6 billion per year projected into the future.

The Welfare Working Group headed by Paula Rebstock and the Centre for Social Research and Evaluation on behalf of the Ministry of Social Development , are crowing on about costs of $5o billion , or $28billion to $32 billion but they really mean the cost over a ten year period.

(See the Sunday Star Times article by Lois Cairns on 7th November "Benefit no longer a safety net" by Lois Cairns)

Paula Rebstock (in a misleading quote even more misleadingly highlighted by the Sunday Star Times) says:"It is likely people who are on the benefit today will cost the community $50b instead of the $6b we think of."

This is a deliberate attempt to mislead and alarm the public.

The yearly cost would not be $50 billion but $5 billion which is normal.

If we were not subject to the irrational swings of capitalist crises and instead had real jobs for all , the amount needed for "unemployment " would be zero because there would not be any. People who need and are entitled to long- term support should and would get it. This includes single parents , the sick , and those with disabilities.

Paula Rebstock et al have no proposals to end the capitalist system which is now causing long term unemployment for some sections of society. However they believe that welfare should only be a very temporary "safety net" and want us to believe that we have a social problem when mothers and the disabled are on it for a long time, and talk in alarm about the "safety net" being transformed into "long term dependency."

Instead the opposite is happening, and the safety net is being rapidly pulled away. Especially if they have their way.

In France, men are starting to offer trades, tutoring, and other services for sex advertised as "hugs". Job Centres in the UK have included brothels on their books, until protest has made some centres take these ads down.

Is this what is coming to New Zealand? State support for only a few weeks, forced labour work- for- the- dole schemes, and prostitution in order to survive? The end of the safety net indeed.

http://intensiveactivity.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/unemployed-to-be-sentenced-to-unpaid-work/

UK: Single Parents, Housing Benefits Cut

The Welfare Working Group in Wellington is looking at the UK, US, Australian and Canadian models of welfare, so we should beware. Here's what they are doing in the UK:

Women Pay: Female single parents pay the most for the male bankers'crisis http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/oct/25/view-from-a-broad-single-parents

Economic Cleansing:

Benefits cut, rents up: this is Britain's housing time bomb

A final solution for the poor – send them to distant dumping grounds where there are no jobs http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/25/benefits-cut-rents-up-housing-time-bomb

UK Cuts rely on women replacing welfare

·

Attacks on our living conditions continue unabated worldwide as governments try to make us pay for the capitalist crisis. In the UK the ConDem Government has introduced extremely savage cuts including axing half a million public sector jobs, cutting benefits and ending the universal child benefit. Selma James from the Global Women's Strike says that this will leave women's unpaid work to take up the tab. She says that after World War Two "millions demanded socialism- and the welfare state was what we got." This has been eroded by successive governments including Thatcherism ("there is no such thing as society") in the eighties (think-Rogernomics, NZ); and welfare reform legislation in recent times (beware "welfare reform" in NZ). She argues for a society where the work of caring for children and others is given the support and importance it deserves and calls for us to get active in a strong fight back. . http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/21/spending-review-taxandspending The Tory 'big society' relies on women replacing welfare Families with children will bear the brunt of privatisation and cuts – leaving carers with more unwaged work than ever Thursday 21 October 2010 20.35 BST

President's Report-Summary

Summary of the President's report to the Waitemata Unite AGM 16th October 2010

New enrolment form designed together with Unite HQ; and fee increase.

Our branch has been in negotiations with Unite HQ over the past year about formalising our membership and fee payment arrrangements. We agreed to pay the increased fee of $2.00 per week as soon as a collaboratively designed new membership form was available and arrangements were completed for the fee to be efficiently transferred from our branch to HQ, and back again to our branch for our union work. We also decided to send a remit to the Unite National Conference asking for fees for beneficiaries to be reduced; and to do fund- raising to help active members who can’t afford the $2.00. These arrangements are now nearly complete.

Delegate and Remits at Unite National Conference 25, 26 November 2010 This year we have been allocated a place for one delegate at the national conference, who we need to choose today.

Picketting Paula Bennett.

We held a well attended picket outside Social Development Minister Paula Bennett’s office in March after the announcement of benefit cuts. This was the first time that we used Facebook and wrote on friendly blog sites like Socialist Aotearoa to advertise an action. This picket got a lot of publicity including on national radio, with a plug from Matt Mccarten, Unite Secretary, and support from Joe Carolan from Unite and Socialist Aotearoa. We printed a number of placards at Unite HQ. Joe and some of the Unite Living Wage crew turned up to support the picket and a wide number of people from the left. I took a number of photos of the picket, which I also displayed on facebook and also on our blog.

On Mayday we went to Piha to picket Paula Bennett at a public meeting, but it turned out to be a fairly low key event as it was only a clinic.

IN August we attended a public meeting with Paula Bennett at the Fickling Centre in Mt Roskill where she met considerable challenge from ourselves and others in the audience.

Other May Day events

After the Piha protest, we came back into town and attended several protests including the Mining protest, the Palestine Rally, the combined unions Mayday rally, and some of us attended the Unite May Day social in the evening.

Search and Surveillance Protest-several Unite Waitemata members attended this march earlier in the year.

90 Day Protests

Several of our members were out in force at the 90 Day protest outside the National Party conference at Sky City and have been active on this issue since including attending a public meeting at the university, and two of us have attended meetings of the Auckland Solidarity Network which-together with Unite- helped organise a very successful picket gainst an employer who sacked an employee under the legislation. Waitemata Unite is preparing to attend the 90 Day rally on 20 October called by the unions.

The 90 Day issue is crucial for beneficiaries who could be forced by WINZ to sign employment contracts using the 90 day legislation, and then could face a 91 day benefit stand down if sacked for no reason under the 90 Day law.

Unite Protests and Pickets

Our members have been very active in support of the Unite $15 per hour campaign and the JB Hi Fi pickets.

Palestine/Israel Protests Our members took part in an urgent protest in response to Israel’s murder of nine innocent people on the Gaza flotilla earlier this year.

Blog and Facebook Group. I have been working continuously with members on the Waitemata Unite blog all year, at http://waitemataunite.blogspot.com, reporting our actions, sending in photos, reporting beneficiary protests overseas, reporting relevant news from New Zealand and overseas, and encouraging comments from readers.. I have started a Waitemata Unite Facebook Group which has attracted some interest around New Zealand and internationally.

Supporting our member getting her pay

We ventured into the field of workplace issues when one of our members was not paid the pay that she was due from a former employer. The threat of publicity and a quick word with a representative for the offending employer fixed that and our member got her pay!

Beneficiary Rights Groups and Forums

We have attended events organised by a number of groups who are raising beneficiary issues including the Child Poverty Action Group, the Alternative Welfare Working Group, the Kotare Centre, and a new beneficiaries’ action group which has been called for by Sue Bradford. We sent representatives to forums organised by the CPAG and the AWWG and also a disability forum organised by a Disability Law Centre. We are in touch with the Rotorua Peoples’ Union, which organised a dramatic protest in Rotorua this year; and the Wellington People’s Centre. I am also in touch with a group in Dunedin that wants to start up a beneficiaries’ union or perhaps form a branch of Unite.

Advocacy Training

Kay Beresford from the Wellington Peoples’ Centre has agreed to give advocacy training to some of our members in November.

Benefit Fact File

We receive updates of the Benefit Fact File from the Wellington People’s Centre around once or twice a year. This file has not yet been used to its full potential, but will be very useful when we begin to do more peer advocacy.

Auckland Super City Elections

Waitemata Unite members have been very active in grassroots movements aimed at opposing the privatisation of services such as water, and the anti-democratic structure of the new Auckland Super City, and have helped the campaign to get left leaning candidates elected.

Future Actions

I think that soon we need to get back to visiting WINZ offices to talk with and to recruit beneficiaries, and to give them leaflets explaining what the current political threats could be. We could also hold our own forums again.

This year WINZ took a large number of people off invalids benefits and onto sickness benefits, and National has passed legislation for work testing sickness beneficiaries and most single parents. Treasury is advocating further cuts, and the Welfare Working Group is looking at an insurance model which would disentitle most beneficiaries and allow people to receive help for only a short time. We are also seeing increasing privatisation of welfare services. This is why the need for beneficiaries to get organised is high.

When we go to WINZ we can hand out recruitment leaflets-which I have here-explaining the advantages of joining Unite, and encourage people to sign up with our new membership forms.

Over all this has been a good year for our branch, with steady attendance at meetings and lots of activity. The biggest blow is probably the fees increase within Unite, and of course the attacks from the government, without. However we have the potential to grow in numbers and in strength, and to help Unite to be truly a union for beneficiaries and paid workers as it was intended to be.

Finally, As an ex- treasurer I want to thank Paul Robertson for the fine job he has done, having taken over the huge job of treasurer, and also unofficial membership secretary, which goes with this job.

By Janet Robin

Waitemata Unite AGM This Saturday

Waitemata Unite is having our Annual General Meeting this Saturday, October 16th, 11 am,

at the Avondale Community Centre, next to the Avondale Library, Rosebank Rd, Avondale.

We welcome in our new executive, who were elected unopposed. They are:

Keith, Secretary, tel 8369104

Janet, President, txt 021 2166937

Amy, Vice President, txt 021 1664230

Paul, Treasurer txt 0274223508

We'll be getting everyone renew their membership and fill in a new membership form.

New members are welcome.

We'll be electing a delegate and sending remits to the Unite National Conference, reviewing the past year, and talking about our plans and hopes for this year.

All members, friends and supporters are Welcome!

Bring a plate or something to drink.

Food will also be provided.

See you there!

Why you need to Join Unite!

Why you need to Join Unite! Union- and Waitemata Unite

Unite! is a union for low paid and casual workers:

Unite is one of New Zealand’s fastest growing unions with over 10,000 members. Many young people who had never been in a union before are now proud Unite members. We are a lively and strong union who have had many successes! We successfully campaigned to abolish youth rates and to raise the minimum wage. Many of our members, such as those in the fast food industry, now have better wages and conditions protected by collective contracts. They are learning how when we unite together and stand strong, we can win!

Unite! is a union for unpaid workers:

Mothers are bringing up the future workers of our society. Carers care for the sick and elderly. Students spend hours studying and earning pay. Unemployed workers are workers.

Unite! is a community union:

Unite! is for those who are not in paid work for any reason such as illness, disability or caring for others. We are all members of a community or whanau and of the working class.

Unemployment rates are soaring. The government is not doing anything to create suitable jobs that meet our health needs or family responsibilities. It doesn’t value our contributions. It just wants to cut spending on benefits and make us look for non- existent work. Then it can give tax cuts to the rich and help employers keep wages down.

Work Tested Benefits and the 90 Day Fire at Will Act .

The 2010 Social Security Amendment Act comes into effect in October. This means that mothers with children over six , and those on sickness benefits, now join those on unemployment benefits in having to be available for paid work, whether it suits our family or health needs or not. We will be punished by having half our benefits slashed if we don’t comply. If we still don’t after four weeks, our benefits are stopped altogether!

Whenever we apply for a benefit, we face a thirteen week stand down if we left a previous job “for no good reason’ or were sacked for “misconduct”. Now the 90 Day Fire-at-Will Act means that we could be sacked from a job for no reason, and then could face a benefit stand down for another 91 days for being sacked!

Even worse, the Welfare Working Group and Treasury are thinking of reducing our entitlements even further and contracting out our benefits to private providers!

This is why you need Unite! Unite can fight these laws!

Unite! union fights for the rights of employed and beneficiaries!

Waitemata Unite! is a branch of the Unite! union.

If you are a paid worker, Unite! will represent you in any disputes with your employer. If you become unemployed, you can still be a member of Unite!

If you are a beneficiary, Waitemata Unite! will support you if you have trouble getting the benefit you are entitled to. We will attend WINZ appointments with you, and can call a picket if WINZ persists in treating someone unfairly.

Unite! is picketing employers who try to sack any worker under the 90 Day legislation. We intend to make this law unworkable!

Lower benefits mean lower wages! Employed and unemployed need to Unite! for a living income for all ! Join Unite! Fight for living benefits and living wages!

These employment and benefit laws are unjust, and they must be changed! We need to stand strong and show the Government we will not take it!

Workers in paid employment can go on strike. Beneficiaries can refuse to go shopping or take our kids out on a demonstration instead of doing the housework. We can all go on pickets. We need to support each other. Together we are strong.

Employed and unemployed, you will always be welcome with us!

We meet every 3^rd Saturday of the month at 11 am at the Avondale Community Centre, and have regular pickets and forums.

Come along, have a cuppa, get involved!

Unemployed and Employed, Join Waitemata Unite today!

Issued by Waitemata Unite! 8369104 021 2166937

keithhend@gmail.com http://waitemataunite.blogspot.com

Patronising to move disabled on to dole

A disabled group says a Treasury proposal to shift 80,000 sick and disabled people on to the dole is "naive and patronising".

Disabled Persons Assembly policy manager Wendi Wicks said most disabled people wanted to work, but needed help with healthcare, transport, education and housing to get suitable jobs.

"To say that it's just about getting a job is incredibly naive and patronising," she said.

Other social lobby groups also reacted angrily to a Treasury report to the Government's welfare working group which recommends moving work-capable people off the sickness and invalid benefits on to the dole, making sole parents look for work before their children turn 6, and contracting out welfare services to private providers.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10678604

Now Treasury wants to Cut our Incomes!

Treasury has joined the fray of those wishing to cut our incomes and make life harder for us. In the first official paper yet issued by a government body, they want to force even more invalids to look for paid work before they can receive any income. Treasury recommends taking about another 80,000 people off sickness and invalids benefits and onto the dole. Not only this, but they want to force single parents on the DPB to look for work, when their child is even younger than six! This aims to save the government money whilst making life even more miserable and impossible for beneficiaries!
Every person who goes off the invalid's benefit onto another one loses $49 per week! Being an invalid is expensive! Invalids need to pay for medicines, special diets, home help, special furniture, special equipment such as wheelchairs, tele- text and so on. Those who wish to work can need special consideration and support in the work place, for example wheel chair access, or special office equipment. Are the government-or employers- going to provide this? Not likely! Instead we have heard of case officers telling a blind person to get a drivers licence, or a person without functioning arms to write or draw with a pen in their mouth! We have heard of people with mental illness being driven to distraction with terror because of pressure from their case officers to get a job, and suffering from starvation from punitive benefit cuts and stand downs.
Unemployment is rising, and yet government bodies continue to go on about making beneficiaries get paid work-which doesn't exist!. Instead of putting money into creating real work opportunities it cuts government spending and punishes those who can't find it. In the meantime those of us who do find paid work pay punitive secondary tax , whilst others get tax cuts!

Switch people to dole, says Treasury
(See the rest of the following article by Simon Collins at:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10678225 )

About 80,000 people now on sickness and invalid benefits could be shifted on to the unemployment benefit under radical welfare reforms proposed by the Treasury.
A Treasury report to the Government's welfare working group recommends reclassifying all 144,000 people on sickness and invalid benefits into three categories based on their ability to work, shifting those with some capacity to work in the near future on to the unemployment benefit.
It also recommends requiring sole parents to look for paid work before their youngest children turn 6, and contracting out most welfare services to private companies or charities.
But its hard line is softened by other proposals to extend sick leave and parental leave entitlements, and to let sickness beneficiaries earn more from part-time work before having their benefits cut.
The welfare working group, chaired by economist Paula Rebstock, has been given until next February to come up with proposals to reduce long-term benefit dependency.