Training provider Instant Muscle have gone into administration, leaving their staff unpaid for February, and unemployed trainees turned away from the doorsteps of their training centres! Staff were given termination letters as they arrived at work on the 27th.
http://tinyurl.com/ypzavz
Instant Muscle was established in 1981 as a charity providing recruitment and training.
It works with Jobcentre Plus and its clients include Government departments, local authorities, the NHS and other public bodies.
Employee and father of two, Paul Kelly, 34, said: "We have turned away people today, who have turned up for training, as well as us losing our jobs and not being paid."
Staff said Instant Muscle director Tony Garrett took over about a year ago.
He was unavailable for comment at home.
Instant Muscle were one of the organisations that jumped on the workfare gravy train when the Conservative Part introduced 'Project Work' in the 1990s, which became New Deal for the unemployed after the Labour Party got into power. The idea was that you would get work experience for 10 quid plus your dole. This is an example of so called Intermediate Labour Market still endorsed by the European Social Fund: http://www.esf.gov.uk/archive/2000_2006_esf_programme/case_studies/case_studies_-_east/instant_muscle.asp
As the Tories started up Project Work pilot schemes in various parts of the UK. Along with Grand Metropolitan, IM were identified early on by activists in Groundswell* as one of the main companies involved in this racket, http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/aut-op-sy/1997-03-23.192/msg00001.htm
Apart from Grand Met, Edinburgh Claimant's Group claimed the
other culprits in the Project Work provider racket include: Instant
Muscle, The Training Network, Career Ahead, and East Yorkshire
County Council who have been paying the jobless £l0 plus benefits
to paint the railings on the seafront at an East Coast seaside resort
Now the staff themselves are on the dole, having found out first hand about modern workplace practice after serving up motivational bullshit to claimants on behalf of Instant Muscle for more than 20 years. Whilst we can feel sorry for the hundreds of claimants who will have turned up for nothing, unemployed activists certainly won't shed any tears over the demise of this notorious workfare 'service provider'.
This should also be a warning of those who might get taken in by the paternalistic tripe coming out of the likes of Ed Balls, the Labour Party's 'Fabian Society' guru who now plans to force more employed people into training and voluntary-work-for-dole scheme run by companies like Instant Muscle.*2
*1) Groundswell was a anti-Job Seekers Allowance action network that many anarchists/libertarian communists were involved with - see http://www.geocities.com/ncajsa/#thought for more about this.
*2) See previous thread: http://libcom.org/forums/war-peace-freedom-slavery-etc-14112007?page=1
