Part of the Union



Demonstrating for the NHS in Manchester

 It's a Bank Holiday weekend and all I've got for you is a repeat!  But it seems like an appropriate choice for May Day.  Here's an article my Trade Union, Unite, put on their 'Unite for Our Community' blog earlier in the year... 

If you’re a welfare rights adviser exasperated by programmes like ‘Benefits Street’, how do you tell people what life on Social Security is really like without breaching your clients’ confidentiality?  Stoke-on-Trent Citizens Advice Bureau Training Officer and former benefits specialist Sarah Honeysett thinks she has an answer – she writes what her colleagues have nicknamed ‘welfare rights lit’.

Sarah’s first novel, Severe Discomfort, follows a middle-aged couple’s fight to clear their names of an accusation of Social Security fraud.  Despite the subject matter, it’s an upbeat story with a good helping of humour, a light-heartedly naughty romance and a devious, hypocritical villain, but it also challenges many myths and stereotypes about benefit claimants and the Social Security system.  The unlikely heroes Lyn and Terry Walker wouldn’t dream of appearing on ‘Reality TV’ and no television company would be interested in such apparently dull people - but their circumstances are the reality for many working-age claimants.  They’re reliant on benefits after tough, responsible working lives and - at least at first - are well-supported by a benefits system set up to give them a decent standard of living, despite their disabilities.

“When I started work in the 1980s recession there was a lot of compassion for people who were out of work,” says Sarah.  “Since then, reality TV shows and documentaries such as Saints and Scroungers, On the Fiddle, Skint and now Benefits Street have painted a picture of a Social Security system open to abuse, with benefits supposedly available as a ‘lifestyle choice’. But the rules for claiming whether you’re a lone parent, unemployed or sick are very much tougher now than they were in the Thatcher years, and getting harsher still.  I hope this story will encourage people to take a more sympathetic attitude and think about how they would cope in Lyn and Terry’s shoes.”

Sarah has pledged the profits from sales of both Severe Discomfort and its sequel, Continual Supervision, to Stoke-on-Trent CAB.  Paperbacks of both stories are available from proper tax-paying bookshops, and Kindle versions are available from Amazon.

You can see the original article here - and read other news and views on how Unite is fighting for its Voluntary Sector members.
http://www.uniteforoursociety.org/blog/entry/the-other-side-of-benefits-street/