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Title: Welfare Attacks Author: Anarchist Federation Date: 1995 Language: en Topics: welfare state, United Kingdom, benefits, Organise! Source: Retrieved on May 13, 2013 from https://web.archive.org/web/20130513073841/http://www.afed.org.uk/org/issue40/welfare_attacks.html Notes: Published in Organise! Issue 40: Special Issue on Work — Autumn 1995.
THE GOVERNMENT HAS renewed its attack on the welfare system. These
attacks in the form of the introduction of Incapacity Benefit in April
this year, the phasing in of the Job Seekers Allowance and a renewed
“debate” on such things as pensions, “scroungers” and single parents.
These attacks are not isolated to the “Evil Tories”. There has been
hardly a bleat from the Labour Party and Tony Blair supports similar
attacks on the working class. Welfare reform has also been occurring in
France, USA, Italy and even Sweden. So it is not just some mad idea
dreamed up by a few right wingers in the Tory party; it is seen as part
of the ongoing development of capitalism. The attack is not just
confined to those who claim benefit — as we shall see the amount of
savings the new measures will bring do not greatly effect the overall
welfare expenditure. These measures will affect those in work by
decreasing job security, cutting wages and making people feel they
cannot leave the job no matter how bad the conditions. We will be forced
to make our own arrangements, if we have enough money to afford them,
for unemployment, sickness and old age.
The welfare systems is present to some extent or other in most
“developed” countries. There was no great flash one day with the bosses
of industry and the State thinking, “wouldn”t it be a nice idea to share
out some of this wealth with the poor and needy”. The idea of the state
supporting the working class began surprisingly with Otto von Bismarck
(the German Chancellor) who stated “give the workingman the right to
work as long as he is healthy, assure him care when he is sick, and
maintenance when is old...”. In the 1880”s Bismarck introduced a series
of reforms such as accident, health and old age insurance. Other
countries followed suit also seeing the introduction of such reforms as
a way of counteracting the growth of the emerging worker”s movement.
Coupled with this was the need to maintain an army of healthy people to
operate the machinery of war or the factories.
The state and its media lapdogs are proud of their attack on what they
call “scroungers”. Every day new cases of fraud are brought to the
public attention and used as a justification for the new measures
against claimants. It has been stated that they believe 10% of all
claims are fraudulent.
The state also claims that they are making savings of nearly ÂŁ100
million from investigating benefit fraud. This is the same amount as the
taxes that the government does not bother collecting and much larger
savings could be make by investigating tax fraud by companies and their
bosses. Even more money could be raised by the scrapping of various
forms of tax relief for companies and the rich.
There are many jobs that pay so little it is expected that people will
have to claim benefit. There are one million people who earn less than
ÂŁ2.50 an hour and 300,000 who earn less than ÂŁ1.50. Benefit is paid out
to people so that they can survive on the crap wages the bosses pay.
Even the most devious fraudster would find it difficult to get the
equivalent of some bosses who can earn a giro or two every hour. Housing
benefit is another con as it goes straight into the bank accounts of
rich landlords who charge extortionate rents for poor accommodation.
The state, on our behalf, pays out ÂŁ88 billion in welfare benefits.
Peter Lilley has recently stated that the welfare system cost every
working person, on average, ÂŁ15 every working day. He uses this as a
justification for the cuts in welfare spending, promising savings of ÂŁ4
billion by the end of the century and ÂŁ14 billion a year in the long
term, which are hardly considerable when compared to the total amount.
These cuts will mean that the ÂŁ15 a day will go down to ÂŁ14.65 and then
ÂŁ12.61. Since tax cuts always favour the rich, this will mean very
little reward, if any, for those people on or below average wages.
Forcing people to actively seek work under any conditions also enforces
social control. As we have recently seen with the Criminal Justice Bill
there is also an attack on any possible counter culture that may upset
the machinery of capital and the state. It is an attack on all those who
do not wish to be part of the “new order”. Forcing people to at least
“pretend” to be looking for non-existent jobs will force them to become
part of the system.
One argument we hear often is that people are pricing themselves out of
the market by expecting too much money. How can someone on ÂŁ2.40 an hour
be pricing themselves out of the market while the likes of Cedric Brown
(head of British Gas) gets ÂŁ240 an hour plus other benefits. The
question is not so much that of “free market forces” but of greedy
bosses wanting to improve their level of exploitation. The bosses will
play off one group of workers against each other so that we compete to
give the bosses the best value for money i.e. the smallest wage packet.
The real reason top bosses get so much money is not due to their “market
value” but because they award the pay rises.
The whole idea of a “Job Market” is fictitious since for any market to
exist we must be able to be able to bargain with the employer. The
lowest bargaining position used to be that you either accept the job
under those conditions or not. With no minimum wage, the decrease in
workers’ solidarity in many and the introduction of JSA working class
people will have no position to which to bargain from.
Nearly half the welfare expenditure is spent on elderly people. The
state finds them hard to attack since there is a feeling that you should
be cared for when you are “too old to work”. There is much talk about
the problems of the increasing number of people on pensions supported by
fewer and fewer people working. There have been pressure to get more
people to take out private pension schemes and we are now being told
that we will not be able to rely on the state to provide for us when we
reach retirement age. Affording a personal pension in many low paid jobs
or while claiming is impossible so it will mean that many people who
have worked in low paid jobs will not get a sufficient pension. It has
been suggested that the state will help. Things suggested have included
abolition of tax relief on short term saving schemes, increasing the
inheritance tax threshold and changes in capital gains tax to leave more
assets with families. This makes it clear what class of people they are
intended to help. We are going to have to put our future survival into
the hands of insurance sales people, those trusted people in the City
and the up and downs of the world market.
With the move towards private provision for unemployment, sickness and
old age, pensioners can now be attacked as people who did not make their
own provision for when they were older.
Incapacity Benefit came into effect in April 1995. It is an attempt to
get as many people as possible off benefit for being sick and force them
to seek work. The state hopes to get 250,000 of the 2 million claiming
this benefit. The main change is that claimants will be examined by
benefit agency doctors to work out if they are fit for work. There have
already been cases where the agency doctor finds the claimant unfit for
work but the benefit agency doctor found them fit for work. The doctors
appointed are not experts in all fields of medicine and are therefore
unable to say whether someone is fit for work or not. Since its
introduction approximately 6000 people have already lost their right to
this benefit.
An “All Works Test” is used to work out if someone is capable of doing
any work at all. The questions are designed to get people disqualified
from benefit each question is scored on a point system. Before filling
in these forms seek advice.
You can also lose benefit if you are:
condition. This will be medical treatment that they believe will improve
your condition. This takes away the choice as to what medical treatment
you receive.
found without having good cause.
There is no account taken of the difficulty many people have with access
or the discrimination shown by employers to people have had a history of
illness and the disabled.
The state is also increasing the pressure on claimants to go on training
courses. With the JSA you can be forced to go on training courses to
improve your chances of getting a job. This is at a time when even
senior government officials have called the new DEE training program
“ludicrous and offensive” and “having seriously failed to meet
commitment to unemployed people”. They even described the new procedures
for the disabled as discriminatory, clumsy, error prone and offensive.
The training schemes are not designed to give claimants the skills they
want but that needed by the bosses so that the claimant can be pushed
into a job.
We have no interest in trying to save the capitalist system from its own
problems. We have no plans to make the welfare system work. We know that
the capitalist system fundamentally flawed and will never give us the
life we want.
This does not mean that we do not oppose the attacks on the welfare
system. They will mean more hardship for those claiming benefits and
worse conditions for people in low paid jobs. The only way that the
working class can get anything from the ruling class is when we act in
solidarity to fight the day to day oppression of capitalism. The welfare
system was only provided by the ruling class to stem the flow of revolt.
When we can show our strength they will make concessions.
The opposition to the JSA and Incapacity Benefit has already started.
Non-cooperation by staff in the benefit agencies and employment service
has lead to pilot trials being scrapped. Setting up of Claimants Unions
and groups actively opposed to the introduction of JSA and other welfare
cuts is happening throughout the country and should be encouraged.