National Week of Action Against Atos Origin

Disability activists, claimant groups and anti-cuts campaigners have called a week of action against Atos Origin beginning on Monday 9th May with a picnic and party in Triton Square, home of their head office, at 2pm.

Both announced and unannounced protests are set to take place around the UK outside the offices and testing centres operated by Atos Origin.

Atos Origin have just begun a £300 million contract by the Con-dem Government to carry out ‘work capability assessments’ on all of those claiming Incapacity Benefit.

It is claimed assessments are to test what people can do rather than what they can’t. The real purpose is to strip benefits from as many people as possible.

This testing system has already led to people with terminal illnesses and severe medical conditions being declared fit for work and having benefits cut. GP’s are ignored in favour of decisions made by Atos Origin’s computer.

Plans announced for the scrapping of Disability Living Allowance have also revealed that this intrusive testing is likely to be extended to everyone on some form of disability or health related benefit.

To date around 40% of appeals against Atos Origin’s decisions have been successful.

On the 24th January and 14th April claimants from around the country demonstrated outside Atos Origins premises, with many choosing to close for the day rather than face their ‘clients’. We call on all groups around the UK to take action against these parasites who have been dubbed ‘the racial purity and euthanasia arm of the DWP’

Please join, share and invite friends to the facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=121624627914913

A list of Atos Origin’s corporate offices can be found at:

http://www.uk.atosorigin.com/en-uk/about_us/locations/

Atos testing centres are listed at:

http://www.atoshealthcarejobs.co.uk/locations.html

If you are holding an event, protest or action in your home town please add details on the wall below to have your event added to this page and the website.

Alternatively contact us at: notowelfarecuts@yahoo.co.uk

Latest News:

Birmingham
Thursday, May 12 • 7:00pm – 10:00pm
Unison offices, 19th floor McClaren Tower, Priory Queensway. B4 7NN
Public Meeting: Benefit Cuts: Who are they targeting? How can we stop them? – called by DPAC and Right To Work

Then on Friday May 13th at noon outside Waterstones bookshop opposite bull statue in Bullring centre join them for leafleting and street theatre ‘ The Computer Says NO’ an adaptation of a Brighton Benefit Campaign play.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=169640809755894

Bristol – 3.30-5.30 Thursday 12th May
After a previous successful demonstration outside ATOS, Flowers Hill, voicing our dissent at the way this Government is attacking the most vulnerable in our society and using ATOS as a way of doing it, we are asking you join us for another demonstration between 3.30-5.30 Thursday 12th May 2011 outside ATOS, Flowers Hill,

Brislington.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=158658667531464

Cardiff – Monday, May 9 • 12:30pm – 3:30pm

Disability Benefits Building, St Agnes Street, Gabalfa, Cardiff

As part of the National Week of Action against Benefit Cuts and Atos Origin kicking off on Monday 9th of May, we will be staging a protest outside the Disability Benefits Building at St. Agnes road, Gabalfa, Cardiff.
Bring music, drums, banners, placards, snacks to share and brighten up the faceless corporate wasteland that is the Benefits Building!

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=171127669607093&ref=mf

Chatham

Between 12 and 2pm on Friday 13th May

Medway Against the Cuts (MAC) will be holding a protest picket of the ATOS Testing Centre at 1a Batchelor St Chatham between 12 and 2pm on Friday 13th May. Medway Against the Cuts can be contacted at medway-against-the cuts@live.co.uk

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_168119479887991

Edinburgh

11.00am – 1.00pm Monday, 9th May

Atos Origin, 44 York Place, (near top of Broughton St)

The Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty and Black Triangle will be protesting outside ATOS healthcare offices in Edinburgh on Monday the 9th of May.

Liverpool – Picket Atos Origin

Monday, May 9 • 11:30am – 2:30pm

Atos Origin, The Plaza, Old Hall Street, Liverpool

As part of this week of action, Liverpool Solidarity Federation are calling for all those who stand in support of disabled people to join us in a picket of their offices in Liverpool the same day.

Assemble in The Plaza, Old Hall Street, at 11.30am on Monday 9th May. Bring flags, banners, and placards.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=160068340719677

London – Party and Protest in Triton Square

Monday, May 9 – 2pm

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=194299250612882&

Claimants will also be leafleting outside Atos Origin/DWP Offices on Lisson Grove, NW1 from 11am

London – Hardest Hits March – 11 May
Thousands of disabled people, family and friends are expected to march. There are many ways to participate, including online – visit: http://thehardesthit.wordpress.com/

Some of us autonomous claimants plan to attend and will be meeting up with WinVisible at 11.30 on Victoria Embankment at the corner of Derby Gate SW1. The march will go past Parliament towards Millbank, ending at Dean Stanley St. The nearest tube station is Westminster. Bring anti-atos placards, leaflets etc
http://benefitclaimantsfightback.wordpress.com/2011/04/16/london-hardest-hit-march-lobby-and-protest-wed-11-may/

Manchester- Wednesday, May 11 • 12:00pm – 3:00pm
Albert Bridge House, Bridge Street, Manchester

Called by Manchester Coalition Against Cuts. If your organisation would like to support this demonstration please contact: coalitionagainstcuts@gmail.com

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=145587872178552

Nottingham
11:00AM Monday, May 9th

Day of action against ATOS origin and Office Angels / Adecco
Meet at 11am outside Office Angels (located in the city centre past the right lion. Next door to MAC and opposite The Square bar/club)
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=221270991217017

Plymouth
Monday, May 11 – 11am

Plymouth Claimants Union will be demonstrating outside the Atos Origin Argosy House , Marsh Mills , medical centre in Plymouth from 11.00 am Monday 9th May. Free transport from city centre. Cntact plymouthclaimantsunion@yahoo.co.uk

Truro
There is now a Cornwall DPAC group formed which may be contacted at c.mccarther@sky.com We are holding a protest day in Truro and going to the ATOS office. Meet outside Weatherspoons in Lemon Quay at 10.30am on Wednesday May 11.

Everywhere!
International Week of Virtual Protest Against Atos Origin

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=144607022276752&

Supported by:

o Armchair Army
o Anti-Benefit Cuts Glasgow
o Black Triangle Anti-Defamation Campaign
o Brighton Benefits Campaign
o Bristol & District Anti-Cuts Alliance (BADACA)
o Cardiff’s Unemployed Daytime Disco
o Carer Watch
o Claimants Fightback
o Crippen – Disabled Cartoonist
o Defend Glasgow Services Campaign
o Diary of a Benefit Scrounger
o Disabled People Against Cuts
o Dundee Unemployed Workers
o East Lancs Right to Work
o Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty (ECAP)
o Free London Listings
o Goldsmiths in Occupation
o Haringey Solidarity Group
o Ipswich Unemployed Action
o Islington Deaf and Disabled People Against Cuts
o Islington Hands Off Our Public Services (IHOOPS)
o Islington Poverty Action
o John McDonnell, MP
o Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group
o Lancaster and Morecambe Against the Cuts
o London Autistic Rights Movement
o Liverpool Solidarity Federation
o London Coalition Against Poverty (LCAP)
o London Foodbank
o Mad Pride
o Medway Against The Cuts
o Mental Health Resistance Network
o Milton Keynes Coalition of Resistance
o Norfolk Community Action Group
o Nottingham Anarchist Federation
o Nottingham Claimants’ Union
o Nuneaton Against Benefit Cuts
o Nurses Against Atos
o Oxford Save Our Services
o Plymouth Claimants Union
o Right To Work Campaign
o Save Our Services in Reading
o Single Mothers’ Self-Defence
o Squattastic
o Social Work Action Network (SWAN)
o Torbay & District Anti-Cuts Alliance
o Tyne and Wear Coalition of Resistance
o Tyneside Claimants Union
o UNITE Scottish Housing Associations Branch
o Welfare Action Hackney
o Welfare Rights 4 u (UK)
o West Yorkshire Solidarity Federation
o Where’s the Benefit?
o WinVisible (women with visible and invisible disabilities)
o Work Programme & Flexible New Deal Scandal
o World Homeless Day

Incapacity Benefit "crackdown" begins today

The one-and-a-half million people who claim incapacity benefit will start to receive letters this week asking them to be tested for their ability to work. The new assessments are part of government plans to reduce the number of long-term claimants in a rolling programme through to 2014. Almost 30% of those who took the test during pilot schemes in Burnley and Aberdeen were declared fit to work. However, disability charities say many of the assessments are unfair.

However, the question remains, how many disabled people on benefits are really fit for work? It’s an important question, particularly in light of revelations of unfair assessments being conducted during the pilot phase of this programme. Suggestions that people suffering from cancer and undergoing chemotherapy or individuals with long-term mental health problems all being deemed ‘fit for work’ does not inspire confidence in a system

Nonetheless, the government continue to publicise that just over a quarter of those assessed were “fit for work”

Put like that it sounds as though a large proportion of people on these benefits are swinging the lead – and this is certainly the story newspapers have been telling recently.

But that is entirely the wrong way of looking at it. To understand why, a little explanation is needed. Since the mid 1990s, the main income replacement benefits for disabled people have been Incapacity Benefit and Income Support. The Labour government brought in a new benefit to replace them, called Employment and Support Allowance, with a tougher eligibility test, called the Work Capability Assessment. One of the new government’s priorities has been to move people who currently get the old benefits over to ESA, which means applying the new test to them.

They expect this to take three years and the results are from a pilot project that’s mainly about finding out if there are going to be any operational problems. It was only running in two locations – Aberdeen and Burnley – so the numbers involved are quite small. (This means we have to be a little cautious about the results.)

I understand that about 12 per cent of those found fit for work are appealing. About 40 per cent of WCA appeals are successful; if that holds true the proportion finally found fit for work will come down to about a quarter.

This shouldn’t really come as a surprise – the new test was designed to be tougher and everyone involved assumed that fewer people would be awarded benefit. So, when a test designed to cut the numbers qualifying is applied to a group who passed an easier test the result is that a large minority fail. If that hadn’t happened I should imagine the DWP would have been quite annoyed.
So where do we get this guff about “two in three benefit claimants are fit to work”, to quote the Telegraph? By adding together the group found fit for work and the people in the work-related activity group.
But the people in the work-related activity group aren’t fit to work, if they were they would have been found fit to work. Instead, they’ve been put in a group of people who are going to be helped to get back to work, but who don’t have to apply or look for jobs (which is what the benefits system requires of out-of-work non-disabled people). The fact that they’re going to be able to work at a future point doesn’t mean they are malingering now.

(There’s another sense in which many more of the people on these benefits are capable of work. If you use the social model of disability, then being a disabled person doesn’t mean you’re incapable of employment provided social and economic arrangements are in place to remove the barriers that currently exclude disabled people. But we are a long way from achieving that.)

When you know the history it isn’t just harder to put up with newspaper nonsense – some of the stuff from Ministers get harder to bear too. Chris Grayling once said:

“Too many people were simply abandoned to a life on benefits; we are determined to put a stop to that terrible waste of potential. The welfare state in this country is no longer fit for purpose that’s why our broad range of reforms are so important.”

But this “important” reform is one they inherited from their predecessors! Whether it is the Government or the Opposition that should be most embarrassed about this I’ll leave to readers.

One thing is clear, this morning a lot of people will be worried about their pending assessment – not because they are afraid to work. Nor will it be because they are unwilling to work. Their fear will stem from the fact that
a) The system has been designed in such a way that some of those who are genuinely unfit will be forced back into work.
b) With the demise of Pathways to Work and NDDP, the mechanisms are not in place to fully support those who have been on these benefits back into employment.

Once again this scheme is another example of the government rushing through reforms without thinking them through and without any consideration of people’s lives.

At this rate, Chris Grayling may easily win the award of being the most hateful man in British politics so far this century.