(en) Australia, Anarchist Affinity - The Platform #2 - Welfare Attacks and Collective Resistance by Rebecca Winter

The Liberal government has initiated one of the most significant attacks on the rights and 
conditions of welfare recipients in Australia that has been seen in decades. ---- The cuts 
---- One of the key changes proposed is tightened restrictions and greater compliance 
requirements for unemployed people under 30 on Newstart or Youth Allowance payments. From 
July 2015, young people will be forced to endure a six-month 'waiting period' before they 
will receive any unemployment benefits (a 'hunger period' or 'homeless period' might be a 
more accurate description). During this period welfare claimants will be required to look 
for 40 jobs per month or risk an extended removal of support, even if they find casual or 
part-time work. Unemployed young people will also have to wait until they are 25 (rather 
than 22) to receive the marginally more liveable Newstart payment, which provides $100 
more a fortnight than Youth Allowance.

After the six month wait, welfare recipients will be forced to do 25 hours of 'Work for 
the Dole' each week in 'individual work-like situations'. If we think of a dole payment as 
the 'wage' for this labour, this means that if you're on Youth Allowance you will be paid 
$8.29 an hour for your efforts, or $10.61 for those on Newstart, which is well below the 
minimum wage of $16.87 an hour. And after six months of this, young unemployed people will 
once again have their payments removed for a further six months. The cycle begins again!

Young people on the Disability Support Pension (DSP) will also be hard hit by these 
attacks. If young people receiving the DSP are assessed to be able to work more than eight 
hours a week, they will be forced to undertake Work for the Dole or other job search 
activities in order to keep their payment. Young people who started receiving the DSP 
between 2008 and 2011 will also be re-assessed, and new tightened eligibility requirements 
will be applied, which means that some people who previously received this support will 
have it taken away.

The recent release of the interim McClure review into welfare paints a grim picture of 
future limitations on the DSP and expanded income management. The report recommends that 
the Disability Support Payment be restricted to claimants with a 'permanent' disability 
who have no capacity to work. Claimants who do not fulfil this condition would be moved 
onto unemployment payments, and would most likely receive lower payments than if they were 
receiving the DSP. This proposed change would target the majority of people on the DSP who 
either have a disability with periodic effects, or who have a long-term disability but 
nonetheless would be considered to have some capacity to work. McClure has noted that this 
proposed change will specifically target people with mental illnesses, such as depression.

The review also recommends that income management be expanded across Australia, so that 
young unemployed people and single mothers can only spend their dole payments on certain 
products from certain stores. Both the Labor Party and the Liberals have indicated that 
they would support the expansion of income management.

These changes will have a drastic impact on the lives of those who rely on government 
benefits. For those suffering through six months without any source of income, or DSP 
claimants now found to be to be ineligible for this payment, life looks bleak. Youth 
unemployment is currently at 12%. At least 700,000 people will be affected by these 
changes over the next four years, 550,000 of whom will be forced to apply for emergency 
relief services. These proposed cuts to welfare would 'save' $1.2 billion - a miniscule 
figure compared to the $12.4 billion to be spent on new military jets.

There are many reasons why we must create an organised resistance to these cuts and 
increased restrictions. The human impact of forcing hundreds of thousands of people onto 
even more inadequate welfare payments, or removing their access to this support entirely, 
is the most obvious and frightening consequence of these policies. Existing non-government 
forms of support for those living in poverty are already overwhelmed and under resourced. 
No one knows how unemployed young people whose support is removed will find the resources 
to survive through six month periods without any source of income. This will have its 
greatest impact on the most marginalised and oppressed groups of unemployed young people - 
those unable to access material support from their families, those fleeing abusive 
situations, people facing racist or anti-queer discrimination, or those living in rural 
areas where jobs are scarce.

Welfare, discipline and capitalism

It's important to think about the role that attacks on welfare play in the
capitalist system. Capitalism requires regular measures to depress wages in order to 
continue existing. For capitalists to increase their profits and minimise labour costs - 
to maximise exploitation - they must continually try to find ways to pay workers less. In 
contemporary times, we are told that this keeps the labour market 'competitive' and 
'flexible.' In reality, this means keeping workers poorly paid and unable or too scared to 
fight for better conditions.

The current welfare system in Australia is, in part, the result of successful working 
class struggles for survival under capitalism. However, these changes highlight the fact 
that contemporary welfare regimes also play a powerful disciplinary role in maintaining a 
compliant and highly exploited workforce. The highly bureaucratised, dehumanising and 
inadequate character of Australia's welfare system benefits capitalists and their state 
allies by making unemployment as miserable an experience as possible. A highly 
disciplinary welfare system puts bosses and owners in a better position as a class to 
maximise the exploitation of their workers. Inadequate welfare makes it harder for workers 
to leave shit jobs which are underpaid or have unfair conditions. It also increases the 
risks of workplace organising, as young workers may face the prospect of having no income 
if they participate in industrial action and lose their job as a result of standing up for 
themselves and others.

Forcing young people to work for their dole payments provides a source of cheap or free 
labour to capitalists and allows them to drag down the wages of other workers. As Joseph 
Kay, from the syndicalist union Solidarity Federation, comments, measures like Work for 
the Dole are "a massive state subsidy to private capital." In the UK, where 'Workfare' (an 
equivalent to Work for the Dole) was implemented across the country in 2011, there are 
documented instances of welfare claimants being used as a free replacement for part-time 
or casual staff. For instance, in 2012 Asda sent workers home over Christmas and replaced 
them with welfare claimants on Workfare. Work for the Dole programs also function to 
create an especially vulnerable category of workers. Welfare claimants on Work for the 
Dole cannot refuse to work, which means that if they complain about workplace conditions 
or take part in industrial action, they will risk being sanctioned for non-compliance and 
losing their dole payment with nothing else to fall back on.

One important thing to remember is that government measures to discipline workers are 
often trialled on the most oppressed sections of the working class. Income management was 
a key part of the 2007 Northern Territory Intervention. The Howard government justified 
its implementation by playing on racist and colonialist stereotypes about Aboriginal 
people being unable to manage their own affairs. Income management was introduced to 73 
Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, and affected over 20,000 claimants. 
Income management has since been extended to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal welfare 
recipients in Bankstown (NSW), Logan, Rockhampton and Livingstone, (QLD), Playford (SA) 
and Greater Shepparton (VIC). It is now likely that income management will be extended 
even further to cover welfare claimants across Australia. Thus, the prediction made by 
many Aboriginal activists that attacks on the rights of Aboriginal welfare claimants
will be extended to other sections of the working class is becoming a reality.

If the McClure review's recommendations about income management are accepted, we may see 
Australia follow the UK's example and combine Work for the Dole with large scale income 
management. Through this, welfare claimants will be forced to labour for free for selected 
capitalists and then forced to spend their government benefits at these same shops, thus 
creating a double subsidy for capital. For instance, UK welfare recipients have been 
forced to work for companies like Asda and have then been required to use their welfare 
payments to buy from them as well, guaranteeing Asda both sales and free labour.

These examples highlight the coercive and exploitative character of the proposed welfare 
changes. These attacks will function to increase the coercive forces which affect both 
people currently working and the unemployed by placing both groups in a more economically 
precarious and less powerful bargaining position. The welfare cuts also allow the state to 
exert greater control over people's lives, by imposing certain forms of employment and 
certain purchasing patterns.

UK opposition to Workfare and Atos

When thinking about how we can successfully resist these cuts, we can look to welfare 
activists in the UK for inspiration. In 2011, the UK state announced the introduction of 
Workfare - a scheme similar to Work for the Dole under which welfare claimants are forced 
to do unpaid labour. The Boycott Workfare campaign was created in response, supported by 
the activities of Solidarity Federation. This direct action campaign targeted companies 
using Workfare labour in a name and shame campaign which involved hundreds of pickets 
outside businesses across the UK. The campaign has achieved some important wins, by 
forcing at least 35 companies to reject Workfare as a result of the pickets. The Boycott 
Workfare campaign was accompanied by other, more specific, initiatives, such as the 'Keep 
Volunteering Voluntary' campaign. As part of this campaign, more than 393 organisations 
which use volunteers across the UK committed to boycott government Workfare schemes.

UK welfare activists also organised political actions against the notorious French 
corporation Atos, which was contracted by the state to determine who should be entitled to 
disability welfare payments and whether they should be forced to work. Atos decisions 
resulted in many people with a serious need for care being deprived of economic support. 
Significant numbers of people died or committed suicide in the aftermath of having this 
support withdrawn, some while waiting for the results of their appeals. David Coupe, 
despite being housebound with a back injury, ulcers and diabetes, had his welfare 
entitlements cut as a result of an Atos assessment, and received no welfare for the last 
10 months of his life before dying as a result of cancer. Pickets across the UK were 
organised by welfare claimants at the offices of Atos and forced the company into an early 
withdrawal from their contract. In Southend, some Atos workers even joined the protesters 
picketing their office. While Atos's back-down was a small victory, this fight is not 
over. Other companies, including Serco and G4S, are vying for a new UK government contract 
for similar services. Thus, the same companies who act as prison guards in Australian 
detention centres, and prisons across the globe, may become responsible for disciplining 
welfare claimants in the UK. Like the Pinkertons, these corporations are the private 
police of contemporary capitalism.

One emerging arena of struggle in the UK is the call for solidarity from welfare claimants 
to workers in the government or private agencies contracted to carry out the most punitive 
and exploitative aspects of the welfare system. In 2013, emails were leaked showing UK job 
centre employees are required to meet 'sanction targets' for welfare recipients, and job 
centres are ranked against one another in league tables measuring the number of welfare 
recipients who were being punished through the removal of financial support. Welfare 
activists responded to this by organising pickets against job centres known to be using 
these targets. They have also called for job centre workers to refuse to give out 
sanctions or meet targets as a form of industrial action in solidarity with welfare 
recipients. Workers in this area and welfare claimants have attempted to organise a 
rank-and-file campaign within the Public and Commercial Services Union, although 
significant elements within the union have been hostile to this campaign. While this 
aspect of the struggle in the UK is still in the very early stages, it points to the 
possibility of attempting to find solidarity with workers within Centrelink or Job Network 
agencies in Australia.

These forms of resistance are all limited - many UK companies still take part in Workfare, 
and Atos will be replaced by a new contractor. Yet, they still are interesting and 
potentially useful examples of radical struggle against welfare restrictions and cuts 
which could be used in political struggles around welfare in Australia.

Thoughts on successful resistance

We must fight back against the Abbott government's proposed cuts to welfare. We have to 
defend the limited and partial gains we have wrought from the state because we need these 
measures to survive under capitalism. Most of us cannot wait for a revolution to address 
our economic needs. However, we also need to acknowledge the inadequacy of welfare 
payments and the coercive function of policies such as income management and Work for the 
Dole. We should be clear that we will never be able to build a welfare system that will 
allow the unemployed to flourish in this economic system, because it will not be 
consistent with the capitalist drive to maximise exploitation.

As some anonymous libertarian socialists noted in 1985:

The Welfare State is just the contemporary face of the capitalist state. If it offers all 
kinds of services and financial support - things that we need to survive - it doesn't do 
this because we need them, but because capitalism needs us to have them in order for it to 
survive. We shouldn't be surprised if capitalism 'snatches back' benefits or imposes new 
conditions for granting them as its priorities change. It is only able to 'service' our 
needs because capitalist society has developed through destroying our opportunities for 
doing so ourselves."

The demand for a welfare system that truly supports those without work is at its core an 
anti-capitalist demand. While people who argue for a fair welfare system may not consider 
themselves anti-capitalists, the only way we can have a welfare system not constantly 
under threat from the ruling class, is to create an entirely different type society in 
which the interests of the minority who control production and distribution are not pitted 
against those who must work to survive. We shouldn't be ashamed to talk about the role of 
capitalism, the state, and other forms of oppression in maintaining the coercive and 
exploitative aspects of the welfare system. We won't be able to successfully confront the 
inadequacies of the current welfare system without understanding the role it plays in the 
broader political and economic context.

It's vitally important for us to attempt to prevent these attacks from becoming policy in 
the first place. But we also need to think about how we'll react if this part of the 
budget is passed by Parliament, and how we can create a more effective response to the 
already existing problems with Australia's welfare system.

We need to think about new locations for resistance. Central rallies in the middle of 
cities are one tool for resistance, but they are not the only form of action we can take. 
Other places we might focus our political organising on Centrelink offices, Job Network 
offices and businesses which employ welfare recipients on Work for the Dole. By broadening 
the reach of our political action we can increase our opportunities to organise with other 
welfare claimants, as well as bringing our collective power to bear the organisations and 
businesses responsible for carrying out these exploitative policies.

We can also look to models of organisation which unemployed people have used in 
Australia's recent history. The Wollongong Out of Workers' Union (WOW) was an anarchist 
influenced unemployed people's organisation which was formed in 1983. WOW was unusual in 
that only unemployed people could become full members and have access to voting rights, 
meaning it was a group that was both about the interests of unemployed people and 
controlled by them. WOW's campaigns focused on demands for a living wage, a shorter 
working week, and long-term job security with fair conditions. They also explicitly linked 
the terrible situation of unemployed people to the functioning of capitalism. The group 
involved hundreds of members, and used direct action tactics, such as occupying "the local 
Social Security offices, the local taxation department and even the national headquarters 
of the Labor Party in Canberra." Members of WOW set up an office in a squatted house, and 
for a period of six years turned this space into an organising space, a welfare rights 
drop-in centre and a soup kitchen. They also created a newspaper (The Gong) and helped 
initiate the National Union of Unemployed People. While this model might not work in all 
situations, it is certainly worth thinking about whether the form of unemployed-led 
organising WOW members used to such great effect would be useful in our contemporary contexts.

Another part of our response to these attacks on welfare should be to provide practical 
support to those who will be most impacted by these changes, if they are implemented. This 
support doesn't need to be the depoliticised charity of organisations like the Salvation 
Army, who ultimately support the system they clean up after. Rather, we should create our 
own forms of mutual aid which are based on solidarity rather than charity. As Paul Bowman 
notes, while charity is based on pious submission to a depoliticised notion of misfortune, 
solidarity involves identifying the cause of suffering and working with those who share a 
common enemy to transform the social and economic structures which create this suffering. 
One of the central ideological justifications for capitalist exploitation and state 
control is the idea that we need these ruling class controlled, hierarchical organisations 
to take care of one another.

By doing what we can to take care of one another, as part of our organised political 
resistance, we can demonstrate that this system doesn't provide us with what we need, and 
that we have the capacity to organise a society of our own that could fulfil these needs. 
To truly take care of one another, though, we need to take control of the economic and 
social resources that are currently controlled and used for profit by the few. We should 
provide what support we can, but also remind ourselves that building a new society within 
the shell of the old is but only one step we need to take. Ultimately, we need a 
revolutionary transformation of the economic and political order to move from that old 
world into a free, classless society.

Resources

http://novaramedia.com/2013/04/welfare-dependency-and-the-crisis-of-work/

http://www.solfed.org.uk/is-this-farewell-welfare

http://plantowin.net.au/2014/07/the-radical-history-of-unemployed-activism/

http://libcom.org/history/wow-factor-wollongong%E2%80%99s-unemployed-dispossession-class-history
www.anarchistaffinity.org