(en) Britain, Bristol Anarchist Federation Take Action Against Homebase Lets Stop Workfare in its Tracks

UPDATE: Homebase are feeling the heat, time to turn it up! Bristol Demo This saturday ( 
Facebook / Indymedia ) Bath on Sunday ( Facebook / Indymedia) and two demos called in 
London. More in the works? In the mean time keep up the pressure online! ---- Yesterday, 
sources including Tom Prides blog, revealed that Homebase had been recruiting unpaid 
workers via a ?work experience program?. Even worse they were actually boasting about 
getting extra hours of work by exploiting job seekers and reducing their ?payroll costs?. 
A poster was spotted in a management office asking ?would 750 hours with no payroll 
costs benefit your store??. Few companies are this brutally honest about their 
motivations! ---- Our first response was to ?politely contact? homebase online, and we 
were far from the only ones. Angry comments on twitter & facebook were popping up faster 
than they could delete them.

They managed to remove ours, only for a many of our facebook friends to repost it. All 
these responses seemed to worry the management at Homebase and they quickly put out a 
couple of rushed statements including:

?[..] The company has not signed up to the workfare programme, but, on occasions, works 
with local organisations to help unemployed people into the workplace. A number of 
unemployed people have recently joined our Haringey store through JobCentre Plus in a 
short, voluntary programme, to gain work experience. They are entirely under no obligation 
to participate, nor will non participation affect any benefits. Colleagues at this store 
also have not been impacted by this programme in any reduction of hours.? and ?Some of our 
best colleagues have joined us having previously been unemployed [...]?

Even on a first read through these statements seem to be full of double speak and blatant 
lies. They start by saying they haven?t signed up to workfare but then describe a workfare 
scheme they have evidently signed up to! They move on to say it is voluntary even though 
it has been repeatedly revealed that the job centre forces people onto so-called 
?voluntary? schemes, by threatening them with sanctions, telling them the only 
alternative is an even worse mandatory scheme, illegally giving inaccurate information 
and not explaining to them their right to refuse.

Next they say that the workfare scheme has not impacted staff or reduced over time hours, 
boycott workfare quickly exposed this as an outright lie with a staff member reporting 
massive reductions in overtime. They also revealed that Homebase isn?t offering any of 
their unpaid workers jobs, hardly surprising given the fact that only 4% of people on the 
work program end up with steady job. As for their claim that some people who got a job 
with them were unemployed before hand? Well surely this is true anywhere, its quite 
common to be unemployed before you get a job!

We?re calling on individuals and groups around the country to join us in taking action 
against Homebase. (facebook event)


Bristol AFed, SolFed and friends at one of our previous anti-workfare demonstrations
We propose that people keep up the contact and criticism via their twitter, facebook, you 
tube, customer email, media enquiries email, post box, and telephone. Then, if Homebase 
has not 100% officially backed out of all methods of exploiting unpaid workers at the 
expense of their paid staff, we call on people to hold protests at their local homebase 
store a week from now, on Saturday the 13th and Sunday the 14th of APRIL. If there isn?t a 
Homebase close by, why not hold a protest at an Argos instead, seeing as it also uses 
workfare in the same way and is owned by the same parent company!

If you are thinking of joining in with the national days of action against Homebase, we 
highly recommend you speak to the staff working in the shop before hand. If you work their 
yourself, or know someone that does, this is ideal. Even if you don?t it is worth going 
down before your protest and politely talking to staff in a relaxed way. Make it clear 
that your protest is not aimed at them, but at the management and owners of homebase. 
Explain how if this isn?t stopped it could negatively affect their jobs. Encourage them 
to get together and talk to other members of staff at Homebase, and consider joining a 
workplace group or union to fight to protect and improve their pay and conditions (we 
would recommend the IWW or Solidarity Federation, but the choice will depend on the local 
situation).

We will be calling for a picket and protest at our local Homebase, in the mean time we 
have set up a Facebook Event to help people network, share ideas, and advertise their 
local events. We also suggest using the Boycott Workfare and UK Uncut websites to help 
network with other people in your area.

Calling a protest doesn?t have to take a lot of time, print off some leaflets (feel free 
to copy anything from our last workfare leaflet ? we will post links to other leaflets 
produced (send ?em to us!) so people can copy them if they don?t feel like writing their 
own), make some placards and banners, text call and speak to your mates, then publicise 
the event online or on any community notice boards etc.

Additionally, this is the demand we?ve made of Homebase, what would be enough for you to 
call off your action may vary:

Release a binding statement that clearly states 1) you will never participate in any 
workfare schemes nationally or locally*1 2) Homebase will stop all current involvement 
with all schemes (including the ?work experience program?) that equate to people working 
for you for no money*2 3) you apologise for the callous nature of the poster that was up 
in a management office (a picture of which is bellow) and will investigate the manager(s) 
responsible 4) You compensate anyone who has been on such a scheme with you, and if a paid 
position is available offer them a job should they decide they want one. Due to the 
circumstances of the job offer it should be completely acceptable for someone to refuse, 
homebase should work with the job centre to ensure this in itself does not lead to 
sanctions. This absolutely must not impact on hours, overtime or pay for current staff 
members.

*1with the definition of workfare being any scheme where unemployed people work for you 
without pay, including (but not limited to) so-called ?work experience? schemes operated 
by the job centre and private companies.

*2 Homebase will also ensure that no one suffers any sanctions due to the scheme ending, 
something they should actively pursue and check up on with the relevent job centres.

As always any questions, comments, suggestions or criticisms then drop us an email or 
leave a comment.

LINX at 
https://bristolaf.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/take-action-against-homebase-lets-stop-workfare-in-its-tracks/