End of the Mandatory Work Activity

The end of the Mandatory Work Activity scheme [hidden in the Autumn Statement] is good news. The ABC have long argued that the scheme amounted to slave labour in essence or indentured servitude. The Poundland case was to many people another example of the unnecessary petty and mean-spiritedness of Ian Duncan Smiths policies.

The EU argued that DWP policies did not amount to slave labour, as he persons title was transferred. Basically you can steal a car, but you cannot steal the ‘title’ of the car which is still owned, by the owner. Thus if you buy a stolen car, it is still the original owners property even if you have possession of it. 

Slaves were once ‘chattel’ or goods, indentured servitude was where people would work and get paid something latter.  After the Boer War the mines in South Africa had not paid a dividend for two years and they were flooded. Scores of Chinese labourers were recruited. Ten thousand people could be working on one shift in Johannesburg Gold Mines. The Chinese Empress built a new palace in the shape of a ship from the proceeds. 

The DWP confirmed the programme would be replaced by a new “work and health programme” as part of the spending review settlement but said no details had been finalised about what form that would take.

Analysis by the DWP had found that the scheme was largely ineffective at getting people into work and that it had no impact on employment prospects. 70,000 people had taken part at a cost of around £5m a year.

The National Institute for Economic and Social Research said was “very difficult indeed to reconcile” the decision to roll out programme at a time the county was involved in austerity measures when the scheme clearly was not working. 

The Government’s main welfare-to-work scheme, the Work Programme, continues.

Claimants have long known this Mandatory Work Activity scheme was being used to punish claimants by Jobcentre Plus staff. The scheme had little real value to the actual claimant.  

The original Atlantic slave trade.

Slavery in the form of human trafficking goes on today. As many as thirty six million people are estimated to be trafficked worldwide. Exploiting people’s free labour by criminals is a huge 'business'.