Low Pay Britain

Not one of the high street chains is willing to pay a living wage.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/not-a-single-high-street-chain-will-commit-to-the-living-wage-investigation-finds-10109741.html

They rake in vast profits, pay their shareholders, and we subsidise their profits.

The latest on paying below the minimum wage.

www.corporatewatch.org.uk/care-company-mihomecare-mitie-staff-minimum-wage

I wonder if there are any politicians on the board.

I am watching work and pensions questions in parliament.
The latest government line seems to be that all statistics except theirs are false. Except that they do not collect statistics, according to Esther McVey!

Councils do the opposite of what the government says they should, because councils are cash strapped, too.

Council tax changes are needed to help poverty-stricken families and single people.

www.theguardian.com/money/2015/mar/09/councils-using-aggressive-enforcement-and-bailiffs-to-recover-debts-says-charity

The 3 things that 38 degrees are most interested in are
saving the NHS
stopping the TTIP and
stopping tax dodging.

All of these will help the low paid.

https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/m/74c07ef5/2d420d21/43ab0c86/464b2acf/904456902/VEsA/
Last weekends 38 degrees action. It wouldn't have happened if lots of people had not been concerned.

There aren't that many more in the last 50 years, soontobe.
Harold Wilson was good enough to scare the establishment into telling lies about him.

Is there any UK Prime Minister in say the last 50 years, who seems to have been a good one, after they have left office?

Goes back to Thatcher who said there was no such thing as society. Blair just carried on her ideas, and Cameron wants to take us back to the thirties.

www.welfareweekly.com/food-banks-benefit-sanctions-leave-clients-hungry-for-months/

I do not see how anyone can contemplate voting for a party that thinks this is acceptable.

That would be the bit that said "skip survey" then Ana and Jen. I am blushing furiously It was a nicely factual article.

I am sure you are right Eloethan. I seem to remember some petitions have made a difference. Sanctioning has an appeal to quite a few, sadly, so making the point is always going to be difficult.

It just seems to anti-democratic. I know if I keep saying that it won't actually help but I find it hard to believe that those who don't see it, can't see it. Perhaps it shows how far we have moved to the right over the last five years. Actually probably more than that as I would happily lay the death of social democracy in England at Tony Blairs door.

I shall have another look. Thank you both.

There's an option to skip the questionnaire/survey, gracesgran.

Sorry, gracesgran, what's difficult to follow?

I never had to answer a questionnaire.

I agree Eloethan about the number of petitions, but, as you say, it's not a reason not to sign up to any.
The petitions I tend to put links up to are the government e-petitions, or on www.change.org, both of which have actually had some results.

People's Assembly also have some good petitions.

I cannot go to some of the meetings I would like to, so I join in online.
It would cost me a lot of money to get to meetings, so I subsidise those groups that need it, and allow fitter people to have their say physically.

Just read on one of the sites I linked to about four of the Tory posters at the last election.

"I'll cut the deficit, not the NHS.

No Ifs, No Buts, I'll get immigration down to the tens of thousands.

There will be no top-down reorganisation of the NHS.

If we don't deliver, vote us out."

I wonder if the Tories remember that last one.

There are a huge number of petitions and I can understand people questioning whether they change anything.

However, I believe there are several examples of policies, or individual cases, being reviewed and changed - and certainly some big companies have changed their practices with regard to health and safety and working conditions for workers in developing countries. If significant numbers of people sign, it sometimes does make a difference.

That's very hard to follow and you have to answer a questionnaire in order to read the whole article Jen but thank you for tracking it down.

I do agree that the journalists are not reporting it but I think it is as much because they still delude themselves that they make the news instead of reporting it as that so many have a right wing bias.

www.welfareweekly.com/one-in-five-jobseekers-hammered-by-benefit-sanctions-says-expert/

The unions are doing lots about it, gracesgran. It's just the media do not publish it because the media are mainly Tory controlled.

voxpoliticalonline.com/2015/03/03/cost-to-jobseekers-of-benefit-sanctions-rockets-3000-per-cent-welfare-weekly/

Gracesgran, you asked if there was a campaign. I told you there was one, and now you are saying you can't be bothered.
That's why petitions do not work, because people who are concerned can't be bothered to sign up to them.

I have lost a little faith in petitions Jen but thank you for putting the link on.

Perhaps a letter to my MP is necessary. I am very anti the secrecy of the family courts - although I see why it has happened - and I think the same lack of justice applies here.

I do feel the unions have missed a trick with this. Unionism is very isolationist. It's almost as if the way they work went into aspic when the Labour party was formed. I wonder if the Greens have a view on this?

This would be interesting to go to if I could.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2015/03/07/edinburgh-on-wednesday-see-you-there/

Is this what you want, Gracesgran?

epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/64635

gillybob It was indeed a Labour government that brought in tuition fees and it wouldn't have got the vote through had it not been for the Scottish MPs who voted in favour even though it had nothing to do with Scotland.

I didn't see it - in a way, I'm glad I didn't!

Gracesgran: unless we can get enough people to realize what is really happening, so that some might actually give a damn, as my children would say, then I don't know what can be done either.

People have no idea. They hear the word "sanctions" and probably assume that lazy, feckless scroungers who haven't made any effort to find a job have had their benefit reduced for a while. I doubt very much if many realize that benefit is stopped totally and for the most minor of excuses (such as being 10 minutes early for an appointment as opposed to 15 mins early), and sometimes for the most unfair or downright crazy reasons imaginable.

All we can do is keep trying to draw people's attention to reality - as opposed to the lies that the Government and DWP keep repeating. However, it's clear from the clichéd responses given over and over again by some Gransnetters every time anything relating to benefits is mentioned, that most are happy in their ignorance and will continue believing what they want to be true no matter what.

It's an uphill struggle.

I saw it and was appalled but what can we actually do about it. I feel there should be a campaign akin to the "not in my name" one. Something like the "I didn't vote for this" but I would have no idea how to go about it. It seems contra to all our views of justice but again, what can be done?

Yes, I saw that and I was appalled. The decisions on sanctioning are made by clerks on the desk. They did not have to be passed to senior management for approval. There was no system for immediate appeal and the sanctioned person has no right of reply or representation.

The only word I can use to describe the system is kangaroo courts.

Did anyone else watch last Monday's Dispatches about Britain's Benefit Crackdown?
A Housing Association was going to evict a man who could not get to his course every day because he was in pain most of the time. He had two daughters who were worried at how thin he was getting and the fact that he was falling over a lot. He had been sanctioned and owed £136 to the Association. He was being given enough money to pay the council tax for the spare room that he needed for his daughters to visit him at weekends.
DWP's response was that he could have a hardship loan.

Under FOI requests the churches found out that 93,000 children live with a parent who has been sanctioned. The DWP response was that it does not recognise those figures.

I know who I believe.

Last year 3000 ESA claimants a month were being sanctioned.

I am sure all these people are really glad that they live in this country and are grateful for what they are given!