Save our Jobcentres! Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group

Protest 6/11/17 outside DWP HQ Caxton House, Tothill Street. London 

photo Becca Thackeray

photo and video Lois Davis

The government has already closed 24 job centres since August this year. They plan to close a further 78 Job centres by April of 2018...16 of these Job centres are in London.

Poor people and people facing the biggest challenges need local job centres, not some super-hub that they have to walk miles to reach.

Benefit money is too little to cover regular trips on public transport. People will have to walk. And don’t be late or too ill to walk over a mile each way whenever the job centre demands it-– you’ll be up for a sanction!

The Torys say that much of the job centres work is now done online, but 5.3 million people in Britain have never used the internet, and 10 million lack the basic digital skills. And millions of these people will be in receipt of benefits.

You can’t use the internet if you can’t afford a computer or a mobile phone contract or the fee for using library or internet cafe

You can’t use the internet if you are illiterate (and six to eight million Britons are borderline or fully illiterate)

Our local Job centres, Kilburn and Neasden, serve one of the most deprived areas in the country. If they are closed then over half of the borough of Camden and around two thirds of Brent will be more than half a mile from the nearest job centre, i.e. more than a mile round trip. These areas contain heavily populated areas: a lot of people are going to be affected.

In amongst the people who can’t use the internet are hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their disability benefit because they aren’t disabled enough for the Tories. They may be able to walk just 200 metres, or sometimes panic when out and get lost, or nor be able to plan a journey to places they don’t know, or have epilepsy. They may be seriously depressed or suffering from brain fog brought on by medication or illnesses like Fibromyalgia. They may be recovering from Cancer or waiting for a heart operation. They may have variable conditions that mean that they can’t guarantee being able to go out at all on any particular day.

Save our Jobcentres!

Our local Labour MPS Tulip Siddiq and Karen Buck  have sent us letters of support  against the proposed closures, and Brent Labour Councillor Shama, with Green Party GLA Members Sian Berry (Camden) & Caroline  Russell (Islington) also against these ridiculous proposals.

KUWG are holding a Food Bank Stall at Neasden Parade noon-2pm Saturday 2^nd December, with help from Sufra Neasden Foodbank. This part of Unite Community Day of Action against Universal Credit and part of a motion to stop Job centre closures. SACK GAUKE!

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/02/shutting-down-jobcentres-austerity-underhand-cut