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| 29th March
1996 |
Issue 67 SchNEWS HOW NOW MAD COW?"Never before have diseased ruminants been fed to other ruminants. We are in a mass experiment which is killing us," said Tim Laing, Professor of Food Policy at Thames Valley University. Britain has exported BSE throughout the world, following the discovery of thousands of forged export certificates passing Mad Cows as safe. Already Europe and USA have experienced outbreaks. People with CJD (human form of BSE) - according to Prof. Richard Lacey, may be as many as half the entire population - will not be treated on the NHS due to 'lack of facilities for young people with dementia'! For people paying attention, 'mad cow disease' should come as no surprise. The way food is produced is a sympton of our societies ills - huge fields are devoted to one crop and sprayed with poisonous chemicals and pesticides; animals are locked in factory farms never to see the light of day; soil erosion (44% of all arable soil is at risk particularly from water erosion - and the South Downs could be barren within 20 years!); water pollution; lorries laden with bananas and Kit-Kats clog up our roads; food is flown in from countries around the world to supermarkets you have to drive to full of fancy packaging and junk food; vegetarian cows being fed their mates - BSE is another disaster on a long-list of disasters just waiting to happen. Farming has become a war with nature - but it need not be like this. Maddy Harland in the latest Permaculture magazine says, "As a nation and European community, we expect to buy cheap food, often dressed up in packaging, that does not take into account the health and environmental costs of the product of the well-being of the animal. Food miles, agrochemical pollution, factory farming even 'factory'shopping (eg supermarkets) are the norm. Food is no longer a gift of Nature, it's a product we acquire and usually the quicker the better?' At the supermarkets veggie burgers are doing a roaring trade, as people convert from beef burgers to TVP. But is this a solution? Is highly packaged, marketed food made with cash crops grown in debt-ridden third world countries the way forward?" While SchNEWS always supports frontline activities stopping the earth-destroyers in their tracks, if we want a better world we've got to show what this can be. If Critical Mass bike rides and Reclaim The Streets parties give us glimpses of what our streets could be like without the motorcar, then growing our own food is surely a two fingers to the supermarkets and multinational food corporations that want dearly to control all aspects of our lives.... SchNEWS can save yer from 'insanity+certain death' with a handy guide to some stuff you never knew contained mad cows - Chicken gravy granules, stuffing, Christmas pud, mixed vegetable baby food, cakes, biscuits, sweets, yoghurt, vitamin capsules and all flavours of crisps except Beef! Help! Dr. Annie Maddocks of the BSE Research Committee dismissed demands for more laboratory research. 'There's no point now. We are the experiment." "God help all of you?' Beryl Rimmer, mother of CJD victim Maybe yer vegan mates aren't as mad as you! For more info on meat and disaster, contact: The Natural Trust, 6 Tilbury Place, Brighton, Sussex, BN2 2GY. MOO! PERMACULTURE MAGAZINE - Ecological Solutions for Everyday Living! Sample copy £1 to Permanent Publications, Littie Hyden Lane, Clanfield, Hampshire, P08 ORU Tel: 01705 596500. There are also have a free catalogue listing of over 70 publications including 'The Forest Garden' by Robert Hart and 'How To Make A Forest Garden' by Patrick Whitefield - a step by step DiY guide to creating a low-maintenance food producing garden (on any scale) designed using the ecological principles of a natural woodland. They've also a book for people who live in benders, trailers and trucks who don't stick around in places long enough for trees to bear fruit... HENRY DOUBLEDAY - Britain's premier organic gardening organisation, with shop, demonstration gardens and big seed catalogue. Ryton Organic Gardens, Coventry, CV8 3LG Tel: 01203 303517 PLANTS FOR A FUTURE - There are more than 20,000 known species of edible plants in the world and yet fewer than 20 species now supply 90% of our foods! These people have a few thousand for you to try out in your patch - for a catalogue send two first class stamps to The Field, Penpol, Lostwithiel, Cornwall, PL22 ONG. In Brighton Justice? has three allotments where you can wave goodbye to dull, regimented cabbage-patch allotments and say hello to forest gardening. Ring the Office for more details if you'd like to get involved. Lots more on gardening in the near future! LAND IS OURSThe Land Is Ours campaign is organising a massive urban occupation from May 5th - exactly 50 years since the beginning of the biggest squatting movement in England, when ex-servicemen and their families began taking over thousands of empty properties in Britain including disused army camps and luxury London hotels! They aim to take over a large area of derelict land in London, to build a sustainable village with gardens, farms and community projects. The land will be used as a demonstration project for the first week, then left in the hands of people who want to live there. There's a planning meeting at 7pm on April 11th at the Battlebridge Centre, Battlebridge Rd, London, or ring The Land Is Ours office on 01865 722016 * Holts field, Swansea. Good news from the beautiful hamlet on the Gower peninsula. The greedy developer who wants to bulldoze the houses described as "a unique part of the nations built legacy" will have to wait at least another year as one of the residents has been given leave to appeal to the House of Lords. This could cost £40,000. If your feeling flushed ring 01792 469400 * Squatters in the Orangi suburbs of Karachi, Pakistan, have chomped the bit and built an urban settlement. More than 700,000 people are homed in the Orangi Pilot Project, initiated in the 80's by self help organiser Akhtar Hameed Khan. He convinced locals to help themselves, and concentrated his energies on low cost housing, sanitation, women's welfare programmes and work centres and school education. 28,000 families have helped build 430,000 feet of underground sewerage; 28,000 latrines and low cost housing, at a mere £44 each. The project has saved local government over £3.2m. In developing world cities, the illegal occupation of land in squatter informal settlements is often the only way for people to get a roof over their heads. * A conference on airport expansions and the environmental impacts is taking place on 20th April at Manchester Metropolitan University More info 0161 225 4445
Doomsday for Doley's?Six Months and Counting till the JSAIt is six months on from the first national day of action against the Job Seekers Allowance (JSA); from tramping around Brighton, invading the Labour Party Conference and debating with Paxman on newsnight. It seems like only the other day - yet in another six months we will be under the nightmare of Job Seekers Agreements, Directives, Active Signing and complete benefit withdrawal if we refuse to toe the line. Luckily, the movement against the JSA is growing around the country, and we only have to remember what happened with the opposition to the Criminal Injustice Act - there was no opposition until 3 or 4 months before the Bill was due to become law, then suddenly thousands of ravers out on the streets of London and a summer of full-on protests and direct action that seemed to open up new possibilities. What's been happening with the JSA?We were originally supposed to get JSA around about now - April '96 - but the Department of Employment put in the wrong computer system (or something), which has delayed the JSA until October. Over the last six months the Employment Service (ES) management have been trying to force JSA pilot schemes into Job Centres up and down the country. Many of these have failed - often management cannot get the required number of volunteers, or dole workers have threatened strike action - but in other places pilot schemes have gone ahead almost unopposed. Following on from their success in imposing Incapacity Benefit last year and the recent failed strike in the dole offices, ES management and the government seem to be getting cocky - they even think they can get away with the Project Work pilot schemes in Hull and the Medway. But as the next few months go by, as more demonstrations and occupations are organised, and claimants wake up to the threat of the JSA, they will realise what a red hot political potato they are holding - and hopefully want to drop it as soon as possible. ES management and the government haven't been having it all their own way however. They have already had to face a 3 month strike by selected Job Centres around the country which threatened to escalate and really screw up the implementation of the JSA. Unfortunately (& predictably) the national union bureaucrats stitched up the strikers and forced them to go back to work with barely a single concession. In Brighton the strike was brilliant - 100% solid right up to the end, delegations from the Liverpool Dockers addressing strike meetings; a general feeling of solidarity and strength etc. But in the end the strikers having been out manoeuvred by the union tosses, did not feel confident enough to embark on the unofficial or direct action that could have won the strike. Even so the mood in the dole offices is still one of anger. Overworked, underpaid and expected to implement a new benefits regime that will make l000s of them redundant and turn Job Centres into daily flash points. No wonder the workers are pissed off. Even as this is written, workers in the Benefits Agency in Brighton are threatening strike action after being told some of them will be forced to move into Job Centres without being provided with protective screens to implement the JSA. The strike has at least had the effect of bringing dole workers and claimants closer together in joint opposition to the JSA. Although the strike was largely overpay every one realises it is the performance related pay 'agreement' which will be instrumental in making JSA work. The more 'targets' that can be reached the more claimants may be thrown off the dole, the more money the individual dole worker will be able to earn. It's a clear case of management attempting to divide the workforce to set them up in competition with each other, with us, as doleys, on the receiving end. But dole-workers haven't fallen for this and the links made during the strike, both locally and nationally, will stand us in good stead over the coming months. What About Us?It's obvious that we can't leave the fight against the JSA to those who work for the employment service. They may be pissed off and angry, but any action they take has to be within the narrow limits of the anti-trade union legislation and directed by top union scumbags who already have a fat salary and couldn't care less. Whereas we, as a together (well, sometimes!) direct action movement, have no such limitations on what we can or can't do. The claimants movement against the JSA is burgeoning. There have been recent actions in Oxford and Tottenham, demonstrations in Plymouth and Newcastle, countless well-attended public meetings - and lots more to come. The last Groundswell conference a few weeks ago saw delegates of anti- JSA groups attend from Nottingham Leeds Sheffield Newcastle Bradford, Bristol, London, Exeter, Reading, Oxford, Edinburgh, and Brighton (of course). Many have been involved in the anti- CJA and anti- roads movement and are relishing just what the JSA could mean for us. The groundswell anti-JSA pack will be available soon, detailing the finer points of JSA, and including standard leaflets, posters, etc. With the aim of encouraging groups and individuals to get clued up and get on the case against the JSA. There's the two upcoming demos :- London Against the JSA, on the 9th April (hopefully this will be fun and more than just a boring walk around London), and the march against the Project Work scheme Medway on April 13th (more details below). Next Groundswell will be on May 25th in Sheffield - if you want to come, get in touch with Brighton Claimants Action Group. It was the Criminal Justice Bill that brought us all together in the first place. But it's just not about opposition to that particular piece of legislation - it's about stopping great swathes of tarmac being forced through the countryside; about squatting empty properties and showing up councils and landlords. While people die on the streets; it's about solidarity with the Liverpool doctors and the Tahitans who have nuclear bombs dropped on their heads by the French government. It's about thinking how we want the world and our lives changed - and doing something about it. In resisting the JSA, we fall into a long tradition of resisting capitalism's attempts to make people work on its terms. In this century, following the creation of full employment after the war, the 1960's saw people begin to pose the question of life beyond work and consumer consumption. Even when mass unemployment returned in the 70s and 80s many people turned to the altemative political and music scenes instead of living their lives through endless work. Now it's the 90s, and let's face it - not many of us want to work for the system that fucks us and the planet over every time. Out of the opposition to the CJA we have created a vibrant resistance movement - but the JSA has the potential to strike right at the heart of it. No dole? Either starve or get a job. Got a job? You'll still be struggling to make ends meet, and you definitely won't have the time or energy to go out protesting or climbing up trees. Just fall into the same routine - work - obey - consume - the government's happy enough with a bunch of zombies who don't cause trouble. The Job Seekers Allowance is as much of an attack on our culture as the Criminal Justice Act ever was. But because it attacks other sections of society: dole - workers; those forced into the low-paid McJobs that will force down wages for millions of others - it has the potential to bring together a massive opposition movement. And once we smash the JSA, maybe we can start demanding a world without money! Bits & Bobs about the JSA*After being arrested at the JSA Demo in Oct '95 a protester was arrested under section 5 of the public order Act 1986 for saying "bollocks" to policeman. He could not get legal aid, due to it being a Public Order Offence (guilty ill proven innocent???! ! !), and had to represent himself. After 5 adjournments and having to represent himself, he won. Thankfully having photographic evidence and a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary. (Walk in with a thick file - they get a bit worried!) after looking at the photos, binding him over for a year and some cash, the prosecutor suggested the charge was dismissed. So don't worry if you can't get legal aid - Wear a suit, carry a file of blank paper, take out your piercings and go for it...! *The Government is hoping to save £300-£400 m. in the 1st two years of the JSA, but £270 million has already been spent on making the switch. In a parliamentary answer to Labour's Employment spokesman, Ian McCartney, the Government has revealed that during the last four years of its existence, the Employment Dept, which dreamed up the JSA, spent £929 m. on buildings and no less than £75 m on furniture alone. *A Conservative Research Dept's in-house magazine described a system of penalties streamlining and cutting dole payments as sanctions for the work-shy". *The JSA will reduce the number of hours the long term unemployed will be allowed to study from 21 to 16 hours a week. *The Tory Health and Safety minister, Robert Jones claimed yesterday that many accidents happened at work because of worker's "stupidity". Labour launched a Commons assault on the Government's plan to cut health & safety funding. Ian McCartney said the minister's statement was "totally insensitive. it ill behoves you to say that 135 people who died on Piper Alpha were stupid". A Quick Guide To... JobSeekers Allowance:In October, Unemployment Benefit and Income Support will be abolished and replaced with the JSA. If you leave a job, get sacked, or refuse to take a job, you can lose ALL benefit for SIX months. There will be no hardship payments. Up to a quarter of a million people are expected to lose between 20% - 70% of their benefits under the JSA. JobSeekers Agreement: This is the contract you will have to sign with the Employment Service to get the JobSeekers Allowance Benefit. In it you will have to outline the exact steps you will take to find work - and follow them rigorously. Of course, most JobSeekers agreements will be decided by the Employment Service. But if you don't sign it - you don't get any money. JobSeekers Directive: If the Employment Service don't think you are making sufficient efforts to find a job, they can issue you with a JobSeekers Directive. These cover everything from altering your appearance, to getting your hair cut, to improving your attitude, to being forced on compulsory schemes. Sanctions: If you fail to obey a JobSeekers Directive you will have your benefit suspended for six months, or until you give in. Previously, the Employment Service could only cut your benefit by 40% if they suspected you of not actively seeking work. Under the JSA, they can cut all 100% of it. Active Signing: Some people get this already, but under the JSA just about everyone will be subject to it. Active signing means EVERY TIME you sign on, you will be grilled on what steps you have been taking to find work. You can also be given specific jobs to apply for, there and then. Failure to apply for these will mean sanctions. Project Work / Compulsory Schemes: Basically a straight down-the-line forced labour scheme. Anyone unemployed for two plus years may face 13 weeks of compulsory slave labour for benefit - not even for an extra tenner! Under the JSA, schemes like Job Search Seminars, Job Review Workshops, and Job Clubs which are now voluntary will become compulsory. WHY WORK?Work grabs peoples' creativity and transforms it into something dead and uninspiring. Shouldn't life be fun? Instead we are forced into repetitive jobs that benefit only our employers. However - there is a long history of resistance against such alienating labour. "My people shall never work. Those who work cannot dream and wisdom comes to us in dreams.." Smohalla, Native American 1887. Even before the Industrial revolution laws against vagabondism forced people into cities to work. Those who still refused suffered further legislation culminating in the Poor Laws - an attempt to frighten "the workshy" with the stick of the Workhouses. This terrible situation was only slightly redeemed by the fact that many people were politicised through this and resistance against the imposition of work grew. Coming into the twentieth century the government decided against the Workhouses and offered the carrot of the Welfare State. Though this seemed like a good idea it was bound by bureaucracy, & means tests regulations. Mass unemployment, the second world war and other things led to recognition by the government that social institutions would not survive without the Modern Welfare State. This created the dole as we semi-know it and gave us a glimpse of what life beyond work could be like. Full employment gave people the opportunities to use the system to their advantage, taking time off work and changing jobs at whim (almost). So by the 70s it was realised that this could no longer continue in the interests of the market and so unemployment was re-imposed on us with tougher regulations in order to discipline the workforce. This has not stopped people from using their creativity on the dole, with their own entertainments (free parties/newsletters), food sources (allotments) housing (squatting).... As a result of this, attempts are again being made to tighten the way in which we receive benefits and make it much harder to receive the meagre dole handouts. For work as we know it, is a dirty word. The Latin and Greek word for labour is derived from the word suffering. The Ancient Roman word for torture comes from the word traipalium, which translates to travail, ie. work. Diary Dates:Tuesday, April 9th: London Demonstration against the JSA organised by London against the JSA - independent dole-workers and claimants working together. Coaches leave 10am, Palace Pier, Brighton. Saturday 13th April: Demonstration against the Project Work / Forced Labour scheme in Kent organised by Medway Towns Trades Council. Coaches leave 8 am, Palace Pier, Brighton. Tickets: £3 unwaged, £4 waged (sorry about the prices) Available from the Unemployed Centre; Peace centre and BCAG meetings. Groundswell 5 - May 25th, Sheffield (location TBA) Brighton Claimants Action Group meets every Monday, 2:30 pm, at the Unemployed Centre. |
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