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.

YY to decent pay for a decent day's work. If they want £1.92's work from me - then that is exactly what they will get. For £6.08/hr, they get a full hour of hard, solid work from me. For £1.92/hr - they will get just 19 minutes of hard, solid work each hour...Because I charge by the minute. 10p per minute. They want to pay me £1.92, that equates to 19 minutes of work. In a full, 35hr week,they want to pay me just £67.50? Great, they are paying for 675 MINUTES of my work...

I never said those on workfare got wtc or childcare help, i said those who take on temp jobs do.

Those that dont do the workfare simply take the consequences of having benefits stopped. Its up to you if you refuse to do it. However i doubt very much for you its less than NMW when you add up the IS. HB, CTB, FSM, CTC and CB x 4 children plus any maintainance.

My labour is WORTH 10p per minute. I won't accept ANY less. They want my labour - they pay me 10p per minute. Which works out to...oh yes...£6.08 NMW...for an hour's work...

Hunty, you are wasting a lot of time on MN at this rates.

I'll not REFUSE to do the workfare. I will go there, and I will give them the 19 minutes each hour of MY LABOUR that I am being 'paid' for. If they want a full hour's work from me - then they can give me the same job as a PROPER employee, and pay me NMW and give me the employee rights I am entitled to like every employee is, and Workfare participants aren't.

Why should I give that business my labour for LESS than the market value?!

Funnily enough - I am CHOSING to 'waste' my time on MN, because my eldest dc is on a sleepover with her friend, before her friend recommences chemotherapy for Leukemia in GOSH, and has a bone-marrow transplant, and my other dc are on an access visit.

I also had a MASSIVE seizure yesterday, in the middle of my local supermarket, and hit my head on a metal trolley, and have also bruised my hand and elbow. I have been told by the hospital to rest today. So I AM.

Problem?!

This is terrible, but surely you can find work writing part-time... Problem?

My point is, you DON'T know what is going on in people's lives, so to pass judgement in that way is ridiculous.

I am being truthful about the seizure yesterday, and yes I am on MN a lot right now - but I am basically stuck in 4 walls otherwise, as I can't afford my care worker since my DLA has been stopped. Because I'm obviously not disabled....

Hunty it really isn't worth it. If explaining how the system does not work, how it does not meet it's own objectives, how it meets no political objectives and how it costs the tax payer money both directly and indirectly then you are trying to reason with the unreasonable.

I'm about to hide this thread but before I go:

Businesses should pay their workers. Not the government. Those workers should be paid fairly and given full employment rights.

I absolutely understand why some types of work are not accessible to you. (I am also on bed rest btw.) But I have come across a lot of long posts by you frothing etc... you are a capable writer and your level of energy is somehow wasted. Anyway, you are right it is none of my business, but it is illustrative how some people (not you) waste their talents by not looking wider.

I'm ALSO caring for a 13yo with Autism and other medical problems (have just got her date for open heart surgery on her leaky heart valves, for starters...), a 9yo, an 8yo that has Autism and chronic asthma and has been off school for almost a month due to his medication leaving him immune-suppressed. Oh - and a 1yo BF baby.

But my dc aren't getting disability benefits, as they don't qualify...so I'm NOT a carer either. Again, .

What do you propose I actually DO with my disabled 13yo while I am out at work, in the non-existant retail jobs in my area?

Also, Consider the fact that there hasn't been a retail supermarket job available for over 15 months - because WORKFARE PARTICIPANTS ARE DOING THEM!!! And now they are putting them in all the OTHER retail jobs I would have done too!

Oh, yes, I'll find an employer who is willing to take the risk of employing me. When I have been medically retired from TWO, totally different jobs in the past...AND have caring responsibilities...

GIZZA JOB!

where do you people get the nerve to tell me, or anyone else on jsa that they should work for their benefits? i have already worked to qualify for jsa.

why do you think that spending time doing pissy work for a profit making company for nothing is good for my self esteem? i have 20 years work experience, i don't need affirmation from anyone.

don't you dare get shirty with people who are not working for a few months while they try to find something reasonable to do. i have spent 20 years lining other people's pockets, if i sit down for six months, i have earned it. i don't actually like people swearing on these threads but some of you should really fuck off. you don't know anyone's history so don't judge where benefits are concerned.

if you really think that someone should put in 40 hours work for £67.50, you are out of your tiny minds.

My level of energy may be somewhat wasted - but I have NO idea how to break into any areas that it MAY be well used in. And the jobcentre is about as much use as a chocolate teapot when I ask for advice. And I can't afford to PAY anyone to advise me. I can't AFFORD to retrain. I can't AFFORD the childcare TO retrain. In the case of my DD - that childcare isn't even AVAILABLE at ANY cost.

creighton, you mix jsa with a saving account

There should have a "does not convince them" in my last post somewhere.

bemybebe, what do you mean?

Am I missing the point here, people who claim benefits are being sent out to gain 'on the job' style training? How exactly is this slavery?

They get paid by the government to do nothing,
I for one would much rather see jobseekers sent out to do unpaid work, than be allowed to claim benefits and sit at home watching Jeremy Kyle.

I would imagine these kinds of things are for 'long term' claimers, which are usually the work shy indeviduals who have no interest in working when they can get 'free' money from the government.

Personally I have always believed these kind of jobseekers should be given street cleaning/graffiti scrubbing type jobs in order to earn the money they receive.

But surely this kind of work is far more productive, I mean they are actually learning skills and gaining vital experience that may result in them actually finding a job.

Personally I think the benefits system is a joke, people should only be able to claim out of they system what they have paid in.
I like that they are becoming more proactive in getting jobseekers into courses and training in the hope that it will help find them work.

Had all my children while married and earning £55k as a family. Shit happens.

I'm very lucky, I have fall back skills that enable me to work on a SE basis. Although playing music involves pretty antisocial hours. (well, they're very social for me.., not great for the kids though.) again, I'm lucky, XH has them twice a week and my mum will help out with short notice gigs. But if that were not the case, i'd be royally screwed.

hunty, what about blogs that attract advertising? i have no idea, I am a crappy writer, but i am sure you can try to dig around... something political (this obviously makes you tick)? i cannot go back to my previous occupation because it is associated with long hours and traveling and I have a disabled dh and will hopefully have a baby soon, but it means i have to look afresh at what may work for me...

creighton
"if i sit down for six months, i have earned it"
this is not how jsa work, but you can sit down comfortably and others won't question your choices if you managed to save for that

Twinkle, what kind of training will the government give someone with a degree or 10 years plus work experience or someone with a professional qualification? as far as i am concerned the only worthwhile training that the government can offer me is medical school or a law conversion course (assuming there are jobs in these fields).

i have actually worked in a supermarket over Christmas, the training took 2 days but really was mostly health and safety which you get in most jobs and being nice to customers. the shelf stacking training consisted of check how much stock should be on the shelves, put it on facing forwards, make the shelf look nice hardly worth calling it training.

i think that i should stay at home and listen to radio 4 all day (not jeremy kyle) while looking for work. my jsa is an insurance policy that should pay out when i need it.

on the job training, my arse!

Yes Twinkle you are missing the point. "These people" are being sent to do jobs that would otherwise be paid employment for companies who make huge profits.

They are not doing things hospital visiting,doing odd jobs for the elderly, helping the severly disabled get out the house, listening to children read in primary schools, passing on their IT skills, helping people with financial, debt or employment advice. They are not organising postnatal support groups or charity walks or raising the profile of good causes like bone marrow donation. They are not lobbying local health providers for better care for disadvantaged groups or where clinical need has been set aside in favour of political objectives. They are not doing any of those valuable jobs done by many, many unpaid volunteers.

They are picking up clothes off the floor of Primark and working the checkout in Tesco and being front of house for Argos.

Those businesses then do not employ someone at market rate because they get paid to have someone work for them.

Bemybebe, my sitting down consists of looking for work. as i have said in another post, my jsa is an insurance policy that pays out as necessary. i should not be expected to perform in public, i.e. scrubbing grafitti, sweeping streets etc, in exchange for my already paid for jsa. jsa is not free money, I HAVE ALREADY PAID FOR IT. trust me, i would not associate with the snotty, know nothing gits in the job centre if i did not have to.

The biggest issue I have with this scheme is that they are not extra staff that the shop would otherwise not need. They still have the same level of staff that would have without the 'free' workers as they call them (my mum is a manager in one the above mentioned shops), they just get to not pay them.

So not only are the workers being exploited but this scheme is actually adding to unemployment. If the shops had to pay these workers a wage, they'd no longer be unemployed and would be paying tax.

I know that at least one of those shops no longer take on extra staff at Christmas and other busy times, they use 'free workers' instead

Whoever said they'd only work 19 minutes out of every hour, that's how my mum feels they should work. She feels sorry for the ones who work in her shop, so she gives them all the cushy, easy jobs, especially the ones who come in and work extra hard in the hope that they get offered a full time position at the end, when the reality is they will be shipped out and another 'free' worker brought in to replace them.

"Am I missing the point here, people who claim benefits are being sent out to gain 'on the job' style training? How exactly is this slavery?"

• because the training to do these jobs takes about 2 days and the rest of the time they are there they are providing labour.
• because the alternative is to starve.