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Dundee
workers challenge IDS:
�Debate
the Welfare Cuts!�
10th January:
Dundee Unemployed Support Centre
Organiser Harvey Duke came to London today to ask Work and Pensions
Secretary Ian Duncan Smith to make his mind up to debate the welfare
cuts in public.
Harvey is getting impatient that the
encounter keeps getting put off.
 �We
first challenged Ian Duncan Smith to a debate in a letter to the
'Dundee Courier' on Saturday 13 November�, Harvey reports. �We only
raised it to get publicity for our policy of setting up an Unemployed
Workers Centre in Dundee. I had some involvement in the Dundee
Unemployed Workers Centre in the 1980s and 1990s which Lord Young
described as a �hotbed of resistance��.
�It wasn�t just for unemployed
workers. It did work on oral history and all sorts of other
activities. Our idea now is to have a campaigning centre not just for
the unemployed but for the low-paid and people affected by the changes
in benefit."
�As a result of this initiative we
are getting phone calls from people who need individual help. It�s
like what happened in the campaign against the Poll Tax. We wanted a
head-to-head with Ian Duncan Smith in Dundee with full press coverage
and proper disabled access because a lot of people will want to come�
�Shortly after our challenge to
Duncan Smith, the �Courier� ran a story about a 60-year-old man who
was ruled fit to work and was taken off benefit but died of his
medical condition 2 days later.�
In fact it was a local journalist
who contacted the secretary of state and passed on the challenge to
come and debate the issue of benefit cuts. IDS promised to consider
it.
However, since then, despite
assiduous efforts, Harvey Duke has not heard a word from Ian Duncan
Smith. Aides have assured him that the job has been passed on to
employment minister Chris Grayling, but he has not so far said
anything either.
The Dundee activists have had
support from Bob Crow of the RMT, Janice Godrich (National President
of the PCS, Scottish Regional Organiser of the FBU Jim Malone and
Hollywood actor Brian Cox.
You can contact the Dundee
Unemployed Support Centre on 07896461855 or email
[email protected] |
