How to cancel as donation to Oxfam to to their use of workfare.

oldtoolie

http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?p=566

More success! Oxfam, Maplin and “crisis talks with the government”
Posted: February 20th, 2012
Another amazing day for the campaign. It’s reported that ministers will hold “crisis talks” with Tesco this week to try and keep them on board what looks increasingly like a sinking ship. Maplin has tweeted that it will join the list of retailers to pull out of the government’s forced unpaid labour schemes.

Oxfam has confirmed to us verbally that it will not accept workfare in any of its forms.

Oxfam_GB

Oxfam's head of volunteering, Georgia Boon, said:

"Oxfam does not offer placements for participants in the Mandatory Work Activity, or compulsory elements of 'work for your benefits' schemes. We do this for two reasons: firstly because these schemes impact unfairly on the support people receive and so are incompatible with our goal of reducing poverty in the UK, and secondly because these schemes involve forced volunteering, which is not only an oxymoron, but undermines people's belief in the enormous value of genuine voluntary work.
"We have not been involved with these schemes since March 2011 when they were first introduced. We have communicated this to our network of 700 shops and have provided them with tools to help them to stop current Oxfam volunteers being placed on the schemes."

Background:
· In November 2010, the Government issued its Work Programme prospectus, announcing no fixed start time, but declaring their goal of fully implementing the programme by summer 2011. Having read the full policy document and the equality impact assessment, the Volunteering Team took the decision for Oxfam not to participate with the scheme.
· With the Charity Retail Association, Oxfam also met with a representative from Employment Minister Chris Grayling's office, to voice our concerns about the scheme.
· We have historically had a very successful relationship with voluntary work programmes for long-term benefit claimants, with up to 300 participants volunteering in our shops at any one time. We are now being forced to withdraw from these due to the sanctions being attached to the schemes – reducing the diversity of our voluntary workforce.
· Job Seeker's Allowance claimants who are actively volunteering and learning new skills, but not as a part of any Government scheme, are being forced to stop volunteering as they are placed on the scheme elsewhere – as a result, long-term volunteers are being lost.

HiMyNameIsLauren

Abslutely agree - call and cancel, or cancel via your online banking (if you use it) and then call/email them. For any reason, it's important they get the feedback - they may be able to adapt, or tell you otherwise and/or reasoning.

I cancelled a DD for another charity a few months back and they actually called me to find out the reason why. Their proactiveness to follow up was commendable.

cit_k

Voyager2002 wrote: »

I don't think it is as simple as you make out.

Oxfam is a charity, and so for many people it makes sense to give to them, whether in the form of money or of time as a volunteer. This situation is completely different from that with profit-driven enterprises: I mean, can you imagine someone using their time to volunteer at Tesco?

We now know that Workfare amounted to slave labour, but I doubt whether Oxfam knew about the element of coercion before now, and I am confident that if they had known they would have refused to take part. I have to say, I see nothing wrong with unemployed people choosing to give their time to Oxfam; and nothing wrong with the Jobcentres suggesting or facilitating this. OTOH I see a great deal wrong with profit-driven enterprises benefiting from voluntary work, and of course there should not be any coercion.

Of course they would have known about the forced labour - or are you saying that a National Charity like Oxfam did not even read what they were signing up for?

In which case, if that is true, they would have not read any of the other issues, such as safety, training, rules etc.

Everyone offering placements knew exactly what they were getting into - its not even SMALL print, its clearly explained.

oldtoolie

cit_k -- Did you read the statement from Oxfam at post #13?

It said that Oxfam had for many years offered volunteer posts through Job Centres. Oxfam withdrew from the scheme when coercion became part of the mix. Oxfam made clear to the government it's criticism of the scheme.

Now if Oxfam remained on the lists of a company like A4E were using, that is not surprise considering how corrupt and incompetent that company appears to be.

beansy

Wow, this is the first I have heard of this!

Have spent the last couple of hours reading information on the boycott workfare and Guardian websites.

Will certainly look into this further and advise my family, friends and colleagues to do so too.