A Striking Similarity

Until he retired, my father worked as a train driver.  A heart attack in about 1992 took him off the main line and into the 'depot' for the last few years of his employment, which had seen both the advent and the demise of British Rail.

Even before the heart attack, Dad's work had brought him into fairly regular contact with the NHS.  There were frequent trips to the old Southampton Eye Hospital in the early years of diesel propulsion, as the new locomotives chucked out tiny fragments of metal in their exhaust, which then required specialist removal if they got into your eyeball and rusted.  That the same machines made such an unholy racket now means regular fitting and tweaking of hearing aids and, on several occasions in the last few years, he's been back in the Coronary Care Unit - most recently for the fitting of his second Implantable Cardioverter Defibulator.

Dad's working life and that of the doctors who've kept repairing him have always had one thing in common - a necessity to work unsocial hours.  Recently, however, I've noticed another.

It was The Sun's stories about "Moet Medics" that triggered the deja vu moment.  Of course I hadn't seen them in the actual paper - I wouldn't so much as wipe my backside on that rag - but I had laughed at the Junior Doctors' clever Instagram/Facebook parodies mocking allegations that they led the high life on inflated salaries. One of the joys of Social Media is that you can instantly strike back against the media establishment if you are misrepresented.  In 1982, that wasn't so easy.

I mention 1982, because that was the year that Dad and his colleagues got the "Moet Medics" treatment from The Sun.  There was a dispute in progress between BR and the drivers over something called 'flexible rostering'.  Most people outside the industry thought this must be something quite positive, like 'flexitime' for office workers.  For the drivers, it was a fundamental attack on their terms and conditions of employment since their work patterns were already pretty 'flexible', with the starting time of a shift able to be moved up to two hours between one day and the next.  So a week of 2am shifts might start at that time on day one but at 00.01 the next night, back to 02.00 after that and then 03.50, depending on requirements, with the next shift's start time advised at booking off from the one before.  If he was on nights, Dad would leave my mum a note when he came home and before he went to bed, to say what time he was due at work the following night and, on that basis, when he was likely to be up and about and what they could therefore do during the day.  

The pay-off for that flexibility was, if the right guy was 'running foreman', a degree of goodwill in letting staff go home early if there wasn't work for the latter part of their shift and there was a bit of emergency cover.  During the summer holidays we might get an odd day at the beach on the basis that Dad had been allowed to 'slide off' and so got a longer early morning sleep than usual.  The same was true when booked on 'spare' - to cover for unexpected absences and emergencies - when some of the crews might get to 'slide off' early if everything was quiet.  That goodwill was repaid by the drivers with great enthusiasm for their job and commitment to their industry, despite the diabolical hours and conditions - for example, many diesel locomotives' cabs were so poorly insulated that old newspapers had to be rolled up and stuffed into the gaps and cracks to stop the draughts.  No fun at 100mph on a cold winter's night! 

'Flexible rostering' meant further uncertainty, allowing the basic hours of a shift to last between 7 and 9 hours of standard time, rather than the basic 8.  Operationally, you can see the sense of this; few shifts could be devised which neatly used eight hours work.  However, with drivers' income heavily dependent on an arcane system of overtime and anti-social hours payments ('time-and-five-eighths' being one rate - train drivers were impressive mental mathematicians on payday), 'flexible rostering' threatened both their income and that last little bit of predictability in their working lives - a guaranteed eight hour day.  That disputes like this were lost is arguably where the road to the 'zero-hours contract' begins.

In 1982, the train drivers - and their 'militant' union ASLEF - were very much a part of the 'Enemy Within' to the Tory establishment and it was therefore necessary to undermine their cause as thoroughly as possible.  So when two young 'second men' from Dad's own depot were prepared to sell their story - of 'sliding off' to go to the disco in work time - to none other than The Sun, it did the drivers' cause no good at all.  At no stage did any of the mainstream media properly explain the dispute and even the left-leaning Not the Nine o'clock News sketch-show couldn't resist a reference to the 'disco' story.  By no means a communist, the only paper Dad said gave the drivers' case a fair airing was the Morning Star.  (We had quite an eclectic mix of newspapers in the house when I was growing up, depending on what Dad found left behind by that day's commuters). 

All this was going on when I was in my last year at sixth-form college and had a massive impact on my political outlook, not least through trying to explain the reality to fellow students who thought it was funny to ask if they should look out for my Dad at the disco that night.  I saw how difficult it was to get fair coverage for your case and how quick politicians and the media were to condemn the 'selfishness' of workers supposedly 'holding the country to ransom' over something as trivial as fair pay and decent working conditions.

Today, I'd like to think it would be easier to fight back, with send-up Instagram pics of train drivers on the picket lines in their flares, open-necked satin shirts and medallions, and 'I'm in work, Peter'* Facebook posts.  In some ways, though, looking at how meekly much of the media take the Government line on the current Junior Doctors' dispute, I fear it would be much the same.  I can't help noticing that it's always "The Doctors' Union, The BMA" from our newsreaders these days (because Unions are a bad thing, of course, and God forbid that the general public mistake the BMA for anything legit), though we're never introduced to think-tank spokespeople as, for example, "Jack Slyme from The Centre for Social Justice, founded by Iain Duncan Smith to promote his personal agenda on Welfare."

At least in their dispute over pay and conditions the Junior Doctors do still have overwhelming public support - not least because a lot of people, like me, owe their lives or the lives of people they love to their dedication.  I think most people understand that intelligent professionals don't take action lightly and that if they say this deal is bad for both their profession and their patients, they're more likely than a politician to know.  Sadly, the opposite assumption tends to be made of blue-collar workers who, when they aren't simply being 'selfish', are still rarely portrayed as better than the dull-witted dupes of their unscrupulous, politically-motivated 'Union Bosses'.  If you'd ever seen a train driver checking the sums on his payslip in his head, before quibbling with the pay clerk over whether he'd got time-and-five-eighths rather than time-and-three for the overtime last Sunday, you would never dare assume that blue-collar workers are easily bamboozled.

*Sir Peter Parker was Chairman of the British Railways Board in 1982.

The Hook

I have a prediction concerning the Labour leadership election. 

I'm actually watching from the side-lines, having joined the Greens a couple of months ago.  I've avoided getting involved in the debate (apart from sharing a Facebook meme of Jeremy Corbyn as Obi Wan Kenobi) or trying to blag a vote via my union, despite hoping that Corbyn will prevail and wanting to help his cause.  

It is becoming increasingly apparent that rattled Labour Party insiders are looking for any straw that could be grasped in the event of a JC win to declare the contest null and void.  Sadly, I don't believe they will need to do this, and this is why.  A month ago, I visited the refurbished Everyman theatre in Liverpool to see 'The Hook', a stage adaptation of an Arthur Miller screenplay set in the docks of post war New York.  If you haven't seen it and don't want to know how it ends, stop reading this post now, as it's the plot of this play which I fear foreshadows the result for Labour. 

In the drama, a plucky longshoreman dares to challenge for the union representative's post, taking on a corrupt minor mobster who spends most of the year in Florida and the dockyard management with whom he colludes.  This hero's mates and many more workers promise to back him but, on the day of the vote, the count happens in secret and the incumbent is declared the winner.  We know that the villain has tried to rig the ballot by adding extra papers in his support and actually made up the numbers rather than counting, as he fears being defeated nonetheless.  Our hero and his buddies storm the office and, after a tense stand-off, are allowed to count the votes for themselves.  It soon becomes apparent that, even without the forged ballots, the establishment candidate was in fact victorious, and by a huge margin.  The longshoreman turns on his supposed supporters; each in turn confesses, shame-faced, that he chickened out and opted for the status quo when it came to the crunch. 

At the end of the performance, I couldn't help thinking of the impending Labour leadership vote.  I wonder how many people currently typing 'Jez we can!' on social media will be unnerved when the time comes to make their mark by the steady drip of anti-Corbyn 'principles are no use without power' rhetoric.  (Power without principles appears to be just fine to the party machine - why else ask Tony Blair's opinion?).  It will take more courage than Miller's longshoremen possessed for supporters to hold their nerve and vote for 'Jezza', regardless of these siren voices and those that will be added to them in the next few days.  It won't take many waverers to wreck the ship either, as only a clear first round win will do for Corbyn: there will be few supporters of the Gang of Three picking him as their no 2.

I hope I'm wrong, but I predict the outcome as a win, on second preferences, for Yvette Cooper.  However, I'm unsure what to make of today's bizarre pact between her and Liz Kendall.  It may help rather than hinder the Corbynite cause, with Cooper's attempts to appeal to the left wing perhaps fatally undermined by a deal with Red Tory Liz, although I suspect what they're actually after is for Kendall's supporters to back Cooper as no 1, while Kendall effectively withdraws from the race without saying as much.   


As I said, I could be wrong.  I hope I'm wrong.  I would love to see the Labour Party revived as a genuinely left-wing, democratic entity and one day part of a broader left alliance Government with Green and other anti-austerity parties.  But if you are planning to be brave and vote for Jeremy Corbyn, you might do well to stuff your ears with wax for the last stage of this voyage and stop reading the Guardian until you're safely back to port.

Why the cap doesn't fit.

Considering that I could not bring myself to vote for Labour in this year's General Election because of its weakness in attacking the Tories' 'welfare reforms', and particularly its enthusiasm for leaving EEA migrants and their families in destitution - for they are often women with dependent children - I found it staggering when Harriet Harman lamented 'Labour was seen as supporting “people on benefits” but not those who “work hard.”' 

Labour may have been portrayed as doing so in a hostile press, just as they are always portrayed as 'soft' on immigration, defence and public spending, but to those of us in the business of benefit advice, there was no such impression.  We were crying out for them to stop singing the Tories' tune on austerity.  Tomorrow, when the Government's latest 'welfare reform' bill reaches the Commons, they have another opportunity.

Sadly, I suspect Labour are prepared to throw benefit claimants under the metaphorical bus of Osborne's £12bn cuts, rather than have a principled debate about Social Security.  Already, there is a cross-party acceptance of the Benefit Cap and a willingness to see it lowered, despite the fact that a £23,000 cap cuts into the income of even one and two child families in London, and a £20,000 cap inflicts similar hardship right across the country.  Many of the families affected may be unable to seek work due to sickness, caring responsibilities or bereavement, as neither assessment rate or 'WRAG' level ESA, Carer's Allowance nor bereavement benefits are disregarded.  Those who can seek work are unlikely to find it easier when they are spending more time haggling for Foodbank vouchers.


The 'benefit cap' concept isn't just twisted ideology - in many cases, it's bad economics too.  It has the perverse effect of keeping parents with children apart, who might otherwise live together in a shared household.  Even in cheap-to-rent Stoke-on-Trent, two lone parents, each with two children, will get about £350 per week each in benefits to support themselves and their children, and to cover their rent and council tax.  Letting them live together as a couple saves the state, and the claimants themselves, one set of housing costs and a further £30 from combining the adults' personal allowances, reducing the £700 'benefits bill' to the taxpayer by around £180 per week.  Impose a cap of £385 on their joint benefit income - which is what happens with a £20,000 limit - and you're effectively asking one adult to support the other and two additional children on just £25 more per week. 


That simply isn't possible and, as a consequence, they are likely to remain apart.  Impose the same cap on an existing four child family, and you can anticipate family breakdown under financial pressure, and thus a higher benefit bill, without starting to look at the long term financial consequences, or the human cost.  The cruelty of reducing benefits because a family has 'too many' children - children who may well have been conceived in better times, but almost never as a cynical calculation to increase benefit income - should see Labour shaming the Government and holding their own heads high regarding their past record of reducing child poverty, not running scared of it. 


The false narrative of the 'benefit cap' has been allowed to disguise a long-standing truth: there has always been a 'benefit cap'; fixed allowances for adults and children in particular circumstances, set at the minimum 'amount the government says you need to live on' and, even before Labour brought in Local Housing Allowance, there was provision to limit housing benefit to a level judged 'reasonable' by a rent officer.  The key principle was that no family's income should fall below that basic subsistence level. 


What of the argument that it 'isn't fair' for a 'hard-working family' to have a lower income than a 'family on benefits'?  This plainly ignores the point that if a claimant has a higher income than a worker, it is because the family of the first have greater needs.  Just because the 'average' worker earns less than some families receive in benefits, that does not prove benefit rates are too high.  A family with three children needs a higher income to sustain a decent standard of living than one with no kids, just as a family where someone is sick or disabled is likely to have higher costs than one where everyone is in good health.  That is not 'unfair'.  Indeed, once you count in the Tax Credits and Housing Benefit allowed for a working family - at least for now - it is almost impossible to contrive a situation where a family in work isn't better off - even pre-cap - than their unemployed equivalent.


Perhaps the Government know this to be a 'straw man' of an argument, as the proposed new legislation removes the connection between average earnings and the 'Benefit Cap' completely.  So much, then, for the apparent morality behind this policy, which now expects a family with, three, four, five or six children to raise them on the minimum income level for two and displaces families from their homes and neighbourhoods because these have become gentrified and unaffordable.


Is it to much to hope for serious and committed Opposition?

Family Planning

In another post, I lamented the Labour leadership candidates' apparent willingness to throw benefit claimants affected by the Benefit Cap 'under the bus', rather than challenge this despicable policy and the negative stereotypes wheeled out to justify it.  It now seems that, in Harriet Harman's Labour Party, future Tax Credit claimants with more than two children can go under her sickly pink battle bus too. 

Looking at the Benefit Cap, Channel 4 News helpfully showed us what these people look like, interviewing a single mother of eight and chiding her for her irresponsibility.  What they failed to explain was that a family with twice the number of parents and half the number of children face an identical cut in benefits.  Perhaps it is this style of reporting that convinces Harman and co that they cannot win an argument against benefit cuts, though I would argue that in truth, they have never tried to have that argument.

Let's consider the 'two child' limit.  It's popular because, when you talk about large families on benefits, people picture the single jobless mum with eight kids.  Show them instead a picture of a second-time-around suburban married couple, with three children between them from their previous relationships and the bouncing baby they had together before dad unexpectedly lost his well-paid job due to sickness, and all the talk of 'fairness to the taxpayer' starts to sound much more hollow. 

Then show them the woman fleeing a violent partner with the four children she had little choice about conceiving, or perhaps the divorced youth worker, happily keeping her three children without Tax Credits - until Council budget cuts meant her hours and take-home were slashed too?  The divorced and remarried father raising a family with his new wife, again with no state support, until a crisis meant the children from his first marriage had to come to live with dad?  From 2017, these would all be 'new' claims, either for Tax Credits or Universal Credit, with the two child limit applied.  Who's going to stay together?  Who's going to have to split up?  It would make compelling reality TV, wouldn't it?

And here's a classic 'poverty trap'.  A family currently getting Tax Credits for four children have the offer of much better paid work, which will lift them out of benefit entitlement altogether - while it lasts.  But it's a one year, fixed-term contract; at the end, if they need to claim CTC or UC again, they would be making a 'new' claim so will get no support for two of their children. 

It seems to me that Harman and her ilk continue to fall into the trap of dividing the population into 'workers' and 'claimants', failing to understand that very many of us, our friends and our families, will migrate between these states, whether we like it or not.   It isn't 'welfare' for 'them' - it's Social Security, for us all.     

A shock for the self-employed?

Whatever the outcome of Thursday's General Election, and whatever deals have to be done to form a Government, there is a very good chance that the unemployment figures will start to increase soon afterwards.

Unnoticed by the main-stream media, who have worn their Benefits Street goggles throughout the campaign, and even by most serious Social Security commentators, a change to the Tax Credit regulations took effect earlier this month that poses a major threat to the livelihood of those aspiring entrepreneurs - or brow-beaten job-seekers - who have opted to set up as self-employed, turning their hobbies and dreams into a 'businesses' at the prompting of their Work Coach, and with the safety-net of Working Tax Credit.

There has been too little analysis of the headline figures regarding the growth of self-employment, though a note of caution over the steep fall in average earnings for self-employed people should have indicated that many 'small businesses' are unsustainable without a significant benefit subsidy. Having served their purpose to the Coalition in masking the true level of unemployment and under-employment in the UK, these people are about to have the rug pulled out from under them.

I looked at how Universal Credit threatens one group of self-employed people in the second half of this post but for many existing claimants, UC is still a long way from being reality.  Changes are coming their way nonetheless - unluckily for those whose irregular or inconsequential profits are supplemented by Working Tax Credit, HMRC have now adopted ideas enshrined in UC's treatment of the self-employed, and already used to deny benefits to migrants.

HMRC are now reviewing existing Working Tax Credit claims to check that the claimant's work is 'genuine and effective'.  This concept first appeared as a safeguard against alleged 'benefit tourism' by EEA citizens and initially applied a common-sense test; does this person's 'job' actually involve doing something that should command a wage?  No earnings limit or number of hours were specified, but a judgement was to be made on whether there was bona fide work in progress.  More recently, this has shifted to asking 'does this person earn at least the equivalent of the minimum wage for a full-time job?'  Where the answer is 'yes', their work is 'genuine and effective.'  Where it is not, a doubt arises.

This principle is now to be applied to all Working Tax Credit claims, not simply those from Johnnie (or Joni) Foreigner.  The starting point will be the number of hours you have to work to qualify for WTC - 16, 24 or 30, depending on your circumstances.  If you earn the equivalent of that number of hours at the minimum wage for your age, your work should automatically be accepted as 'genuine and effective.'  Some leeway should be allowed when starting a business.  But if HMRC decide you are not, your WTC will stop and you are likely to be left with an overpayment.

As well as being bad news for the creatives I considered in the Universal Credit post in the above.link, this could be disastrous for many taxi drivers, who can wait on ranks for hours at a time and for care workers, receiving mileage but no wage for traveling time.  

Those Work Coaches still urging job-seekers to turn hopes and hobbies into jobs may be unaware of this; a colleague reported hearing an interview on a local radio station last week with a lad who had gone 'self-employed' as a busker with the encouragement of his local Job Centre.  If he's hoping to top up the contents of his hat up from Working Tax Credit, he may be in for a shock.
 

Unearned income

My previous post looked at the stealth cuts in Social Security support to unemployed people approaching an ever-receding retirement age, and how this is halving the income of many 'sixty-somethings' and leaving many to contend with issues we tend to think apply to a younger age-group, such as the Bedroom Tax and JSA sanctions.

This post takes a closer look at how the introduction of Universal Credit impinges on people who might have had to end their career before formal retirement age through ill-health, as all the talk from IDS and his minions about how UC will 'make work pay' has conveniently avoided looking too hard at the consequences of bringing in this benefit for people who aren't working, especially those towards the end of their working lives.

If you are 'medically retired', when your Statutory Sick Pay runs out you often qualify for contribution-based Employment and Support Allowance, the benefit which replaced Incapacity Benefit from 2008.  It's a 'non means-tested' benefit, so is unaffected by savings or a partner's earnings but, if you have a private pension, contributory ESA is reduced by 50% of the value over £85 per week.

Until the Coalition came to power, it was paid for as long as you were ill enough to qualify for it.  In 2011, the present Government shifted the already tight medical goalposts closer together, making it more difficult to score the 15 points needed to have 'Limited Capability for Work' and be eligible for ESA.  Then they time-limited contributory ESA for claimants not allocated to the most severely incapacitated 'Support Group' to one year, even if your condition had no chance of improvement and you had no real prospect of working again, saving the hard-working tax-payer around £101 per week per affected claimant - who would themselves have been a hard-working tax-payer had misfortune not intervened, since entitlement contributory ESA relies on an adequate record of NI contributions.

Then we come to Universal Credit.  Here's an example of how that impacts someone who has taken 'early retirement':

Ahmed gets an occupational pension of £65 per week, and is also entitled to contribution-based ESA of £101.15* per week, a total of £166.15.  Ahmed has to pay £70 per week rent so makes a claim for Housing Benefit. This is calculated by comparing his actual income with what he would get on income-based ESA. Ahmed’s income is £65 per week higher than this. Housing Benefit rules say he should pay at least 65% of that ‘excess income’ (£42.25) towards his rent, but he should get the other £27.75 as Housing Benefit.

If Ahmed has to claim Universal Credit instead his housing costs are included in the amount the Government say he needs to live on - £742.86* per month, including his housing costs. His income from ESA and pension is £719.99 per month.  Unlike Housing Benefit, the 65% ‘taper’ only applies to ‘earned income’ - any other income is counted in full. Ahmed might argue that he had ‘earned’ his contribution-based benefit and work pension, but the UC regulations do not see it that way; both are treated as ‘unearned income’ and taken into account in full.  Ahmed would get the equivalent of just £5.28 per week Universal Credit, £22.47 per week less help with his rent than he would get claiming Housing Benefit.

Once again, someone who does not conform to any of the 'scrounger' stereotypes we are shown in the media takes a substantial cut in income due to 'Welfare Reform' and, unless you are that person, you probably know nothing about it.

.  
*2014/15 figures 

No Country for Old Men?

It was reported earlier this week that the thousand richest individuals in the UK are now worth £547 billion, and that this amount had doubled during the last ten years.  To put that in perspective, it's enough to fund the entire Social Security budget including pensions, tax credits and disability benefits - an estimated £220 billion - for two entire years.  

In contrast, one group of people have seen their income halved, or often more than halved - and no-one is reporting their plight.  

'Welfare' has at last become an issue in the General Election campaign, with Danny Alexander's revelations about the Tories' alleged plans for Child Benefit and Child Tax Credit, and there is political capital to be made from the potential losses to 'hard-working families' of means-testing Child Benefit, ending it at 16 regardless of a young person staying on in education, or restricting it to the first two children.  That's all reprehensible, but so is much that has already happened and, with the exception of the 'Bedroom Tax', the main parties have no plans to reverse any of it.

That's bad news for people like Jeff (obviously not his real name).  Jeff is 61 and, after decades as one of those lauded 'hard-working people', he's out of work.  Jeff's previous jobs - the last of which he held down for over ten years - have been semi-skilled or unskilled and demanded a level of physical fitness which he does his best to maintain (cycling about eight miles twice a week to do voluntary work), but which few employers looking for labourers would anticipate finding in a man of his age.  As a result, he's been out of work for over a year.

Before the state pension age for women started to rise, after the 2010 election, men like Jeff could claim Pension Credit from 60, rather than Jobseeker's Allowance.  Pension Credit is available to both men and women without any work-seeking conditions, even if they have not formally retired.  That doesn't stop them seeking work if they wish - it probably wouldn't have prevented Jeff from doing so.  Pension Credit for a single adult is now £151.20 per week and recipients are exempt from the 'Bedroom Tax' and entitled to maximum Council Tax Support.  

Unfortunately, the age at which you can receive it is now 62 1/2 and rising by increments, which means Jeff won't reach it until sometime in 2016.  In the meantime, he has to claim Jobseeker's Allowance of £73.10 per week, less than half the Pension Credit rate for a single person, and pay 30% of his Council Tax (about £6 per week) and a 'Bedroom Tax' of £11 from this.

While our 'fat cats' have twice the wealth they had ten years ago, Jeff has less than half of what his entitlement would have been at his age in 2005. 

It gets worse.  Jeff has been sanctioned.  I cannot say why without a potential breach of confidentiality, but can say the root of the problem lies with the Universal Jobsmatch computer system and that, as Jeff is no IT whizkid, he has come unstuck with this system before.  We've asked for the DWP's decision to be looked at again and will appeal if it isn't, but while this happens, Jeff gets no money at all for the first two weeks and hardship payments of less than £44 per week after that - for three months.  If he falls behind with his Council Tax payments there will be Court costs and possible bailiff action; if he doesn't pay his Bedroom Tax, there will be Court costs and potential possession proceedings.  If he doesn't continue to 'actively seek work' while trying to cope with this, he'll lose his hardship payments. At least it's spring, so heating can more safely take second place to eating.

The next time you hear about the 'triple lock' to protect pensioners, pause to remember that cuts to 'working age benefits' now impact on people well into their sixties and that, by the end of the next Parliament, that category will include benefits for people up to the age of sixty-six. 

More of the cuts to the Social Security budget are coming from poorer 'baby boomers' than we are led to believe but, as older people are more likely to vote, no wonder the politicians are keeping quiet about it.

*Update: the DWP refused to overturn Jeff's sanction, despite independent evidence that he had done everything reasonable to seek work during the weeks he was accused of failing to do so.  Fortunately, he stuck to his guns and, with the help of one of my colleagues, took his case to an independent tribunal and won it after a very short hearing.