Yesterday our demo was a very busy one. From the minute we arrived to the minute we left we were inundated with terrible stories and people desperate for help. Nothing really shocks us anymore but it’s becoming very clear to see that universal credit is destroying life’s for both working and non working people.
A man who wanted to remain nameless has been claiming universal credit but he got sick so he did the responsible thing, he went to his doctor and got a sick note. The doctor stated on his sick note his medical condition so he took it into the Jobcentre. He was told that this sick note wasn’t good enough and that he needed to get another one because it needed the words written on it.. “He’s got worse”. He went back to the doctor got another sick note but the doctor quite rightly said I can’t write that in a sick note but I can write your condition which will explain it. He took his third sick note in and they said again… It’s not good enough. Since when were the Jobcentre advisors or coaches as they now like to be called fully trained medical officials? This man is very obviously Ill. He was cold and hungry and very fed up about the whole situation. He said that all they have ever done to him is to treat him like rubbish, like something that you step on in the street. He’s not had any money for a long time now either. He said they he felt like what they wanted him to do was to disappear and not to come back because they just want to save money regardless. He’s right they do. We let him use one of our phones to make a claim for esa because he didn’t have any access to a phone and the Jobcentres no longer have any phones available to the public.
Another man came over and spoke to us. He’s unfortunate enough to be claiming universal credit. They have totally messed his money around and has had a total of £420 paid to him since last September. This had to be used to pay his rent. He is now in the process of being evicted from his home because he’s hasn’t had any more money due to their mistake. He’s now preparing to say
goodbye to his home that he’s had for many years. He hasn’t had any money for food, gas or electric and is surviving on a day to day basis from the kindness of friends and foodbanks. Universal credit is an evil cruel system. At one click of a button a persons every lifeline is cut off. It’s evil in my eyes. Yesterday four people came to us and told us that they were being evicted from their homes due to universal credit mistakes by the dwp. These people hadn’t spent their money because they hadn’t received their money.
A woman walked over to us yesterday. She said that even though she had only £19 to her name and wouldn’t have anymore money for a while she would like to give us 50p towards our cause. We tried to refuse this saying that she didn’t have enough money but she wasn’t listening. So she accepted a nice warm hat and gloves because she was freezing.
This is what we are dealing with on a weekly basis but this is happening on a massive scale everyday to thousands of people up and down the country. Please join us in opposing this and do whatever you can to fight against this punishing regime.
Many thanks to everyone who attended yesterday and to everyone who supports us. Many thanks to karl who brought us all a hot cuppa we need it.
We are in need of donations of hats, gloves and scarfs so if you are passing and you have one spare please drop one off. Thank you so much.
Making a phone call on one of our phones because the Jobcentre have now no facilities for telephone calls and this gentleman needed some help. This government should be ashamed.
Better Together is a Benefits Peer Support Group operating in Blackburn Lancashire. We are interested in producing a Sanction Support Pack and would like to meet up with your group one Thursday at the Jobcentre in Ashton.
Please contact us to discuss things thanks.
LikeLike
Hi Edward that would be fantastic please email me on seercharlotte71@hotmail.co.uk and we can discuss this
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Same Difference.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on amnesiaclinic and commented:
Beastrabban reminds us, ‘Ashton-Under-Lyme is, of course, the Jobcentre, whose sanctions system has resulted in the deaths of two men within the same number of weeks. This is the reality of the IDS’ perverted schemes – hunger, homelessness and death.’
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog and commented:
Seercharlotte71 gives her account of the demonstration staged on Thursday at Ashton-Under-Lyne against the sanctions system. Among the stories they were told by claimants, the sick and the unemployed, were the statement by four people that, due to not receiving money from the DWP, they were being evicted. One man, who was being evicted, had been paid, but the DWP had totally messed up the amount due and it was massively insufficient.
The main story in the piece is of the sick man, who was told by the Jobcentre that his sicknote was insufficient. This shows you how twisted, malign and illogical the system is, when the informed opinion of a medical professional is disregarded by a poorly trained bureaucrat, with absolutely no medical knowledge but a quota to fill. But then, everything about the Work Capability Test and the sanctions system is based on pseudoscience.
Ashton-Under-Lyme is, of course, the Jobcentre, whose sanctions system has resulted in the deaths of two men within the same number of weeks. This is the reality of the IDS’ perverted schemes – hunger, homelessness and death.
LikeLike
I had my JSA stopped after I signed a sicknote due to hypothermia. I was then accused by them for taking ketamine As symptoms are simpler.
My living situation is in crisis, the house I’m living in at the moment is like a building site due to an extention being built andd he was escaping the house quite quickly. Temperature dropped below freezing and cause me illness.
Thankfully my part time bar work keeps me sane!
For the weekends anyway!
LikeLike
That’s terrible they are not doctors
LikeLike
Reblogged this on lawrencerowntree.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Benefit tales.
LikeLike
i am on esa work related , and being forced to do things that are making my condition worse , told the work provda who says i am on 3 months propgnossis so fit for work , complained to DWP who insuist 3 months prognoses does not mean that , means will be rea assesed in 3 months , but work provda is refusing to call the DWP .i wa put on esa wothout a medical assesment as the DWP were satified with my documentation , so no ATOS , insted been found fit to worke by the sadistic work provda
LikeLike
That’s terrible Chris I hope your ok x
LikeLike
I will happily knit you some gloves and hats – I can do a couple of pairs of gloves in no time in the first instance, and I’ll ask other members of my WI if they might contribute. Email me and we’ll sort it out.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you please can you email me on seercharlotte71@hotmail.co.uk
LikeLike
Hats off for you guys .I had no idea there was a demo in ASHTON Under LYNE ON THE 14-2-2015 I could have popped down and offered my support in some way.Im distressed to see so many hard working people also having to rely on food banks .Many years ago i was sofa surfing with a 16 month old child and the only people that cared were my family and friends so i have a vague understanding of what some people are up against.Maybe a group like yours should start to build a fund to pay for one trip to the court of human rights and get the ball rolling.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Angela I remember you. I hope that you are ok and please stop and say hello again. It would be a dream to take them to the court of European rights x.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sorry I’m mistaking you for another lady. We are there every Thursday please stop by and say hello xx
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Jay's Journal and commented:
Disgraceful things going on in the Job Centres – especially those who are using UC…
LikeLike
Have shared with my twitter followers and reblogged on aspiblog. There seems to be something even more rotten about this jobcentre than about most – this is not the first time I have come across horror stories concerning it.
LikeLike
Thank you it’s the flagship Jobcentre that’s why
LikeLike
Reblogged this on aspiblog and commented:
These stories will make your blood boil…
LikeLike
REVOLUTION
LikeLike
Are the Select Committee being told about all these dreadful stories? They need them for evidence!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes they are but they never reply to you
LikeLike
The experience of sick notes not being good enough is something we at DEAEP http://www.deaepleicester.moonfruit.com/ finding often?!!!
LikeLike
Charlotte, you are ALL STARS! Please copy this to the Green Left group like the other one you did, thanks. I will share it anyway. x
LikeLike
Thank you x
LikeLike
Reblogged this on markcatlin3695's Blog and commented:
I’m so glad there are people out there who care enough about others to stand-up for what is right. You all have my full support and respect. Thankyou to ALL!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on Britain Isn't Eating.
LikeLike
Nothing but sheer cruel heartless fascism
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on Citizens, not serfs.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Social Action.
LikeLike
Why can’t these unfortunate people [or one person make a test case] by approaching Human Rights lawyers? Because denying sustenance & a ‘roof’ to people is against article 25 of the HR act.
“(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”
Something has got to give and someone [in this situation] has got to take the government to the ECHR, if only to stop these atrocities.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The reason benefit claimants. who lose their benefit due to a sanction, can’t take legal action is because they have NO MONEY & NO INCOME. Poor people used to be able to get legal aid to pay solicitors fees but this has also been cut. Solicitors don’t work for free and so there is no way benefit claimants can take action. The whole situation for millions of UK people is appalling under the Coalition. However, there’s no reason to expect it to be any better for benefit claimants under Labour as they have promised to be “Tougher than Tories” on welfare. I’ve had a number of Labour supporters have a go at me on twitter because I will not support or vote for Labour, I am unable to work and am dependent on benefits as I am a full-time carer for my severely disabled son. It’s as if Labour supporters are expecting people like me to support Labour because it will be better for people in the “squeezed middle” so beloved of Ed Miliband. It’s a nightmare for the poor in the UK and it’s going to get worse whether Labour or Conservatives win.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It certainly will. Labour want another 4 years of austerity. Everyone should be reminded of this fact.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I hear what you are saying but if you don’t vote for Labour then you have no chance of changing the system or the way that Labour are becoming as right as the Tories. I so very hope that Labour need to have the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens to make up a government as these other parties will push to have Labour taken to the left again – they will do everything in their power to make them see the way they are no longer the party for the people and that so many of Labour are career politicians. You will find that in the other parties career politicians are less in numbers and that can only be a good thing.
LikeLike
There was a hearing in the European court of human rights. We lost however a person who is sanctioned has no money at all so can’t go to court. That’s if they survive their sanctioning
LikeLike
A large petition about the loss of the state pension, vital food and fuel money when benefit is being lost to sufferers of so-called welfare reform that is more about abolition, is about to be put to government in mid-March, before parliament shuts at the end of March to get ready for the general election on Thursday 7 May 2015.
http://you.38degrees.org.uk/p/statepensionlaw
Information about the con that is the flat rate pension
for those retiring from 2016 next year,
that threatens
nil state pension for life,
is under my information petition, in my WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT section, at:
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now
Signing both
Because current pensioners are threatened with growing conditionality of Pension Credit from 2016, and we all know what that means.
This will force Labour’s Miliband and Balls to say, formally in front of parliament, whether Labour will revoke the Coalition’s Pensions Bills from 2010-2014 (latter brought in flat rate pension 2016 law).
Spread it between social media and by word of mouth.
Because one signer of my petition was told he could not claim his state pension until he was 73 under Universal Credit rules because his wife was 5 years younger than him. He had already been given a retirement age of 68. He may, indeed, get little or nil state pension after 2016.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on sdbast.
LikeLike
This is absolutely disgraceful. This Jobcentre needs serious investigation, does the local MP get involved, can he or she take it up with DWP?
LikeLiked by 1 person
We have challenged them. They know that they are acting illegally but aren’t scared because they investigate themselves. Our local m.p has acted on behalf of many claimants at this Jobcentre everyone is aware. But it comes down to the fact that they investigate themselves and they ignore the law.
LikeLike
Had the guy who they were telling to get his sicknote changed been found fit for work in the previous six months?
LikeLike
No but he asked to be kept anonymous so I need to respect this
LikeLike
Reblogged this on L8in.
LikeLike