to think Tesco should fucking well PAY THEIR STAFF?

[QueenOfFlippingEverything]

I know, I know, there have been threads about it already.

But this is so rage-inducing, I want THE WHOLE OF EVERYONE to know about it.

Jobcentre advert placed by Tesco for night shift staff. Who will be paid [drumroll] JSA (£67 a week) plus travel expenses.

Why the fucking fuck should Tesco get their staff for free? Why? Their profits last year were something like £3.5 billion last year!

I know who I think is taking the piss here, and its not the unemployed people who will be forced to work night shifts at Tesco for their £67 a week

*21st February: Press release from Tesco

www.tescoplc.com/news/news-releases/2012/tesco-offers-choice-on-work-experience/

"News Release
Feb 21, 2012
Tesco offers choice on work experience

Tesco has today announced that from now on any young person accepted for work experience with Tesco will be offered a choice:

• - To participate in the Government scheme, which protects their benefits for the duration of the four-week placement. Tesco has suggested to the Department of Work and Pensions that, to avoid any misunderstanding about the voluntary nature of the scheme, the risk of losing benefits that currently exists should be removed.

• - Alternatively, to be paid by Tesco for the four-week placement, with a guaranteed permanent job at the end of it, provided they complete the placement satisfactorily.

Richard Brasher, CEO of Tesco UK, said "We know it is difficult for young people to give up benefits for a short-term placement with no permanent job at the end of it. So this guarantee that a job will be available provided the placement is completed satisfactorily, should be a major confidence boost for young people wanting to enter work on a permanent basis."

Tesco committed 3000 work placements under the Government?s work experience scheme. To date around 1500 have been delivered. We will offer the choice of paid work and the jobs guarantee to all of the remaining placements we will deliver under the scheme. 300 young people undertaking work experience with Tesco have already found work with us and we are confident that many more will through this approach.

For more information please contact the Tesco Press Office on 01992 644645

Tesco is the UK's largest retailer and one of the world's leading international retailers. Tesco has around 5,000 stores worldwide, employing over 500,000 people in the 14 countries in which it operates. Our core purpose is to create value for customers to earn their lifetime loyalty. Our success depends on people: the people who shop with us and the people who work with us. "

www.tescoplc.com/news/news-releases/2012/tesco-offers-choice-on-work-experience/

Upthread Huntycat tells us that people on workfare have been told not to talk about it if asked. They have effectively been gagged and censored by their placements (Tesco,Argos etc) and by their work placement providers like Reed,Seetec etc. Tesco et al arent sorry for the way theyve treated them.
They are sorry that they got caught.
And i dont believe for a fucking minute that these employers didnt know that this scheme was mandatory because people have been sanctioned from their EMPLOYER reporting them to the Job Centre.

gazes into crystal ball

Methinks a lot of temporary employees (paid by Tesco directly) will be deemed unsatisfactory at the end of their contract.

The belief that you can just sit at home or wait to become a TV star and that work simply lands in your lap, in turn, feeds the pernicious idea that success is not related to effort and work...'

Hah flaming Hah, Trotsky watched Tv all the time before he became famous

What about the idea that work is not related to pay as in the Workfare scheme, I wonder if IDS could answer that.

Tesco are still missing the point or can there top bods not read either. In the DWP Guidance to level 1 contractors it is laid out in black and white

Mandatory work, mandatory sanctions for non compliance.

Irritable Duncan Syndrome has called critics of his scheme 'job snobs'.

I insist on a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. If that makes me a snob for insisting that everyone is treated the same then I am proud.

peekabooby No trolley dumping on Mar 3rd? Hmm, that has given me food for thought.....

But would it really be so much hassle for store staff to put things back on the shelves? Is that not what they normally have to do in the course of a shift anyway? Unless they were pressured into doing that and their normal work in the same amount of time? Or forced to stay behind unpaid to do it? (Which they couldn't be forced to do could they?).

Hmmmm....moral dilemma. See, I can't think of a single effective act of protest that wouldn't inconvenience somebody a bit....for example, blockading a store could seriously throw a spanner in the works for someone rushing around to do the weekly shop between work and school pickup.....

(Ponders)

This is only one scheme. There is also the Mandatory Work Activity and Tesco and the others need to make it clear that they wont be using that one.

There will be a job at the end of the 4 week paid placement if they complete it satisfactorily.
Theres that magic word again........IF

Good point carernotasaint. No mention of work related activity they just keep harping on about JSA claimants in group 1.

Would it not be better to try and stop the Tesco supply chain, stop the lorries from leaving the deppos (how do you spell deppo?) [whisper]

That way Tesco couldn't stock it's shops, food would spoil and it would cost Tesco a lot of money but it wouldn't actually interfere with paid staff or shoppers.

Does anyone remember me mentioning the British Heart Foundation upthread.
Well check this out i was right to be worried.
Its the latest news on the Boycott Workfare site.www.boycottworkfare.org/?p=584#more-584

StubbornStains, you need to hit profits.
The problem with trolley dumping IMO is not that it will inconvenience staff but that it won't inconvenience managers or shareholders at all.

*depot

Stubbornstains, I too have been thinking over the trolley dumping issue, I take on board the argument that the 'normal' workers will have to put it all back BUT wont their normal duties be off for a bit anyway? when protestors force the stores to close?

The other thing too is that for a protest to be effective it sort of has to be really inconvenient doesnt it?

Thank you peekabooby, so stopping food leaving the depot or worse stop food from going in, surely that would stop their supply chain and mean fresh food rotting in trucks. Maybe saying too much now [cowers nervously]

Tunip I think it will inconvenience everyone if it affects sales.

Plus its the bad press it brings.

Does anyone know where the "boycott shops who use workfare" thread is I cant find it Thanks.

@carernotasaint

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a1404156-to-boycott-shops-that-use-forced-unpaid-labour-aka-slavery

Thanks Nun.

If we are talking about the logistics of workfare can i just put my two pence worth in? I work in retail management and if we have anyone in on 'work experience' they work alongside our normal team, who are paid, they are not there to replace a normal employees, they are just there to shadow and learn and workfare doesn't seem to be the same thing to me. They are actually 'employing' people to work for nothing in place of a paid person, isn't that the whole problem? I don't know why there is a spin being put on lazy people lying in bed all day

Agreed, Agincourt and if it were genuine work experience, you'd expect people to spend part of the time shadowing staff in admin or buying - not spending the whole 8 weeks stacking shelves, humping boxes and as a big treat going on the tills.

A DM reader's comment (in response to the ID(iotic)S article, upthread)
ttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2104027/Stacking-shelves-better-dreaming-stardom-X-Factor-says-Iain-Duncan-Smith.html#ixzz1n2JERNCF

Says it all:

"Iain Duncan Smith's disappointing article is a patronisng insult to the intelligence of the British people and a spectacular own goal because this will NOT be forgotten. He could have used this as a platform to objectively address the issues that have been raised concerning this scheme. He made no attempt to do so. I could hardly believe what I was reading and I hope my vote is not the only one that will be lost as a result of this desperate and outrageous elitist outburst against the people of this country, denounced in an attempt to try and salvage the government's relationship with retail giants He needs to read some of the comments that have been made over the past few days because he has insulted decent people who do not deserve this on top of everything else they have to deal with in their lives. I am reminded: 'If you can't answer a man's arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names.?

• Jess, Lancashire, 21/2/2012 10:15"

The above & all the other comments I have read through (so far!) ROCK

Nun

Great comment ! I have been trying to wade through some of the comments, it seems like the tide is turning, finally.

I cannot get over the blatant lies IDS and CG have said during interviews the past couple of days. Why can they not be made to answer them ?

I just hope that this does continue to rumble and the thunder gets louder and louder...

I can't remember were this was posted think it was fb (Tesco). For the group who fall into the WRAG group, if they are declared fit for work by ATOS but not by their own GP how will this affect the insurance of the company they are sent to work for?

The WRAG are not deemed Fit to Work.

They are deemed to be not far below the threshold of Fit to Work and therefore likely to return to work in the next few years (even if their condition is stable or deteriorating).

So if they do Mandatory Work Activity, it will be while even the DWP do not believe them fully Fit to Work. As you say, the insurance position will be fun...