‘We want an end to all sanctions and workfare. The campaign is powerful when it enables individuals, groups and organisations to stop workfare, while defending claimants’ rights to social security, fair pay, and peace of mind.’
Boycott Workfare is a UK-wide grassroots campaign to end forced unpaid work for people receiving welfare. It was formed in 2010 by people with experience of workfare and those concerned about its impact.
‘Workfare’ refers to the unpaid work placements that welfare claimants have to participate in to continue to receive social security. Refusing to take part leads to sanctions: withdrawal of welfare payments for up to three years. Workfare benefits the rich who control companies accepting placements of unpaid, coerced labour. It creates a claimant workforce without the legal status and rights of workers, thereby undermining the pay and conditions of all workers.
Boycott Workfare use social media and direct action to expose those profiting from workfare and to disrupt the government’s ‘wage free, welfare withdrawal’ agenda, working in solidarity with unemployed workers’ groups, claimants unions and others in the UK and internationally. We aim to challenge welfare conditionality and the imposition of unpaid work by supporting people to challenge workfare and sanctions.
We want an end to all sanctions and workfare. The campaign is powerful when it enables individuals, groups and organisations to stop workfare, while defending claimants’ rights to social security, fair pay, and peace of mind.
To find out more: @boycottworkfare
Red Pepper are running the People’s Agenda series in the run up to the General Election, demonstrating the breadth of exciting grassroots political activity in the UK.
#236: The War Racket: Palestine Action on shutting down arms factories ● Paul Rogers on the military industrial complex ● Alessandra Viggiano and Siobhán McGuirk on gender identity laws in Argentina ● Dan Renwick on the 5th anniversary of Grenfell ● Juliet Jacques on Zvenigora ● Laetitia Bouhelier on a Parisian community cinema ● The winning entry of the Dawn Foster Memorial Essay Prize ● Book reviews and regular columns ● Much more!
And you choose how much to pay for your subscription...
David Renton weighs up options for the left, in and outside of the Labour Party
Western leftists routinely ignore local demands from Taiwan, where support for the status quo is high. Brian Hioe looks at the tensions and misunderstandings surrounding Nancy Pelosi's visit
Arms sales both by and to Israel help sustain the oppression of the Palestinian people. Sam Perlo-Freeman reports on the scale of the trade and the UK’s involvement in it
Russia's deliberate targeting of Ukraine's museums follows a pattern of imperial powers looting and despoiling cultural wealth, argues Siobhan McGuirk
Blyth Brentnall describes how a group of activists in the UK has managed to disrupt the activities of one of Israel’s biggest arms suppliers