State Sponsored Slavery : Wed Nov 16, 2011 10:00 pm  

Things are getting beyond belief - Britain's young unemployed are being sent to work for supermarkets and budget stores for up to two months for no pay and no guarantee of a job, the Guardian can reveal. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/ ... intcmp=122 Does it really need 8 weeks of 'work experience' to become proficient at stacking shelves?

Things are getting beyond belief - Britain's young unemployed are being sent to work for supermarkets and budget stores for up to two months for no pay and no guarantee of a job, the Guardian can reveal. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/ ... intcmp=122 Does it really need 8 weeks of 'work experience' to become proficient at stacking shelves?

Re: State Sponsored Slavery : Wed Nov 16, 2011 10:08 pm  

LeighGionaire wrote: Things are getting beyond belief - http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/ ... intcmp=122 Does it really need 8 weeks of 'work experience' to become proficient at stacking shelves? No, but it makes it easier to take people on if you know their attitude is good. Employment is a two way contract not some form of right or charity.

LeighGionaire wrote: Things are getting beyond belief - http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/ ... intcmp=122 Does it really need 8 weeks of 'work experience' to become proficient at stacking shelves? No, but it makes it easier to take people on if you know their attitude is good. Employment is a two way contract not some form of right or charity.

Re: State Sponsored Slavery : Wed Nov 16, 2011 10:14 pm  

More to the point, why the hell is the taxpayer now subsidising huge corporations that are already making massive profits?

Re: State Sponsored Slavery : Wed Nov 16, 2011 10:15 pm  

Dally wrote:

No, but it makes it easier to take people on if you know their attitude is good. Employment is a two way contract not some form of right or charity.

So why are the employers expecting charity from the already poor then?

Re: State Sponsored Slavery : Wed Nov 16, 2011 10:15 pm  

Dally wrote:

No, but it makes it easier to take people on if you know their attitude is good. Employment is a two way contract not some form of right or charity.

It would appear that working for some of these companies is charity to the company. When tesco are making £3.5 billion profit surely they can afford to take someone at minimum wage on a trial rather than getting them to work for free.

Re: State Sponsored Slavery : Wed Nov 16, 2011 10:15 pm  

cod'ead wrote:

So why are the employers expecting charity from the already poor then?

And from the taxpayer.

Re: State Sponsored Slavery : Wed Nov 16, 2011 10:17 pm  

Dally wrote:

No, but it makes it easier to take people on if you know their attitude is good. Employment is a two way contract not some form of right or charity.

Spot on Dally. It's about time employers stopped abusing their powerful positions, paid their employees a decent wage and treated them like people instead of feudal peasants who should be devoted to serving a master.

Re: State Sponsored Slavery : Wed Nov 16, 2011 10:27 pm  

FFS. If people don't like the nasty employers they should set up their own business and emply others. Why do people see a job as a right? It's a simple contract between two needy parties. If an employee feels underpaid its usually because they are not in a position to demand (deserve) more. That could be because their skills are not great, the employer can only afford to pay a modest amount and the 'ee is content to work for that, etc. The odds have become stacked against 'ers by high NI costs and employment law. For mico-businesses these factors are very big and if they were relaxed employment would increase markedly.

Re: State Sponsored Slavery : Wed Nov 16, 2011 10:32 pm  

Here we apparently have highly profitable companies (we're talking multi-millions of pounds of profit) that can have young people on so-called 'work experience' for free – they pay nothing for someone to do a job for X weeks, while the state (us) pays that person a benefit that is far below the minimum wage and will be withdrawn if they refuse to carry out this act of charity for the poor, benighted corporate entities.

Well, I can't see anything remotely immoral there.

Never mind immoral – it's utterly counterproductive in terms of the current economic situation.

If Tesco or Sainsbury's really needs a shelf stacker, then they can bleedin' well afford to pay for one – in other words, they can create one of the jobs that the lying bunch of barstewards promised they'd create to provide gainful employment for all the people Osborne would make redundant when butchering public services, as per the open letter to the Chancellor last year from assorted big businesses, just before the comprehensive spending review.

Lying, greedy scum.

If people want to discuss a 'work experience' scheme that primarily illustrates the willingness of people to get out of bed in a morning and go to a place of work, then how about something in the community instead of helping further line the pockets of those who could damned well afford to pay someone a wage to do the work, if it really needs doing?

Re: State Sponsored Slavery : Wed Nov 16, 2011 10:35 pm  

Dally wrote:

FFS. If people don't like the nasty employers they should set up their own business and emply others. Why do people see a job as a right? It's a simple contract between two needy parties. If an employee feels underpaid its usually because they are not in a position to demand (deserve) more. That could be because their skills are not great, the employer can only afford to pay a modest amount and the 'ee is content to work for that, etc. The odds have become stacked against 'ers by high NI costs and employment law. For mico-businesses these factors are very big and if they were relaxed employment would increase markedly.

This isn't about "micro businesses" – it's a subsidy for mega-rich corporations that are already rolling in it. A subsidy from your tax, FFS.