Glasgow Fight Racism Fight Imperialism! (FRFI) supporter Dominic O’Hara has won a victory over Laurieston
job centre staff who are denying claimants the right to be accompanied and to
take notes during job centre interviews. Aware of the benefit sanctions being
used against hundreds of thousands of claimants Dominic decided from the start
that he would record each interview he attended by taking his own personal
notes that could be used as part of his appeal evidence should staff ever try
to sanction him.
On 27 June he was asked and then told to stop taking notes by
a DWP staff member who claimed that it was ‘illegal’. When Dominic asked for
the interview to continue with a focus on the positives the staff member
replied ‘you don’t have any positives’. This was noted. Dominic was then
physically escorted by staff and security to part of the building which has
plastic security screening separating staff from claimants. Dominic described
this experience as an attempt to criminalise him for defending his rights. Staff
terminated his interview after further attempts to stop him taking notes failed
and he refused to sign a declaration for his Claimant Commitment to be
reviewed. Dominic was then told he would be referred to a Jobcentre manager, to
which he immediately agreed. As no managers were available, he was signed on
for his Jobseekers’ Allowance and given an appointment to meet a manager the
following week.
Accompanied by a friend and fellow FRFI supporter, Dominic
met with a manager of Laurieston job centre on 30 June. Both challenged the
manager and forced him to apologise over the behaviour of his
staff and their claims that it was “illegal” to take notes. The manager agreed
that the DWP had no legal powers to stop claimants taking their own personal
notes during jobcentre interviews on their own notepad (not in the work plan
booklet). No attempt was made to prevent Dominic’s friend accompanying him, and
the two were in fact treated with uncharacteristic respect by G4S security and
DWP staff.
A useful leaflet from Edinburgh
Coalition Against Poverty cites a letter written in 2010 on behalf of the Chief
Executive of JobCentre Plus which acknowledges the right to be accompanied to
benefit interviews: ‘On the matter of accompanied interviews…We accept that
there will always be times when customers attending our premises feel the need
to be accompanied by a friend or advice worker and we will always try to
accommodate this where possible.’
The lesson of this small
encounter is that claimants are not given their legal rights but have to fight
for them. With recent declarations made against sanctions by the Public and
Commercial Services Union (PCS), who organise amongst Job centre staff, the
time for action is now!
For
more details visit and to get active contact
www.frfi.co.uk
glasgowdefencecampaign.blogspot.com
Facebook ‘Glasgow FRFI’
glasgowfrfi@gmail.com
07923961864
Bi
weekly protest stalls ‘Enough is enough!’– Say No to the sanctions, Atos,
bedroom tax, workfare, zero hours! Open
megaphone for all.
Thursdays
17 and 31 July, 3.30pm, Outside Marks & Spencer store on Sauchiehall St
