Jamie Oliver webchat, Thursday 29 August, 2.45pm

[GeraldineMumsnet]

We're chuffed that Jamie Oliver is paying a return visit to Mumsnet this Thursday. His first MN webchat was back in 2010.

Jamie has a new book out, Save with Jamie: Shop Smart, Cook Clever, Waste Less (all subjects dear to MNers' hearts). It has 100 brand-new recipes designed to be accessible, reliable and, above all, affordable.

This is what Jamie says about his new book: "For years I have been telling people that if you look back through history, the best food in the world has always come from communities under massive financial pressure. But the proviso is that you MUST be able to cook! If you can't, and have no money, that is where the trouble starts. This is a cook book which, from start to finish has tasty recipes, all dedicated to great value, is a brilliant weapon to have on the shelf, and is relevant to every household. If you use this book the way it's intended, you should end up saving a wodge of cash from your wallet."

And to tie in with the book, he has a new six-part series on Channel 4 starting on Monday 2 Sept at 8pm.

Please post your question and join Jamie for a chat at 2.45pm on Thurs.

I'm amazed that so many people are applauding a post that contains a sentence like this

He?s not entirely clear on where he stands on workfare and zero hours contracts, though he set up 15 using unpaid jobseekers, which sounds an awful lot like workfare to me.

I can see a lot of sense in that post, but only on MN could an opportunity offering young people with no job and no qualifications the chance to train amongst professionals for free and dramatically increase their future earning potential be classed as workfare.

That's just ridiculous.

Broken - the whole point of entry-level positions like kitchen portering is that they should offer a living wage regardless of qualifications/background. Offering unpaid internships just limits access to the young people who are supported by their families.Or if on some government workfare scheme, provides no incentive for businesses to offer full time employment. Whys should they when the taxpayer is prepared to pay for staff.

have just watched that speech:

"Poverty itself, is romanticised by fools."

I really used to like Jamie.
I will be buying a girl called jacks book.

poverty is definitely not romantic and losing absolutely everything you've worked for is devastating and scary as hell.

still get a bit of a gut wrench when i walk past my old apartment. for me it was a combo of ill health, got pregnant, just out of a secure contract job whilst retraining and a housing market crash - a jumble of factors that happened to fall together at the exact right time to ruin me. bit like the perfect storm don't know why i'm grinning.

i have every respect for j k rowling both for building herself up out of that situation and for staying true to what she learned there. can't see a fairy tale 'out' for me and not many of us have gifts such as hers to lift us up and out of situations no matter how hard we pull up our bootstraps and she knows that.

using your position of influence and privilege to judge and bash those less fortunate or to ctually empathise with them and speak out on their behalf is what her speech is all about and she and jamie are the perfect examples of the two approaches.

A girl called Jack annoys me slightly,i dont really know why.

I also dont really know why anyone would only have ten pound a week to spend on food,could someone tell me how?i was on benefits early on with my first son,for about 3 months,and im sure i got about 120 per week inc tax credits and cb,how would you only end up with a tenner to spend on food?(genuine question!!!)

and i think people are ignoring the fact that there ARE people out there who spend money on fags,booze and god knows what else instead of feeding their kids half decent food,that is what JO is talking about,yes there are people out there who work hard for a low income etc but from what i have seen theres more of the former,and the latter are likely to be cooking from scratch and doing as much as they can anyway.

It's not ridiculous. If there is a job to be done, pay the person who's doing it. It's only fair, they are, after all, contributing to your profits.

And what's this 'for free' business? Do you think people should pay for on-the-job training, like you pay for swimming lessons where you're the only one who's benefiting?

Of course, that is essentially what companies are making their unpaid interns do.

Payment is also more than just money in a wage packet. It's a symbol that you value your staff, no matter how inexperienced. I wonder about the commitment to customer service of companies who fill positions with people because their labour is free instead of selecting suitable recruits. They don't necessarily have to be qualified, they just have to have the right attitude.

I was an apprentice in the early '80s working and training alongside professionals. I got paid, not much, but it was a fair wage, commensurate with my abilities.

Jamie Oliver was also an apprentice. I don't know whether he got paid for working what were probably 12-hour shifts in demanding conditions, preparing food to be sold at high prices, but he should have been and I suspect that was what he was referring to when he spoke about having a minimum wage job.

We didn't have a minimum wage back then, but I'll let that go.

ring I thought that to. There are people out there who do just that. I've met some.

Yes it did need pointing out that things aren't perhaps what they same when he made his comment and that there were many people who so it because that's all they know or that's all they can do due to circumstances.

But there are also people who do exactly what he said and don't give a crap.

payment is also your contribution to the society that you are profiting in.

you pay your staff, they and you pay tax, it goes into the public purse and they spend their salaries creating more profit, revenue etc.

or you don't pay them and let the government pay them whilst you profit and contribute fuck all as you don't even pay tax on their free labour.

ringaringarosy re A Girl Called Jack - she says on her blog that the £10 a week situation was because of a mistake with her housing benefit which took a while to resolve.

Jamie does pay his apprentices at Fifteen though.

Look on the website.

For the duration of the course, our apprentices receive an £125/week training allowance. Travel expenses are covered and the year also includes a four-week holiday entitlement.

Yes, and the Fifteen apprenticeships include support and counselling with things like housing problems, debt problems etc. Some of the apprentices are referred by charities, they go to college and it's a proper training programme, not just kitchen portering. They are proper apprenticeships.

take tesco - a while back it was said that 1 in every £5 spent goes into tescos pocket.

that's a lot of profit.

the least you can give back is decent living salaries, pay sick pay, contribute towards pensions etc. that way you are giving back to society in exchange for labour that needs doing.

to think that you should get to make 1 in every £5 spent in a society whilst paying shit salaries, not paying sick pay but expecting the government to do so for you, employ people on zero hour contracts, etc and make no contribution to their pensions is mindboggling.

no one is asking them to be charitable organisations but to enter into a basic social contract that says we will be decent employers and do our bit towards the wider society whilst raking in our profits.

we seem to have gotten to a stage where we think massive profit making companies are doing us a favour by letting us work for them rather than seeing them as part of society with rewards and responsibilities attached to their operation.

who pays that training allowance? is that from the company or the state and if from the company do they pay it as a salary and contribute income tax etc or get it at a write off and avoid paying contributions to the paye system?

All profits from Jamie Oliver's Fifteen are redirected back into the Apprentice Programme - it costs £30,000 to train each apprentice. According to the website

While £125 a week probably gets round minimum wage legislation when described as a training allowance, I wonder what hours the trainees are doing.

I'm sure they'll be working rather than standing around watching other people do it.

They should be on an apprenticeship for which they receive payment and training in return for their work. It's what I got, and my employer drew up an extremely detailed contract about the commitments and expectations we both owed each other.

And you're right swallowed. Proper wages lead to growth which is what we need to get out of this mess.

If employers don't pay people but just take free bodies the taxpayer is paying JSA to, we are subsidising them and their personal fortunes and the economy shrinks. They are scroungers, not strivers.

Proper training costs money becs. But it's not a one-way street. The employer is getting the benefit of the trainees' labour.

I don't know how much kitchen staff are worth. But I imagine Jamie Oliver does.

On the tv programme where Jamie first set up 15 wasn't there a young woman who found it difficult to continue as she was a single parent and struggled with childcare. She just had to drop out of the scheme, and she was probably one of the ones who really needed the opportunity.

It might cost 30k to train them but then once they are trained won't JO work them for 80 hours a week at min wage - more than recouping what he has spent. Probably some clause in the contract that once they have 'graduated' from 15 they have to work in his organisation for x amount of time.

it may cost money to train them but they need them. employers need workers in order to make their profits therefore funding the training of those workers should be at the very least a partnered contract between state and industry. that partnership is what the tax system is about really but with people being paid at below the tax threshold on zero hour, part time, temporary whatever contracts the employer shirks their end of the deal whilst maximising profit.

i have nothing against profit and industry thriving but as a partner in society not as a parasite upon it.

limited love your fab post at 8.58 Brilliant posts from you and HoneyDragon and a couple of others on here.

wordfactory the Joseph Rowntree Foundation went looking for these second/third generation families that the Gov. and people like JO keep banging on about and they couldnt find them Certainly not in the numbers that the Gov and mouthy right wing celebs would have us believe.
If i recall correctly they found six familes in the whole of the country with generations of unemployment Just six.

he did state on here that everyone in his restauraunts earned over minimum wage.

well said darkest.

trouble is that once a myth has entered into the cannon it is very hard to extract even when totally disproven because people 'like' it. doesn't have to be true just to fit with their beliefs.

YY Swallowed And then certain right wing celebs keep spouting these myths (knowing that in the celebrity culture we live in now that a lot of the public will listen to and believe them without question) and fan the flames of hate against the poor/disabled/overweight that little bit more.

yeah but social responsibility is so passe darkest. society doesn't exist you know.