- Conference
- 2009 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 23 February 2009
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Conference believes that the importance of public services is being seen in this recession as public authorities deal with rising unemployment and social need across the UK.
However the welfare safety net has been cut back repeatedly over the last 30 years and benefit levels, particularly Job Seekers Allowance (JSA), are set far below any acceptable standard even before the latest series of measures.
Conference believes in a welfare system based around decent work, affordable childcare, equal opportunities, skills training, decent benefit levels and fair taxation.
Conference finds alarmingly that many aspects of the Welfare Reform White Paper and Bill are wrong in principle and in timing. Extra benefit conditionality and compulsion can force people into unsuitable interviews and low paid work that they soon leave. Increasing pressure is being put on parents and carers to seek work and to move onto JSA.
Conference rejects proposals by the Conservative party and even some elements of new Labour who have called for the benefit, housing and taxation system to penalise and stigmatise single parents. Often presenting single parents as having children in order to gain access to benefits, housing etc. Further Conference opposes the draconian measure being introduced by the new Labour government to force single parents to work, often when there is not the adequate or appropriate childcare and the required time.
Measures that Conference would welcome (extra training, rapid response teams, employer bonuses, apprenticeship expansion) that have been announced by the government to stem job losses and help the new unemployed back into work, will be jeopardised by this whole approach.
Whilst Conference welcomes proposals to expand both the Access to Work scheme (for disabled workers) and the child maintenance disregard we remain fundamentally opposed to the expansion of the profit motive in welfare services as proposed by the Freud Review. Such an approach could lead to certain workers easy to get back in to work being prioritised and those with more extensive needs left behind.
Conference is opposed to the continuing cuts in the excellent Job Centre services and notes that measures from the 2007 legislation are only now just coming on stream, for example Employment and Support Allowance replacing Incapacity Benefit
Furthermore, a trial of the American ‘workfare’ scheme whereby the long term unemployed have to work for free or lose their benefits is exploitation. It also undermines the wage levels of low paid workers in the local economy. Conference opposes in principle private companies being involved and keeping benefit savings obtained when someone is placed in work and trials of workfare due for 2010.
Conference, therefore, calls on the National Executive Council to:
1)Continue to pursue our objections against the regressive measures in the Welfare reform white paper and Bill in Parliament during 2009 and 2010;
2)Campaign for a fairer welfare system that supports not penalises workers and their families including lone parent families.;
3)Campaign for an increase in state benefit levels and statutory redundancy pay;
4)Work with our members in the voluntary sector to ensure fair funding for the many specialised providers that legitimately supplement the Job Centre Plus services;
5)Work with user groups, welfare trade unions, the TUC, Scottish TUC, Wales TUC and Irish Congress of Trade Unions to promote a fair welfare safety net.
Conference therefore resolves to:
a)Campaign against benefit reforms that do not further these aims;
b)Work closely with the TUC and with relevant campaigns such as Gingerbread and others;