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See all MNHQ comments on this thread

I STILL think Tesco should fucking well PAY THEIR STAFF. Workfare is wrong!!!!

323 replies

TapselteerieO · 22/02/2012 22:42

Still angry, I hope the protests on the 3rd of March all over the country really keep this campaign lit, it makes me furious to think people seem to assume it has been sorted.

I will boycott every company that uses schemes like this until they are ended completely.

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carernotasaint · 26/02/2012 20:30

(youre on the phone telling off a 52 year old schoolboy now dear)
Paddys Mummy i took issue with your patronizing tone.
so i have issues do i.
I was brought up in an Italian Catholic family so had to keep the chatline job a secret from my parents. My mother would have been extemely upset. My only choice was work in that chatline office or WORKFARE.
Going into the office on one particular night i found out that a colleaugue had been badly affected by taking a call from one particular sicko who claimed to know something about the Soham murders.
My boss had to report it,itwas investigated and found out to be a hoax.
A lot of the callers were real sickos and yes it has affected my view of men.
During this job i met a few women who had gone further into the industry as escorts and it has affected them badly too.
When you hear what goes on in these mens minds of course it can affect your trust in men and give you "issues" as you so quaintly put it.
i think someone (maybe the Joseph Rowntree foundation) should do a survey (protecting peoples anonymity of course) on how many people have gone into this industry after being totally demoralized by workfare or having the choice of either workfare or the sex industry.

carernotasaint · 26/02/2012 23:48

Sir Stuart Rose who used to be chairman of M and S says youngsters should get stuck into the work experience.

How many bloody times? Its not just young people being forced into these schemes and forty years ago i bet he was PAID.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2106897/Sir-Stuart-Rose-tells-firms-defy-Right-To-Work-militants.html

TapselteerieO · 27/02/2012 09:42

minimathsmouse Sun 26-Feb-12 18:57:28
"Glass houses, have no doubt MrsP that you will be next!

Once you erode the link between work and pay,no ones job is safe. "

This is a vital point to get across, I am sure even more people would be against these compulsory work experience schemes (workfare) if they thought about the basic facts.

It would be good to have a simple bullet point list about why workfare is wrong for the country, individuals and communities.

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GoergefatcatOsborne · 27/02/2012 11:02

Great idea Tapselteerie0 because then it would simplify things and people could see at a glance how wrong this is.

First we have outsourcing for cheap labour costs
second we open our borders to create a cheap labour force
Third we create mass unemployment which further drives the need to water down employment laws and silence suffrage.
Fourth, we create the means and the political/economic argument for "free labour"
Fifth and the most scary of all complete collapse of capital because the impoverishment will be complete.

You have only to look at the USA mother of all free market economies to realise that this is both a cycle of struggle between competing forces but that, at each cycle the inequalities increase.

Middle class families now living in tents, trailers and motels, poor black people in missisippi eating rats and living in sheds, kids who don't attend the charter schools (private/public) because they don't have shoes!

People should stop to think because it's starts with one class of people, sick, poor, disabled, minority groups of colour, when it's digested them it moves on! like a locust, stripping and leaving cities and communities dead and barren.

Top 1% in the usa hold over 38% of the wealth, top 10% own just short of 80% of the wealth.

Even families of 4, in work have an average income of $11,000, could you live on that?

What does this tell us? Tells me, I'm next and anyone who thinks otherwise is playing emu.

woollyideas · 27/02/2012 11:06

Daily Mash story today...

TapselteerieO · 27/02/2012 14:31

I really feel for anyone who has pt contract and rely on overtime.

"Tens of thousands of forced unpaid work placements have already taken place.

The government intends 250,000 workfare placements on the Work Experience scheme alone. If each placement is 8 weeks of 30 hours work, this is 60 million hours of forced unpaid work.

850,000 people are expected to be referred to the Work Programme by the end of this year. However, due to the ?black box? approach the government uses with the private providers, it has so far refused to publish how many of those are being forced to work without pay."

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jshm2 · 27/02/2012 21:45

The UK is taking a leaf out of Chinas mandatory labour book it seems.

garlicbutter · 27/02/2012 23:37

I know, that's the weirdest thing! Or one of them; there are so many. Afaik, the only governments to tell people what job they must do, pay them out of public funds, and punish them for disobedience are Communist Confused

PaddysMummy · 28/02/2012 01:43

@garlicbutter - yes, and Australia, USA, The Netherlands and Canada who've been doing it for years. All communist too!

Oh, and then of course there are the very poor, dirty, backward squalid countries such as Singapore and Saudi Arabia who don't pay any unemployment benefits whatsoever.

:rollseyes:

carernotasaint · 28/02/2012 01:52

After watching Panorama documentary Poor America a few weeks ago the USA should be bloody ashamed. The workfare model came from them.

GoergefatcatOsborne · 28/02/2012 10:54

I know carer, truely scary what wealth creation can do!

I think we need to put people above profit, it isn't possible to have continued "growth" in the economy unless you want barren soil and concrete jungles.

It stands to reason that the 80% of people who between them only have 20% of the wealth, that is not enough to create continued growth and can only mean certain decline.

The only thing to redress this is to pay your workforce a fair and decent wage.

We don't need "growth" we need some balance and readjustment of the scales.

rabbitstew · 28/02/2012 12:19

Well, a system which allows astronomical differences in wealth and quality of life between the richest and the poorest and which permits mandatory labour paid for and organised by the State at the poor end of the spectrum sounds like the worst possible aspects of the capitalist model combined with aspects of communism to me. Particularly in times of recession, when those being organised at the poor end of the spectrum cannot all be considered blameworthy for the situation they find themselves in. Restructuring a system shouldn't start at the bottom and work its way up - those at the top have to set the correct example, because they at least have freedom of choice and room to change their behaviour without causing one iota of genuine suffering.

garlicbutter · 28/02/2012 12:29

In Australia they're having the same problems as us wrt workfare. In the USA (those states which use workfare), people are being mandated to their old jobs after being made redundant - something that's already beginning to happen here. The Dutch programme is for young people, where there is some argument for granting work experience. I don't know about Canada. I don't know why you have to be so rude, either.

ChickenLickn · 28/02/2012 12:46

All heil the new blue communism!

All will work!

All will starve!

(I would laugh but this is actually real)

garlicbutter · 28/02/2012 13:04
  1. The first obligation of every citizen must be to work both spiritually and physically. The activity of individuals is not to counteract the interests of the universality, but must have its result within the framework of the whole for the benefit of all. Consequently we demand:

  2. Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. Breaking of debt (interest)-slavery.

Just sayin'.

minimathsmouse · 28/02/2012 13:16

Mps want us to believe that they are possessed of superhuman talents that's why they regularly tell us that state ed sucks and then fail to make improvements. The very rich are thought to be possessed of super human talents that justify their snatch and grab mentality,wealth creators allowed through Government policy to prey on the their workers' labour and creativity through manipulating governments and pushing for a downward drift in wages.

Having almost bankrupted both Governments and workers we are told to work for nowt, lets face it how else can the wealthy drive their special brand of growth and wealth creation.

I might be wrong but, who are we reducing the deficit for and who gets to call the shots and decide if our coveted AAA rating is downgraded? Blackmail, pure and simple and proof if ever there was any needed that the top 1% are not just your boss but also the guys who picked your pockets.

ChickenLickn · 28/02/2012 13:24

minimathsmouse - the deficit is not being reduced. These bad policies are just as bad for the economic situation as for the people. You might even say that the two are linked Grin.

minimathsmouse · 28/02/2012 13:52

That might be because no distinction can be made between elected elite and non elected wealth creators, same monster different mask.

Companies are now calling for the right to Vote in general elections and referring to themselves as corporate citizens, many on the right also calling for any one on benefits to be denied the right to vote.

It begs the question are MPs representing people under democracy or are they representing something or someone else. Scameron and indeed even Blaire was keen to speak about "this country" not about "our people" and of course it goes without saying that to announce "we represent the views and wishes of the guy who picks the pockets of the poor, pays us donations, creates wealthy shareholders(ie us) and finally decides the fate of this country"

ttosca · 28/02/2012 21:09

Watch Tory slimeball Chris Grayling being interviewed on Channel 4 news regarding workfare:

righttowork.org.uk/2012/02/workfare-minister-chris-grayling-struggling-on-channel-4-news/

Try not to vomit.

garlicbutter · 28/02/2012 22:45

Companies are now calling for the right to Vote Shock
Would I be right to imagine they want blocks of one vote per shareholder/staff/pound?
Would I be wrong to say they don't need votes, they already run the country?

I've heard lots of mutterings about non-taxpayers losing the vote. Just like the 17th Century ... and pre-WW2 Germany.

ttosca · 28/02/2012 22:53

^Companies are now calling for the right to Vote shock
Would I be right to imagine they want blocks of one vote per shareholder/staff/pound?
Would I be wrong to say they don't need votes, they already run the country?

I've heard lots of mutterings about non-taxpayers losing the vote. Just like the 17th Century ... and pre-WW2 Germany.

They keep pushing and pushing... they don't seem to realise just how close they are to it all blowing up. Being ignorant thugs, they have apparently learned nothing from history.

minimathsmouse · 28/02/2012 23:04

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/27/britain-rebuilt-in-aid-corporate-power

Businesses are now referring to themselves as Citizens Hmm really interesting piece worth a read, I don't think it will happen any when soon but then I didn't think I'd ever see the day when cancer patients would be forced to work indefinately as indentured serfs to big businesses.

garlicbutter · 29/02/2012 11:21

That's a great article, minimaths. It should be broadcast from vans around the country!

I fear it will happen very soon. Look how much has been destroyed in the past two years.

TapselteerieO · 29/02/2012 11:43

I wonder how Grayling's meeting with the big businesses will go today.

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rabbitstew · 29/02/2012 11:55

Disgusting and despicable, I call it. How on earth anyone can keep a straight face calling for more self-regulation and trust when it was too much self-regulation and trust that caused the credit crisis, I don't know. Business has shown itself comprehensively incapable of being trusted if left to its own devices. Business can be a force for social good, but it doesn't give a damn whether it is or not - result being, it is often extremely harmful and is utterly incapable of accepting its own faults and changing itself. If it were capable of accepting its faults, it wouldn't be behaving in the way it is, now. Give too much power to one aspect of human life and you are asking for misery. We need business, but we need one hell of a lot more than that for a stable, fair society.

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