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How to challenge 4 week forced labour for JSA claimants?
As you will all know, people who have been on Jobseekers Allowance for more than a year can be required to perform 4 weeks forced unpaid labour for a company under threat of having their benefits stopped. I have had three people contact me who have been threatened with forced labour and rightly want to challenge its legality. One is only getting his national insurance credits and is not prepared to do coerced work when he isn’t getting any benefits, another is a former IT consultant who is insulted at being required to do unpaid unskilled labour when he is already highly trained and it will do nothing to enhance his job prospects, the other has been in employment for more than 30 years and considers he is well used to the ‘habit of working’ and doesn’t need to be treated as slave labour to get back into work habits which have not deserted him.
I’m thinking this could be challenged under the Human Rights Act, but might have to be done as a DIY job as I don’t know where you would find the right law firm who would be prepared to take on the challenge and work out if it could fit the legal aid funding criteria.
Or should I simply discuss with them ways to sabotage the particular slave-labour-using companies’ efforts to exploit them?
I have yet to read up on which regulations govern this particularly offensive part of the benefit system to see if there are any loopholes or exceptions. If there are none, I’m back to the Human Rights Act (or are there also anti-slavery laws still in force?)
Any creative ideas?
I don’t know what scheme this is alleged to be done under. The Mandatory Work Activity scheme is currently under consultation and you can find the details on the Social Security Advisory Committee’s website http://www.ssac.org.uk - there’s a link from the home page. This is the one which will allow JCP advisers to mandate claimants to 4 weeks’ compulsory “work activity” of up to 30 hours a week depending on jobseeker’s agreement. The regulations have not yet been made and are in any event not intended to come into force until April 2011, so what your chaps are being told they have to do is beyond me. This will be part of the package of reforms that together will make up the new Work Programme.
If you look at the regs you will see that there will be the usual good cause escape clause.
Maybe ask JCP to explain under what regulations they think they are doing this?
The relevant legislation which is currently in draft form and yet to come into force is The Jobseeker’s Allowance (Mandatory Work Activity) Regulations 2011. These regulations, currently before the Social Security Advisory Committee, will roll out nationally the regime in the Jobseeker’s Allowance (Work for Your Benefit Pilot Scheme) Regulations 2010. The pilot areas for those regulations are Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, Greater Manchester and Central, Greater Manchester East and West and Norfolk. The enabling provision is s17A of The Jobseekers Allowance Act and is set in pretty broad terms.
The DWP briefing to the SSAC states that these regulations are “intended to target the small number of customers who do enough to meet the conditions of their claim while at the same time continually failing to demonstrate the focus and discipline that is a key requirement of finding, securing and retaining employment”. Thus DWP officers who apply these regulations in a broader manner and relatively indiscriminately could well find themselves standing accused of (and I’ll be kind here) over zealous administration and their powers could be reigned in by the tribunals and courts in a similar way that LA powers under RIPA were.
The examples cited in the original post don’t bode well do they as first, the provisions are not in force in Liverpool and second, DWP officers are already trying to throw their weight around by intimidating claimants
As for a HRA challenge under Article 4 that “no one shall be required to perform forced or compulsory labour”, Liberty reported as of February this year that challenges that “a requirement to do work based training as a condition of entitlement to unemployment benefits” based on a breach of Article 4 have not succeeded in the ECHR. However, those kinds of schemes are a long way from what is being proposed here and if it can be successfully argued at least in one case that the DWP are applying the regulations disproportionately the ECHR might be willing to fire a warning shot across its bows. Worth considering I’d say.
However, if anyone had a pretty good case for this the claimant would probably have a good chance to win an appeal under the good cause provisions and it might be difficult to get any article 4 rulings until a case got to the higher courts or the ECHR itself and that could take years.
people who have been on Jobseekers Allowance for more than a year can be required to perform 4 weeks forced unpaid labour for a company under threat of having their benefits stopped.
Can Tokky or 72dudes clarify what is covered by mandatory work activity, please?
There is a related rightsnet News item on 04 January, 2011: Sanctions regime for failing to comply with mandatory work activity ‘very worrying’, says Citizens Advice - Response to SSAC consultation on proposed regulations.
A linked rightsnet News item says: mandatory work activity during the pre-Work Programme stage of a claimant’s ‘customer journey’ will be for up to thirty hours a week and take place over a four week period, with the aim of helping those referred to develop ‘crucial disciplines’ associated with full time employment, while at the same time making a ‘contribution’ to their community;
The Citizens Advice response to the SSAC consultation on the jobseeker’s allowance mandatory work activity regulations 2011 comments as follows on the Content of MWA placement (section 4.4):
It is very important that the placements are tailored to the needs of claimants as reflected in their JSA agreements. …We note that there will be no extra payments available to MWA participants. …The placements are expected to produce additional benefits to the community, with the suggestion that they may therefore be with community, charity or voluntary organisations. It is our view that this requirement further complicates the proposals. Firstly, if participants are not volunteers there is a risk that the ethos of the organisation is undermined. There is an element of the proposal that begins to make the scheme sound like community service; yet the claimants have not been found guilty of anything other than being unable to find work …Finally, the EM states that the placements must be additional to existing or expected job vacancies. While this is clearly welcome, DWP must monitor placements offered to ensure that they are genuinely additional.
These MWA stories are about draft proposals from April 2011, so are we just talking here about the pilot schemes mentioned by nevip? Mainly, I’m concerned to know how mandatory work activity means that people who have been on Jobseekers Allowance for more than a year can be required to perform 4 weeks forced unpaid labour for a company?
[ Edited: 6 Jan 2011 at 05:51 pm by Robbie Spence ]If you go to the SSAC home page http://www.ssac.org.uk/ you will find a link to the consultation documents and also to the press release inviting responses to the consultation exercise. The consultation closed on 20 December 2010. The consultation documents will tell you far more than you actually want to know about this.
The Committee has not yet reported on the consultation to the Government, who then have to prepare and publish their response before the regulations can be laid before Parliament (they are still in draft). This does not require new primary legislation as it can all be done within existing powers created by the Jobseekers Act.
Does anyone know whether disabled people doing Flexible New Deal mandatory work related activity are having reasonable adjustments made for them or not. There was a piece in the Guardian Comment is Free about this the other week and I’d like to find out if it is a widespread issue.
While i am not in favour of companies using the registered unemployed as a free labour force I do feel all 6 months or more unemployed should have to do some voluntary charitable work ( for a registered charity )-with flexibility to attend job interviews etc. I really dont see how anyone can take offence at something like that especially if they can choose there own charity and type of work. I bet alot of charities would appreciate a voluntary IT consultant or whatever.
...I do feel all 6 months or more unemployed should have to do some voluntary charitable work….
- voluntary work should be compulsory - is that what you are suggesting?
...They should stop complaining about being asked to do unpaid work for four weeks.
Are you being ironic or serious? The latest story at http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/news/story/government-considering-compulsory-community-work-for-long-term-unemployed (9.11.11) says “...people who have been through the Work Programme for two years and have not found sustainable employment will be required to undertake at least 26 weeks community work for 30 hours a week, or lose entitlement to jobseeker’s allowance”
Does anyone know if this is 30 hours a week at national minimum wage (ie £182.40 a week) or 30 hours a week for JSA rate, eg £67.50, which equates to £2.25 an hour?
Is it hearsay that these claimants are £land’s army of unemployed waiting for the chance to move into the shoes of those who’s ‘work experience’ session has expired?
The 28-week idea is just kite-flying at the moment. It will need legislation to bring into effect.
But give them time….
I am serious. I was unemployed for 9 years 1980-1989 untill I got my current job. I have no problem with unemployed doing 4 weeks work for their dole.
I do not believe the 30 weeks Community Program will come in as it will cost money to implement and supervise, money which the current government have not got.
Thank goodness I am not the only one :-D
Hear hear jan
Yes, well said Jan.
Good article that. If the bare facts of the article are to be believed then not only did DWP officials lie to claimants but also lied to the businesses as well. About par for the course for them I would say.
If we go back to Tokky’s original question when he posted this, concerning a potential human rights challenge, I was quite hopeful that one would be brought so I am glad to see PIL bringing one.
The meaning of Volunteering is in the word - VOLUNTARY = having done by free will.
There’s a massive difference between forced labour and vounteering and we shouldn’t confuse them.
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