I work for Debenhams, in a warehouse not a store, and we currently have FIVE of these free-labour lads on our books for eight weeks. I was on benefits for 3 years up until the job centre put me on a work placement at a British Heart Foundation shop in Widnes. During my time there i applied for a job at Debenhams and got it, 6 years later I'm still working full time, earning a wage. It's a positive move if done right. The only thing you can say about my experience though is that the beneficiary of MY forced work was a charity, not a multi-billion pound business....

[url=http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/vulnerable-man-lauds-volunteers-who-'keep-him-going'-201202214918/Vulnerable man lauds volunteers...[/url

He has already done homophobia!

We had a lad come and work for us for free - he was a friend of my son and had the initiative to ask us to give him work experience. We offered him advice for job interviews and he got a job with a large firm in a department he wanted to work in. Before joining us he had got nowhere.



A Russian lady came and worked for us for free because she was bored sitting at home. She would even turn up unannounced and come and ask to do work. In return we offered gave her leads to work on a self-employed basis for one or two of our clients. She has now taken on other work and is working more of less full-time on a self-employed basis.



It seems to me that people who show initiative and take chances they are offered (like you did) get rewarded.

Who has?

I hope you checked her visa

Did that email originate in a tanning shop in Luton?

I ticked the box!

Taking away honest workers overtime so they can pay folks nothing until the bad PR got unbelivable and they were forced to change tac, Whatever next...

TBH I would be happy if the just paid all the normal taxes they owe.

You make it sound like overtime is some sort of right.

A living wage should be

I'm not sure how widely this was repeated nationwide, but our local Tesco used this free labour instead of hiring the usual extra staff over the Xmas period. So in this case at least it cost actual jobs rather than overtime for existing staff. A double loss for the taxpayer.

I must admit I am strongly against anyone being forced to work in order to claim their benefits, and to be perfectly honest I don't really agree with this scheme either, but I can see the positives of it whereas others only see negatives. Having rafts of temporary staff in and out of work does no more for the taxpayer than improving the employability of the long term unemployed.

?

Just going off my local supermarkets but the majority of the temporary staff employed over Xmas are either students earning a bit extra, retired people doing a bit extra to top up their pension or people who normally only work part-time somewhere else. They're not really people who are "in and out of work".

As said before, if there is a job to be done at Tesco's (or anywhere else) then pay someone to do it, don't get free labour on the excuse of "improving employability". A 4 week work experience stacking shelves at Tesco does virtually nothing to improve employability unless there is a job at the end of it (which the new Tesco scheme appears to virtually guarantee now). If these work experience places were on Tesco's management then there might be a point to it (actually improving transferable skills). But working for free stacking shelves is unacceptable for a company that makes billions of pounds profits.

The Workfare scheme wouldn't have had anywhere close to the negative publicity it has received if the employers had topped up the JSA to minimum wage levels

Trouble is though this scheme is so discredited already that it will mean nothing to future employers, even the bonus of a decent reference won't happen as employers now don't even give out information beyond start and end dates.

Maybe so, but its better than nowt and at least shows you have got off your backside. I think its too early to judge personally.

I think you underestimate just how unemployable some people are. A lot of people don't even understand the concept of work, I.e turning up on time, wearing the correct uniform, working a shift.



The argument that Tesco make loads of money so should hire extra staff is akin to they make loads of money so its OK to go stealing from their stores. I.e ridiculous. This is a good scheme but should be entirely voluntary.

Not sure how you can blame employers, its the government that have deemed JSA to be a level that is enough to live on.



What is the latest on this? It really all boils down to this corporate social personshality stuff. I do not believe for 1 second that Tesco set out to take advantage of free labour for their own benefit which this scheme. I could perhaps believe they were doing it for their own image but them you may as well slam every private sector business out there who are nearly all up to the same tricks. And then again, at the other end of the scale, they could have been doing it completely unselfishly. Again, possible, especially considering the amount of work they do for charities and communities.



But it winds me up when people who clearly have agendas against companies that are highly profitable complain about this type of thing. No doubt they are the same people who inundate newspaper letters pages with complaints about the bonus culture.

It doesn't even do that. There was one incident (if I recall the details correctly) where a young graduate was doing work experience at a local museum – work experience that had direct relevance to her degree and her career hopes. She had to drop that and go and work in Poundland for X weeks or risk losing her benefit.



Utterly ridiculous.



On a wider note, many of the companies involved – and yes, Philip Green, you are one – were the exact same ones that, in late 2010, wrote an open letter to the chancellor, urging him to make cuts and promising that they would make up the jobs that would be lost.



Now we see what they meant.

If you believe that organisations did not see this as a fre labour pool then your are naive beyond belief.



I have no problem with organisations or individuals making profits, neither do I have a view on how large those profits should be. I do have a problem with the way some of the profits are generated and also what happens with regard to taxation of those profits, once they have been made.



Seeing as you mentioned Tesco, I'll use them as an example but they are by no means the only organisation to benefit at UK taxpayers' expense. By not paying a fair, living wage, many Tesco employees are supported by Working Tax Credits. However you dress it up, this is a company adding to its bottom line, directly through the generosity of the UK taxpayer. At the other end, they have also been found to make use of loopholes to avoid or minimise paying UK taxes. The latest ruse being, after agreeing not to supply CDs and other media VAT-free, by supplying through Jersey, they lay low for a while and then set up shop in Guernsey. I have no doubt that if that loophole is closed, they would then consider Sark, Alderney or they could always have a word with those other stalwarts of British business, the Barclay Brothers and set up shop on Jethou.



Remember the tories and most of their backers were opposed to the minimum wage, the vast majority of people working for minimum wage cannot subsist without taxpayer support through various credit schemes. I find it immoral that some businesses feel they could do better without intervention from the state in how they operate their affairs but are more than willing to accept state subsidies to top up their employees' remuneration.

Employment Minister [url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/feb/23/chris-grayling-work-experience-critics?newsfeed=trueChris Grayling attacks anti-capitalists for criticising Workfare scheme[/url



Sorry Graying but if you think that capitalism and the free market should be subject to government subsidy, then you should resign your position immediately