Tag Archives: ukcuts
Fightback to save 1500 jobs for disabled at Remploy factories
“Employers don’t look at you as people, they only see disability.”
By Don Mackay
A FIGHTBACK against the closure of factories employing more than 1500 disabled workers will be launched today.
Campaigners, backed by the GMB and Unite unions, fear many of the staff will never work again if the Government go ahead with plans to shut 36 of Remploy’s 54 factories.
Hundreds of disabled workers are expected to march on Parliament after a national rally in London next Friday.
Glen Holdom, GMB officer for Remploy, said: “We must show the strength of feeling that taking jobs from disabled people should not be tolerated in a civilised society.
“It will not improve the country’s financial situation – it may well make it worse.”
A glimpse of the unseen absolute poverty in 21st century UK
Most people are completely unaware of the extent to which there is poverty today
Posted on by Vicki Fitzgerald
With thanks to Rhiannon Lockley who wrote this blog for us. Rhiannon is West mids regional women’s officer for UCU.
“We were really struggling. It really did get to the point where we just didn’t know how we were going to cope. It was literally pick one thing and do that, a case of either stay warm or eat.”
(Michaela, a Birmingham mother helped by Gateway Family Services Pregnancy Outreach Team, talks to ITV news, Wednesday 11th April 2012)
Usually when people talk about poverty in the UK they are referring to relative poverty. A person classed as relatively impoverished is significantly below average in wealth, meaning they are economically unable to participate fully in society. High levels of relative poverty indicate high levels of social inequality, which as has been argued in Wilkinson and Pickett’s 2009 book The Spirit Level are linked to a variety of negative problems in society. Relative poverty impacts on things like physical health, mental well-being, educational and career opportunities.
Anger at increase in costs for adult care
Pensioners are set to be hit in the pocket as the cost of day care rises by up to 1,200 per cent as Peterborough City Council puts up its charges.
By BEN TRUSLOVE
Published on Thursday 12 April 2012 09:24
Ivy Carafa (93) goes to Greenwood House care home from Monday to Friday but may have to reconsider with the increase in charges.
Before January she paid £2 a day, when the charge increased to £13 a day, and it is now due to rise to £24 a day from April 23. The latest rise will mean she is spending more on care than she receives in her monthly pension and it may force her son Richard to stop work to care for her.
