Defending the rights of the unemployed!

 by New Worker correspondent

NCP campaign organiser Theo Russell joined demonstrators outside Caxton House, the headquarters of the Department for Work and Pensions, in London last week. Called by the Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group, the picketers were protesting against the radical overhaul of disability benefits that could see people with complex or invisible conditions left hundreds of pounds out of pocket.
    Under the changes, the deeply-flawed work capability assessment (WCA) for determining benefit payments will be replaced with the existing personal independence payment (PIP) system – which is used to decide what day-to-day help a disabled person might need.
    In its post-Budget analysis, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the Government could face a choice of either widening the criteria or seeing hundreds of thousands of people no longer qualifying for benefits. Tom Waters, economist at the IFS, estimated one million people could be forced into work and some 600,000 could lose an estimated £350 per month in support.