Saturday the 6th of April.
Hull SolFed recently held a picket against the Workfare scheme outside of the new Poundland store, in the centre of town. Four SolFed members were joined by three members of the local unemployed peoples group in distributing leaflets and asking shoppers not to use Poundland. The picket managed to both turn customers away and engaged a lot of sympathetic passersby in conversation about the workfare scheme. The stores managers were unpleased with the picket, asking Humberside police to move us a small distance away from the doors (Approx 6 inches, in fact!). One member decided to respond with loud slogans, causing more interest than before.
All in all, the Picket was productive, it achieved it’s aim of turning shoppers away from Poundland, and the high foot traffic meant we spoke to a decent number of people about the Scheme and how we can beat it.
We would urge anyone in Hull who is interested in SolFed’s anti-workfare campaign to contact us at Hull@solfed.org.uk.
We would also like to thank the members of the Unemployed Workers group who helped make the picket so effective.