WHILE I was handing out leaflets at last week’s Ashton under Lyne jobcentre demo, a disabled lady came out upset and close to tears. I handed her a leaflet and asked her what was wrong. She said that she suffers from a congenital medical condition. It causes her joints to unlock constantly and as a result she struggles to walk and depends on crutches and her friend to take her out in her car.

She was clearly in a lot of pain and the struggle in her eyes was very obvious. She told me that she is on disability living allowance (DLA) but the jobcentre had called her in. She showed me the “compliance” letter they sent her. They had told her that she must come off her DLA, claim jobseekers allowance and look for work.

This woman is incapable of holding down a job. She can’t sit down, she can’t stand up, she can’t lift, she’s in constant pain and she survives on a mixture of very strong painkillers. She also is a regular attendee of the local hospital, often spending nights in there, and has to have operations.

I told her to fight to keep her DLA, which she has been awarded because she obviously needs it. If we regular protesters hadn’t been there she may have accepted what they said — and that’s a very scary thought.

A man then walked out of the jobcentre looked harassed and said to me: “You’ve got to do something about the staff in there.” He said he went to sign on as usual and had complied with everything on the job search list. The adviser kept trying to trip him up and said: “If you ever fail to comply, I will sanction you.” With that he gave a smile — a sneering one.

The man told us every time he goes into the jobcentre he feels like they want to sanction him. We told him that he can change advisers, and he said he would do so. But it isn’t right that they can be allowed to behave like this. The advisers that do should be challenged.

We hear many complaints of advisers being deliberately rude to clients. There’s no need for it. Advisers need to remember that if it wasn’t for the clients they wouldn’t have a job.

A member of the public was refused permission to change his signing on time to attend a job interview. You can’t win either way. If he doesn’t sign on his money gets stopped. If he doesn’t go to the interview, he gets sanctioned. It’s a lose-lose situation.

The other week we had the army recruiting in the jobcentre. Now, you might think that this is OK. That’s a matter of opinion. However the tactics they were using were shocking — a member of the public enlightened us.

The officers in attendance were junior members of the army and not qualified to recruit members. Their recruiting tactic went like this: “You aren’t going to get a job so you’ve got to join the army.”

Joining the army is a personal choice — often a vocation. You should never be forced or bullied into it. Trading on the vulnerable to enlist ... what next, conscription? Makes you wonder doesn’t it. 

A workfare provider happened to walk past our demo. She started to get very irate at the oldest member of our group, who works tirelessly to help others. She’s seen it all before but shame on this lady for her attitude. She was not willing to discuss any issues at all, she just kept repeating workfare is right, my company benefits from it. Of course it does. It profits by not having to pay a member of staff. All I can say is that she lives in a totally different world than many people and didn’t have an ounce of compassion. Shame on her. Maybe one day she will suffer like those she makes slave for her.

Make no mistake it’s a modern form of slavery and needs to be stopped. Everyone deserves a decent day’s pay for a decent day’s work. Bring back properly paid work trials. They do exist but are very rare these days.

The number of people who gain employment after being on a workfare programme is very low. We need to outlaw workfare. It does nothing to help, it only demoralises. It is also damaging the local economy: less paid work, fewer people contributing to the local economy. It doesn’t make sense to anyone but a workfare provider.

• Charlotte Hughes blogs at thepoorsideoflife.wordpress.com, where a version of this article first appeared.