to boycott shops that use forced unpaid labour (aka slavery)?

[ChickenLickn]

These stores:

Boots,
Tesco,
Asda,
Primark,
Argos,
TK Maxx,
Poundland,
Arcadia group of stores run by billionaire Sir Philip Green, which includes Top Shop and Burton,

are all using 'workfare' schemes, forcing jobseekers to work 30 hrs/week unpaid for 6 months in profit making companies or face losing their jobseekers benefits. Mre details here.

Please avoid shopping in these shops as much as possible, this is basically slavery and is illegal under human rights law (and currently being challenged in the courts).

The good news is that Waterstones and Sainsburys have recently pulled out of the scheme.

"plus the only Grads that can afford to do this are the ones whose families can support them"

nope actually I can't think of many "kept" ones off the top of my head, they go from their full time internship to evening shifts in supermarkets or weekends in care homes. Its worth it long term to have a full CV even if the job is not in the company the internship was done in.

"Not much in it for the jobseeker"

apart from less gaps in their CVs perhaps that's worth a lot!

and I manage to work full time and and job hunt, so don't really get that angle either.

But you get paid RRR.

not for all the work I do. Not for full time placements I've done in the past.

Full time work is tiring, but you can still look for a job while working otherwise no one, who was currently employed, would ever move on to another job.

being paid doesn't give me any extra job hunting hours but I still fit that in

how do you think any employed people every change jobs if they don't work full time and job hunt Chickenlickn? Really REALLY not getting the "no time for job hunting" when its a standard full time week like the rest of us

But if they are working full time as an intern they should get paid for that work. It's wrong that huge companies turning over millions in profit don't pay their staff. It's wrong - plain and simple. If they then want to earn more money by working evenings and weekends that's fine, just pay them if employing them. As a student I worked evenings and weekends while I studied - once I enter the work place I expect to get paid - isn't that why we work? for money?

Those are internships, though, RRR. There is a symbolic if not economic pay-off to them. Or valuable - hard to get - skills. Even if those "skills" are only entry into the magic circle of those who have been graced by being employed (even for no money) by Conde Nast, for example. The "PrimarkApprenticeships" confer no such prestige or privilege.

Totally agree with edam and others that this is us paying a great, fat subsidy to fat, bastard capitalists. Paying them, indeed, to fuck us over as workers as the bottom line of benefits is forced down, low-wage/unskilled jobs are made more precarious and all work, by implication, becomes more insecure.

The issue is exploitation - the company is getting value and profit from the "jobseeker's" work, the jobseeker is actually doing a real job BUT it is the taxpayer who is paying them.

So this is another Taxpayers fund millionaire's profits scheme. While the people doing the actual work live in poverty on benefits.

It will only make our economic situation and deficit worse.

low level retail is hard to get into these days without experience, 6 months is a decent enough chunk so if the actual placement retailer doesn't hire they're still at an advantage when applying for OTHER retail jobs

There may be some valid arguements in this but the people in that link and some on here are seriously clouding it with ridiculous angles like the no time to job hunt one, the only 30 mins break in 5.5 hrs one, the "they wouldn't even look at my paper CV and said I had to apply online like everyone else" one....

So I'm not convinced. I still think its a good thing and a rite of passage so many of us in employment have been through ourselves anyway

Totally agree animula - this is the essential problem with forced labour - the jobseeker has no negotiating position to exchange their labour for something beneficial, even if it is not money. The "employer" does not have any obligation to the worker to make the work interesting or valuable to the worker because the worker is not able to leave.

It is a recipe for abuse and exploitation. Which is why it is illegal.

But they are getting paid though, they are getting their JSA. I agree that its far from an ideal situation, but they aren't working for no income at all are they? They are getting their benefit.

I agree its shit, but its certainly not slavery by any stretch of the imagination.

Low level retail is hard to get into if other people are doing the work for nothing.

IT TAKES AWAY REAL JOBS because they are filled by unpaid people.

see now you're saying that low level freezer stacking etc isn't of any value, so again you're loosing me because I've done that sort of work to fill CV gaps so I disagree in the full knowledge of what manual work entails. I've made them sound relevant when talking about transferable skills for more interesting jobs. I've done the jobs described and found them valuable!

Chickenlickn, what % of retail staff are unpaid please before you shout at me?

"I personally know a fifty-six year old man who worked at Tesco for 40 hrs a week for 6 weeks for no pay. He said he was given the worst job, constantly filling freezers in the hope he would be taken on. After the 6 weeks were up the manager asked him if he would like to stay on for some extra weeks, my friend asked ?with pay?? The manager said why would he pay him when he can pick the phone up and get more unemployed people who have to work for nothing of face sanctions meaning loss of ALL benefits for up to three years!

My friend wasn?t alone, he was part of twelve extra staff taken on to cover the xmas rush, no one was given a job at the end of the xmas period.

He told me they had all worked really hard and were gutted they were abused in such a way. The worst was one day he had to throw out lots of food one day over the use by date. He asked the manager if he could take some home as he was having to eat more due to being active all day. The manager refused saying if he gave him free food he wouldn?t come through the front door and buy it!"

The reality of this scheme.

YANBU for the simple fact that every one of those workers means the emoloyer can take away a PAID job from the labour market. It is not a solution.

Never mind the other issues of...

It undermines national minimum wage legislation
These people have no employment rights
The jobs are not matched to skill set (qualified architect with 20 yrs work experience stacking shelves for example) so are not necessarily helping people into work.
People are being sent to do jobs that were it not for workfare they would be employed to do (experienced care worker working in care homes for £65 a week in her pocket, no travel expenses and the employer getting a financial incentive to do this instead of recruiting people to jobs).

The only people benefiting are the shareholders of those businesses. The tax payer, the worker and the job seekers get no benefit at all.

Why can't they just do volunteer jobs for charity's instead? Would tie in with Cameron's 'Big Society' thing.....

We have 'Work For The Dole' in Australia and I was surprised that the UK didn't have it.

so say they alocate say, 12 positions out of what? couple of hundred? that will always be filled by unpaid placement, all they've done there is offer one person a longer placement, which would make that person stand out if talking about that placement in future "it was meant to be for 6 weeks but they asked two of us who did well to stay on for a bit longer"

If they are not kept on in a paid position in THAT store that doesn't mean they can't get a job out of it!

There is a big difference with being qualified to do other work and looking to fil lin a gap, but to use disabled people in this way (as the article explains) is very wrong. It isn't real training or opportunity to get into work, they are let go and another replaces them.

Heady- it is less than minimum wage, so it is wrong. If that job needs doing it should be paid at the legal rate.

Chicken that poor man - it's a disgrace absolutely disgraceful :(

"Why can't they just do volunteer jobs for charity's instead? Would tie in with Cameron's 'Big Society' thing...."

Have you read the link?, I would really feel for any charities lumbered with most of that lot!

I find it so odd that Cameron's "Big Society" sounds so cuddly and lovely and welcoming and yet - strange this - somehow seems to roll on a fuel of resentment and bitterness. Almost an irony, really.

Anyway, back to the OP.

A reason to shop at Sainsbury's, JL, and any other of the many outlets who won't be doing this, methinks.