After Tory ministers sent large numbers of police to break up peaceful protests against government workfare schemes on the Boycott Workfare day of action (Saturday 3 March), Right to Work is calling for D-Day on McDonald’s next Friday. McDonald’s is one of the largest and most profitable companies participating in the schemes but still felt the need to take £10m from one government scheme without creating a single job.

A flash occupation will take place at a branch of McDonald’s somewhere in London with details of where and when the protest is to take place kept secret until the last possible minute.  Right to Work hope to prevent police preparing the sort of thuggish welcoming committee that was present to defend McDonald’s exploitation of unpaid workers on Oxford Street today. Incidents witnessed by legal observers include police grabbing protestors across the throat and stamping on them.

Non violent civil disobedience is a longstanding tradition for those standing up against injustice from the suffragettes to the civil rights movement. The government’s workfare schemes are an injustice that merits the same response.

They are displacing paid work with forced unpaid labour. Figures from the shopworkers union Usdaw show 78% of their members who are on part-time contracts in retail complain that they cannot get enough hours. Workfare is bad for both the unemployed and those in work. The only people who gain from it are the greedy bosses. They want to cream off the huge profits generated from not paying people for their labour.

Assemble 5pm opposite the Dominion Theatre by Tottenham Court Road tube station where details of the target will be released.  Tell your friends with the Facebook event.

Mark Dunk, unemployed activist with Right to Work said, “It is sickening that physical violence is being used by the rich to defend their schemes to make people work for nothing. I was assaulted by a police officer during Saturday’s day of action but I will not let this stop me protesting for what is right.”

Michael Bradley, Right to Work said, “I hope that next Friday’s protest will be one more nail in the coffin for the government’s rotten slavery schemes. Instead of subsidising the bosses profits they should be investing in proper paid training and creating real jobs.”

So you’re coming to the flash demo?
Three more things you can do to help beat workfare.

Join the ‘dole queue demo’ on 14th March outside the Department for Work and Pensions when the next unemployment figures are released. Invite your friends on facebook.

Register now for the Forum on Austerity and Resistance. We hope this event can act as a rallying point for the campaign and help bring the anti-workfare and anti-cuts movements together to have an open discussion about the way forward.  Speakers include John McDonnell MP and Owen Jones, author of Chavs: the demonisation of the working class.

Raise the appeal from John McDonnell MP and Right to Work in your union branch/campaign group/organisation.