“New Labour’s new benefit regulations could be used, and I have no doubt that they will be used, to break any strike. The new regulations in trying to force people back to work, even where there is no work, state that after 13 weeks of receiving unemployment benefit and you are still unemployed but do not want your benefit to be cut, then you must accept a job interview allocated to you by your Job Centre liaison person.
Sitting across the desk from your Job Centre liaison person this is the sort of thing you might hear, “It would appear that there doesn’t seem to be any jobs in your field of engineering, construction or even driving, however I have arranged an interview for you for one of those temporary jobs going at Royal Mail.” Of course if you refuse the job offered, you also lose the right to unemployment benefit. This is where the reserve army of unemployed can be called upon by any organisation that is facing strike action by its employees. I am sure this is how Royal Mail is attempting to break this strike and other employers will follow suit. This is also how a group of worried, vulnerable people in some degree of poverty, will be forced to scab on there fellow workers, not because they wish to scab or have no solidarity with the strikers but because it could mean extreme poverty for them and their families.
This is just another example of how the state always works hand in hand with big business against the interests of the people of this country. And anther reason why all communities should fall in behind striking workers and give them unconditional support. Perhaps demonstrating outside job centres that use this bureaucratic fiddle to crush workers struggling to hold onto what meager conditions they might have, could be a start.
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