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

[TapselteerieO]

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.

I know, the call is for ever more self regulation, now lets face it if everyone of us and every corporation, charity, small business and bank was self regulated we would all be at each others's throats, same old, competition argument. Drive down costs, drive up personal gain, drive down behaviour.

In fact if we do away with state regulation, we could easily make the argument in favour of dispensing with the state.......far right......liberalism isn't too far away from right wing anarchy when you think about it.

More proof that some of the Workfare schemes are mandatory:

DWP document:

'Your Mandatory Work Activity Placement starts'...

i.imgur.com/bGkDz.jpg

They think they can fob us off with one scheme (Work Experience) being made "voluntary" (but only before you agree to do it)?

They do not acknowledge concerns about ESA claimants being forced to do unlimited work placements for their benefits?

They do not address the issue of people who are working for these huge profit making companies not being paid for the work they do?

My boycott continues.

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2108255/Yes-need-country-working-Sadly-Workfare-going-it.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Some honest reporting at last, and in the DM

On radio 4 and in all mainstream press we are being told sanctions are being removed from the work exp scheme but on the DWP site under press releases on the 29th march it says sanctions remain.

So work exp is ONLY voluntary right up until you agree, then it becomes mandatory and we still don't know at what point and under what circs sanctions will STILL be applied.

More subterfuge and confusion, think it's working though

The Daily Mail has gone up in my estimation, for once. Claig (the poster on mumsnet, that is...) will be very happy. This Government is taking outrageous advantage of the current economic situation to make many unnecessary and incompetent and many downright cruel changes that will last forever, not just for the duration of any recession or depression, and lying and twisting the truth and scaremongering in order to get its way. Yes, I'm sure some of it is a result of blind panic and wanting to make change quickly in order to be seen to be doing something (even something stupid), but a lot of it is doing what the Tories have been wanting to do for donkeys years. And the Lib Dems are being a useless bunch tagging along with it in return for House of Lords reform and other things of absolutely no interest to the general public at this time: particularly when it is patently obvious that the House of Lords in its current form is the only place where any proper objections are being aired at the moment.

I really don't want to live in a society where everyone points the finger at those beneath them and fawns to a selfish elite who have so little sense of loyalty to anything that they would happily up sticks and leave, anyway, if they couldn't get their zero tax rate and free labour. It really is quite maddening to have to listen to arguments that basically say that those who got us into this mess are the only ones who can get us out of it, so the solution is to give the mess makers even more control than ever, and then try to wrestle it off them (on a cold day in Hell) later, when the recession is over. Ha, ha. How many centuries did it take to create a more fair system, which is now being comprehensively dismantled????

RabbitStew, please please please form a new political party, I'll vote Rabbit Stew party any day, as would anyone else with any sense.

We have spent hundreds of years in constant tension between the workers, the poor, the disabled and poorly educated, the vulnerable, sick, elderly and the disenfranchised and those "wealth creators."

If only we could have some respite, from the black death and the peasants revolt, to the unions and the labour movement to this present day, workers have had to constantly justify their existence as something other than just means of production. An economic unit of production and demand.

I would just love to wake up tomorrow and discover that we have great artists, poets and writers, scientists and musicians but instead we are being denied freedoms in favour of this notion of constant demand and constant profit.

I think this workfare scheme will condemn many young people to a life to which they are unsuited, ill equipped and over qualified, I think it will squander talent all in the name of making others rich.

Job snob, no, I just know that on the next economic upturn well hear the elite call for engineers, scientists and teachers, trades men and skilled workers.

we are being denied freedoms what freedoms?

Tilly do you have a choice on whether you work?
You told us you didn't.
Do you have a choice to pay tax?
No you told us you didn't.
Do you have a choice to work at any job you like?
No you have told us we have to stick at it.
Do you have a choice to stay home and write a novel?
No, I suspected you didn't.
Do you have the choice to re-train or take an MA? well????
Do you have the choice to decide not to create wealth for your pay master? No not unless you opt to become self employed.

I have and I can tell you it is most liberating..........have't thought much about sheep and dogs, field and profits ever since in relation to myself because this isn't about individuals it is about opportunities for everyone to reach their full potential as something other than as a unit of demand and production that creates wealth for a few very rich people.

Tilly do you have a choice on whether you work? You told us you didn't.
i have not commented on my choices or life. most people in the world need to work if they want them & their family to eat.

Do you have a choice to pay tax? No you told us you didn't. again, not talking about myself. how does the UK function if most people choose not to work and pay tax? who pays for the NHS, education etc.? so do just some people choose what they do and others pay for them?

Do you have a choice to work at any job you like? No you have told us we have to stick at it. does anyone have the choice to work at any job they like? it depends what the skills are and how realistic they are. someone who is realistic will have much more choice than someone who isnt.

Do you have the choice to decide not to create wealth for your pay master? No not unless you opt to become self employed. i am an employer.

Nobody can ever be completely free - otherwise we'd all opt to live free of disease, disagreement, boredom, the need to do mundane daily chores which we, personally, don't enjoy etc (all the things capitalism promises we can have if we win the lottery of life). However, it does take all sorts to make a world and we need to find, or at least continually to seek, acceptable ways to enable all sorts to live together in this world without creating an unfair balance of power between different groups of people who, actually, have something to offer each other. And we need to accept that some people are incapable of contributing an awful lot, even if they want to, and we are responsible for those people, too.

Yes, in any system there will always be those who behave parasitically and hide themselves amongst those who are trying to do the right thing, in order to avoid detection, but to react to that by punishing everyone around them is not, to me, an acceptable answer - particularly not when the only parasitic individuals actually being punished are those surrounded by people who cannot afford to take any more hardship, rather than those who can afford to give up an awful lot before they would even particularly notice. A change in a whole society's attitude should never start at the bottom, it should start at the top and work its way down. There will never be perfect answers to anything, but we shouldn't just give up trying to find them and go back to a model of rulers and serfs, or a model which seems to encourage people to think that getting rich is a worthy ambition in itself, because then you will be free to be as selfish as you like.

I don't pretend to have great ideas on how to make life as fair as possible, but I can tell when no effort is being made to head in that direction, and when positive actions appear to be being taken to head in the opposite direction, for no apparently justifiable reason. Does it always have to take mass starvation, disease or war to make people change their mindset? Can people not try at times of relative hardship?

how does the UK function if most people choose not to work and pay tax?

How does it function if a high proportion are forced to work and not pay tax?

if you look globally, everyone in the UK, who has their health & family are well, is 'at the top'.

you dont have to travel very far to find places where v thin is normal.

they get top up benefits allowing NMW to be competitive. however much you can argue that it should be raised, that change would just result in fewer jobs.

how does the UK function if most people choose not to work and pay tax?

If you look globally, you can see what is going to happen to us. Capitalism enables a small number of people to avoid what is inevitable for everyone else. Whether it has to be inevitable that the majority of the world will live in absolute poverty is not something we are likely to find out, since nobody wants to take the risks involved.

which country do you have in mind?

which country do you have in mind, for 'what going to happen to us'?

Indonesia, as an example?
I think to justify huge inequalities within your own country on the basis that they've got it worse elsewhere is very cynical. Everywhere they have it worse, they have even worse inequalities and our inequalities are getting greater. That doesn't seem to be a good thing to me.

"the most powerful instrument for shortening labor time, becomes the most unfailing means for placing every moment of the laborer's time and that of his family at the disposal of the capitalist for the purpose of expanding the value of his capital." Engles

We do indeed work long hours to pay tax but also we have been fed false promises of continued growth and prosperity for all with the mantra more "product" creates ever greater "profit" (where did it go!)

"Thus it comes about that the overwork of some becomes the preliminary condition for the idleness of others, and that modern industry, which hunts after new consumers over the whole world, forces the consumption of the masses at home down to a starvation minimum, and in doing thus destroys its own home market" marx

labour costs have to reigned in! that's why china is booming but we the working and unworking poor here can no longer create demand in the economy. Expecting big businesses to grow and employ is rather like asking them to empty their pockets directly into the welfare state and the one thing the industrialist hates to invest in most is labour costs. In the 60's it became apparent that two workers could be had for the price of one thus (that's why we can't survive on hubbies wage) thus we could produce more at no extra cost. However a family can not consume more on the wages of two half price workers than it could on one decent wage. So next logical step.........create state subsidised labour........workfare.

Tilly some of us provide our waged labour like any other input such as materials, except something is happening here, materials costs are rising but labour costs are being driven down because that is the only way larger businesses can grow their profits other than capital investment.........which they can't because most have actually reached their glass cieling anyway (tesco pulling out of asia and offering insurance etc), This means rising costs but declining demand. Rampant capitalism, unchecked and facilitated by the ruling class (both businesses & Politicians, they are the same!) is creating boom & bust, inequality and 80% of wealth is now held by this ruling class.

I'm happy to pay my taxes, I'm happy to work but the fact remains, how ever much tax I pay (i form part of the 90%) less & less can be afforded. Even in the 1950s we had free milk in schools, an NHS and a newly formed welfare state but now we have greater access to goods and services, more products to purchase, higher wages, (although these are under threat now) and yet we have less money to pay for welfare, education and health. It isn't sustainable because as the working majority shrinks in terms of it's activity and participation in the workforce so does the ability to pay for "the state" to provide services.

The answer I'm afraid is to reset the balance and either tax the ruling class higher (which they won't admit is the real answer) or suffer the loss of all welfare and support to the poorest and don't expect philanthropy because the averice that grabs money is not the hand that gives. Short of that we had better start a revolution

Warren Buffet says the rich should be taxed more. Not all mega-capitalists are greedy cretins.

Marx was anti-globalism which simply can't work nowadays. Even Cuba plays nice with world markets. What happens if you don't play is North Korea.

Do you read Positive Money, minimaths? V interesting, imo :)

Just been on twitter and seen this tweet from tesco customer care.
"workfare is for those aged between 16 and 24. Anyone over 24 can still volunteer"

Except i remember a fellow mumsnetter saying on one of these threads that she knows of a 49 year old ex Assistant Manager who is currently doing a work placement at Tesco under threat of losing her benefit if she doesnt comply.
Sorry Tesco but this still stinks of lies and a cover up.

Yes there is a problem with banking, not something anticipated at the end of the 19th century. I think you could reform it to within an inch of it's life but the worlds resources are running low.....we start wars all over the shop to get our hands on oil and Tesco has got a taste for free labour.
You could in fact wipe out the world debt tomorrow with the flick of a switch and by Monday we'd be exploiting workers and sticking our noses into Iraq. I think it would be better to look at why the banks do this and where does the profit go and why no one is willing to tackle it. If we fail to wrestle back the money and create greater equality between workers and profiteers we can't fix this problem. Which is why this isn't the first crisis.

"the avarice that grabs money is not the hand that gives"
I guess this is the root of the problems!

carernotasaint - I see what they did there - for those on work experience they will offer pay and a job at the end, for the 4 other schemes (that affect all working age people and the disabled) it will be business as usual, or rather, business as usual with free exploitative labour.

rabbitstew - but if you showed a poor person in indonesia the life a of a poor person in the UK, they would not see them as poor. a real slave would think anyone who called workfare slavery or forced labour did not have a clue what they were talking about.

there are more slaves alive today than other any other time in history.

i think the argument that workfare may cost real jobs is a good argument though. the slavery/force lavour one is bullshit and IMO an insult to people really suffering. poor people in the UK can spend more on a mobile phone in a year than a poor person globally spends on food.

mini - most people in the UK work for small businesses (all governments seem to forget that, perhaps due to relative power of lobbying/political donations from large co's). the balance of power in a small co is completely different. And my field is competitive for employees - if i dont treat staff well they will get a job somewhere else. i would lose money by trying to reduce the cost of staff.

costs are going up for everyone because there are more people alive than ever before, finite resources and people in developing countries starting to have goods that we have (a diet containing more meat, consumer goods that we have).

wages are going down in exportable jobs because (1) the jobs are going to other countries where people work for less (and they benefit from a higher standard of living, so i dont think you can say this is bad overall, just for the UK) (2) consumers make choices based on price. people want to own lots of stuff which they dont need but do want and they are free to do so.

to increase the value of labour, you need to decrease population size. and also so there is enough food for everyone to eat enough. but thats a message very few people want to hear or choose to act upon.

i think the UK rich blame the poor for the 'state we are in' and the UK poor blame the rich, but everyone is really just blaming someone else to avoid their own responibilities.

the poor in indonesia probably blame all of us the rest of us.

Your points are sound, Tilly, imo, but consider this:

if you showed a poor person in indonesia the life a of a poor person in the UK, they would not see them as poor
~ The fact that things aren't that bad here YET doesn't mean we're not going that way! Current anxiety is about changes to our future, more than current circumstances.

the argument that workfare [is] slavery/force labour is bullshit
~ A domestic slave in the UK, for example, is kept in a centrally-heated home, has her own room, is fed a decent balanced diet, clothed, mostly treated with reasonable courtesy and has free time. She may have the use of a car and phone depending on her situation.
~ Privileges she lacks: Autonomy; freedom of association; power to refuse instructions; freedom to change her employment; citizenship; purchasing power. ~ The workfarer's citizenship is under threat. She has purchasing power but, unlike the slave, has to purchase her own food, warmth and shelter. Otherwise they are similar.

Your arguments about costs & populations are facile, if you'll forgive me for saying so. The UK still has the advantage of free, good education to the age of 16. It makes no sense, therefore, for it to compete on cheap labour with countries whose populations are poorly educated.

everyone is really just blaming someone else to avoid their own responibilities.
~ I disagree. The only sector which hasn't shouldered the burden of the cost of the banking fuck-ups is the banking sector.

I need to keep repeating, I am a capitalist. I'm not arguing for a revolution of marxist or any other type; I want to see common sense and social responsibility applied to economics. By any standard of any worthwhile economist, they aren't being.

The level of incompetence and cynicism in this administration comes pretty damn close to a pineapple/banana state and I never thought I'd see that here. (IMO, natch.)