Ashton Under lyne, baby, ESA, eugenics, feminism, government, Housing, hunger, Jobcentre, Northern resisters, poverty, sanctions, trade union movement, Universal credit, womens rights, Workfare

Ex Jobcentre workers signing on….

The other week I heard a story about ex Jobcentre workers signing on at a Jobcentre not too far away. I was  interested in this so I did some research. Every article on my blog is fully researched.

I found it to be true.. Yes there are ex Jobcentre workers that are signing on. But these Jobcentre workers are mostly the disabled and the older workers that have been pushed into taking redundancy or the equivalent of this. I learnt that these workers were treated extremely badly and many couldn’t handle the stress anymore. I wonder how long it will be before they are sanctioned and are victims of the system that they helped to create?

I know that many Jobcentre workers aren’t sympathetic, the nicer ones have been pushed out. The ones that would actually help you have gone, replaced with the over enthusiastic and zealous advisors. I found this whilst signing on, you never knew who you were going to be sent to next. The uncertainty of it all is stressful enough and is very hard to cope with. Signing on made me Ill. I became anxious for the first time in my life, I became depressed and my hair even started to fall out. Thankfully I found low paid work where I wasn’t treated well but it was better than the stress of being unemployed.
I’m not sure that I could do it again.

Here’s a little insight into the goings on at a DWP call centre. It says it all really.

GUIDELINES on how to deal with suicidal benefits claimants have been handed out by the Department for Work and Pensions to Scots workers tasked with rolling out the UK Government’s controversial welfare reforms.

As part of a six-point plan for dealing with suicidal claimants who have been denied welfare payments, call-centre staff in Glasgow have been told to wave the guidance, printed on a laminated pink card, above their head.

The guidance is meant to help staff dealing with unsuccessful applicants for Universal Credit who are threatening to self-harm or take their own life.

A manager is then meant to rush over to listen in to the call and workers – who insist they have had no formal training in the procedure – must “make some assessment on the degree of risk” by asking a series of questions.

One section of the six-point plan, titled “gather information”, demands that staff allow claimants to talk about their intention to commit suicide.

The call-centre workers, who earn between £15,000 and £17,000 a year, must “find out specifically what is planned, when it is planned for, and whether the customer has the means-to-hand”, according to the guidance seen by the Sunday Herald.

Staff are also warned in the plan that they may have “thoughts and feelings” about the situation afterwards and offered reassurance that “this is all part of the process of coping with the experience and is normal”.

Glasgow-based call-centre workers have accused the DWP of asking them to carry out the job of a psychologist or social worker.

The SNP have accused the UK Government of “playing a dangerous game with people’s lives”.

Universal Credit combines six working-age benefits – including housing benefit, Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) and tax credits – into a single payment. Although not yet fully rolled out across the UK, Universal Credit is already available to benefit claimants in more than 40 so-called “Jobcentre areas” in Scotland, including Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stirling, Inverness and Dumfries as well as parts of Lanarkshire, Aberdeenshire and Ayrshire.

Processors and telephonists have to contact claimants to tell them they have been denied the new benefit or are facing sanctions which can mean payments are withheld for up to three years.

One Scottish call handler, who asked not to be named, said: “Some of us have been given a baby-pink laminated sheet which we’ve been told to hold up in the air if someone threatens to self-harm or commit suicide. So, when we are on the phone speaking to claimants – who are often very vulnerable people who are being sanctioned all the time and have no money – if they express that they intend to harm themselves or kill themselves there is a sheet instructing us how to react, which involves asking a number of questions, including how they intend to do it.

“This would suggest the DWP is expecting it to happen and I assume that this procedure is in place so that they can say they did their part. But we are not trained to deal with vulnerable people in this way. It’s a very distressing thing for us to handle.

“They’re basically telling us to assess claimants by asking how they intend to self-harm or commit suicide, which is a job that only a trained psychologist, social worker, or at the very least, a counsellor should be doing.”

Another worker said: “There was a man on the phone to me who said if he didn’t get money he’d kill himself. This was before we were issued with the guidelines and I wasn’t sure what to do so I could only try to calm him down.

“He hung up the phone and when I tried to call him back I couldn’t get through. It was very upsetting. I spent the rest of the day worried that he may have taken his own life.

“It wasn’t until the next day that a colleague told me they spoke to him later and he didn’t go through with it.

“But I know of colleagues who have been told by claimants that they are going to commit suicide and they have done so. It’s devastating for them.”

This is why they leave. The DWP think nothing of being cruel towards their own employees.

Please join us outside Ashton under lyne Jobcentre every Thursday between 1-3. We need to continue to tell this government that their actions are wrong. They literally have blood on their hands.


L

36 thoughts on “Ex Jobcentre workers signing on….”

  1. the surgery i am with no doctor will give a sick note unless you are so ill that you cant work depression is not classed as an illness anymore being suicidal is not classed as an illness no one will listen to me everything i say seems to get dismissed i have never felt like this before i feel my only way out is to not be here anymore that way i don’t have to fear starvation or fear ending up on the streets

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  2. i have already been to my doctors as for the last few weeks since this has happened i have felt suicidal i cant get a sick note recieveing the letter about my possible sanctions has just made me feel even worse

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  3. no i wasn’t in a union i had only been there just over 6 months and i was on a 6 month probationary period that ended 3 weeks before they dismissed me

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    1. That sounds familiar. Very clever of them. I hate unscrupulous employers. Ok what I suggest you do first is to take a deep breath a X have a cuppa. It’s not happened yet.
      Once you’ve done this write everything down if you have dates etc write them down.
      I would certainly make an appointment to see your local welfare rights advisor. You do need back up to prevent this happening. They also might be able to refer you to an employment specialist.
      If you are feeling very stressed and depressed then go to your doctors. Ask for a sick note and help.
      Then telephone ESA and make a telephone claim for ESA so you can gather your strength .

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  4. I am seriously thinking of committing suicide because the job centre said they may sanction my benefits up to 156 weeks as my employer dismissed me on misconduct .Even though the incident they dismissed me on was not my fault .

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      1. I have no means of supporting myself if they sanction my benefits i am 51 i have only been claiming benefits for 4 weeks i apply for 4 and 5 jobs a day and get nowhere if they sanction me i will not be able to eat , go to interviews , have any form of heating ,and maybe no roof over my head eventually , why should they punish me because my employer wanted rid of me i can not control my employer into keeping me

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      1. yes the employer has classed it as misconduct so now the jobcentre are saying i may get sanctioned as misconduct can be classed as my fault, my employer says it was negligence , but all this happened after i complained of racist comments towards me and sexual harassment , now i find myself dismissed as they wanted rid of me because i complained

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  5. Jobseekers are feeling stressed and suicidal at the jobcentre and recently they had to call an ambulance outside the jobcentre and take them to A and E. The bureaucracy is killing people.

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  6. I worked at the jobcentre for just under 3 years. In my last 4 months I was made an ESA advisor, with no training whatsoever. My entire role consisted of bullying very sick people into work experience and job clubs. I had spent the previous 2 years genuinely helping young people into work but the tides dramatically turned under the head honcho famed for the Sheriff badge incident. By the time I managed to find a new job I was receiving counselling myself for suicidal thoughts due to the oppressive regime!

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    1. Terrible just terrible how that person can sleep at night I don’t know. I was disgusted by that but its sadly not unusual. I’m also sickened that you and tour colleagues were treated like this. You try to help and are punished for it. I hope you are ok now. This whole system is disgusting and wrong

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  8. I worked in a jobcentre and was told that I didn’t put across enough people for sanctioning and that I would be marked down for it when it came to my end of year review. I argued that if the customers were doing everything asked then I had no reason to sanction them. Apparently this was no excuse and my boss argued that there must have been “someone ” I could have referred. Lucky dip as to who eats that week ?
    Also had a woman threaten to throw herself in front of a bus due to a household break up. Management were uninterested and restated to calling an ambulance. Paramedics were not amused .

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  18. I did a brief stint working in a DWP call centre last winter – temporary agency work that made me so sick with depression and anxiety that I had to give up work and go on ESA (actually I was bullied into resigning early but that’s another story) – we had a sheet with questions to ask suicidal people as you’ve described but not the pink cards. We had to wave our hands in the air and hope there was a manager on the floor who would be able to assist. We had minimal training in dealing with suicide. My first call was from a seriously mentally ill person in a difficult situation who had been sanctioned. They were very confused and frightened. I spent an hour talking them down. After, due to my own mental health conditions, I was in a terrible state. I received no support and was told to hurry up and get back on the phones when I went to wash my face – I’d been crying – and get a drink. The DWP treats claimants and employees awfully, so those of us who are compassionate and want to help people are forced out, leaving only people who don’t care about anything but their civil service pension and wages are left in the Department. People become ignorant and callous to the difficulties of others, I’ve seen the compassion atrophy personally.

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