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Guest post - UK homeworkers left increasingly unsupported

By Will Horwitz | November 9, 2009

Joe Turner is Director of the Freedom Clothing Project

Government believes there may be 70,000 homeworkers in the UK earning below the minimum wage.  That is 70,000 people, primarily women, who are so exploited by bad employers that they continue working on poverty rates, hidden behind their own front doors.

Ministers have said to me that the women can complain about their pay, but this totally misunderstands the situation they find themselves in.  The women need the money, to complain would to blacklist themselves from the only source of income that they have.  The reality is that the government would prefer to allow these people to fend alone rather than support services that actually fight on their behalf.

Last year the National Group on Homeworking, the only UK group focussing on the issue of UK homeworkers, closed.  The government said it had no interest in continuing to fund their work and instead set up a phone helpline.

What remained was an inadequate and scattered network of services.  One of the few remaining dedicated council workers now finds her role under threat.  When I went to visit Tanzeem Mahmood in Rochdale, she took me to meet the group of homeworkers she supports.  Acting as a part translator, part social worker, part friend, Tanzeem helps the women to read and fill in official forms, listens and collects information about bad employers and tries to do as much as her 3 days-a-week job will allow.

In December, Rochdale Council is planning to end the post in a cost-cutting exercise leaving some of the most exploited workers in the area entirely alone.  Clearly the weakest matter little to the accountants in Rochdale, even though the service must cost a tiny fraction of their total budget.

What you can do:

  • Educate yourself on the issue of UK homeworking.  Write to your local politicians to ask why there are so few services and little knowledge about this neglected group of women.  It is an issue that rarely hits the headlines, but last year the BBC completed a brief report here.
  • If you live in the greater Manchester area, write to your local media asking them to urgently take up the issue of Rochdale’s homeworker service
  • Write to the managers at Rochdale Council expressing your disgust at the loss of this service supporting some of their most vulnerable residents.  Write to:

Paul Young
Head of Service
Customers and Communication Service
Homeworking Service
PO Box 39
Municipal Offices
Smith Street
Rochdale
OL16 1LQ

Topics: employment |

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