Are Bristol Rovers using 'jubilee' style workfare?

south west | corporations | news report Sunday June 10, 2012 16:47 by Bristol IWW bristoliww at riseup dot net

this is a bristol indymedia story

On Friday 8th June, members of the Industrial Workers of the World (Bristol branch) and The Solidarity Federation (SolFed) joined to protest outside the offices of notorious “bad handlers” Tomorrows People.

Tomorrow’s People (run by a Tory Baroness) were the ones who made thousands of pounds out of sending unemployed people, desperate for a job, into the clutches of companies like Close Protection, who camped their staff under London Bridge before working the Jubilee last week.

The protest aimed to raise the issue that any form of forced work for free is a form of slavery, whatever the excuse given, and is not fit for a country as Great as Britain.

It also aimed to raise the issue that security is skilled labour, not slave labour, and that workfare is just the latest way of bringing down job rates in the security industry.

Anyone who has done security work knows that it requires a lot of skill and experience to ensure the safety of customers and the staff themselves.

De-skilling thru workfare (along with allowing unlicensed staff with ‘pending applications’ to work under the company SIA license) risks the safety of the general public, the safety of those who are conned into doing the job without adequate experience, and just as importantly, the safety of the other staff they work alongside.

It seems that Close Protection is not the only place that Tomorrows People sells on its workfare clients. A member of Tomorrows People staff confirmed that BRISTOL ROVERS also regularly uses workfare to replace paid staff!

The are many gasheads in Bristol IWW, and this news came as a nasty shock. Bristol IWW will be writing to Bristol Rovers to ask for reassurances that none of the long-serving club stewards’ roles have been replaced by unpaid workfare, rather than letting others in need work for the club they support and earn a bit of money.

Any SIA licensed workers that want to help organise their Fellow Workers in Bristol, please email us bristoliww@riseup.net or contact SolFed from their website http://solfed.org.uk

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