Homebase let cat out of the bag about using workfare to reduce wage bills

[ttosca]

Only someone very naive could believe private firms are participating in the government?s workfare scheme because they want to provide work experience for unemployed people out of the goodness of their own hearts and not as a way of reducing their wage bills by using forced labour at taxpayers? expense.

But ask any of them and they?ll swear the workfare people they?ve taken on are extra to their requirements and are not ? repeat not ? replacing jobs they would normally have had to pay someone a proper wage to do.

Well. It looks like Homebase have accidentally let the cat out of the bag.

Here?s a poster currently displayed on the wall in the manager?s office of Homebase Haringey ? which clearly shows the company is using workfare as a means to reduce their payroll costs:

tompride.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/homebase-workfare.jpg?w=529&h=715

This is particularly interesting, as Homebase have recently been lying to telling the public they?re not participating in workfare at all. See my previous post about that here:

Homebase are so embarrassed about using workfare ? they?re reduced to lying about it

Looks like Homebase just can?t stop themselves telling porky pies about workfare, doesn?t it?

tompride.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/oops-homebase-let-cat-out-of-the-bag-about-using-workfare-to-reduce-wage-bills/

[MiniTheMinx]

I agree the private sector are the best to take on building bridges and laying motorways. My father was a civil engineer in the private sector and maintained that councils employed struggling engineers. He worked for a large multi-national travelling all over the globe and most of the workers were supplied by sub-contractors. However when it comes to everyday routine maintenance work LA and tax payer are usually best served by employing directly.

have you looked into the Skye bridge fiasco Claig?

[claig]

I agree I would prefer the work to be done in the public sector if we have the skills for it there.

No, I don't know about the Skye bridge.

[claig]

Let's build whole new towns with homes that are entirely green and have new devices - these magnetic devices that provide almost free energy. Let's attract people to live in these towns where fuel would be esentially free instead of the fuel that has doubled since 2004 and which is still increasing and their green targets where they expect us to reduce our energy consumption by 40%.

Let's not be deindustrialised and priced out of energy and reduced in our standard of living to meet their low-growth carbon targets that will put millions into fuel poverty and make them unable to enjoy a standard of living that was the norm 20 years ago.

Let's create a new industrial revolution, let's use our creative productive engineering capacity and increase living standards for people (rather than reduce them as their green targets demand).

Let's not sit back and allow the negative thinking and doom and gloom of some of the things stated in the Green Party's 'Manifesto for a Sustainable Society' to occur.

"The quality of life of all, except for that of a very rich and powerful minority, will decline. As such problems intensify, it becomes easy for authoritarian regimes to gain control and to impose draconian solutions. It is desirable that peoples should avoid this by voluntarily taking responsible action now so that without repressive measures human numbers are eventually brought into balance."

and


"It should be clearly understood that the Party does not support repressive or coercive population control measures but, rather, is seeking to avoid their imposition


www.sci.sdsu.edu/salton/Immigration_PopGreenParty.html#Population


Let's plan for growth, let's invest for growth, let's build and train our employed, let's not stack shelves while Rome and civilization burns and we descend into a green nightmare of zero-growth, zero prospects and zero hope whiile as the Green document says the quality of life of all, except for that of a very rich and powerful minority, will decline

It's almost as if someone would prefer that to happen.

[claig]

Let's support Osborne when he stood up and said something to the effect of we are not going to bankrupt Britain to "save the planet".

I'm sure that some of the rich and powerful minority mentioned in the Green document weren't happy when he said that, but the people certainly were (even the ones stacking shelves) because they saw hope and a future on the horizon.

[claig]

Let's innovaye, let's create, let's get people working and building. Let's be positive and let's not accept teh doom and gloom that we are constantly sold by the rich elite and their green jesters.

Let's not accept zero growth, let's not be thrown back into a Dark Ages where they turn out our lights and our heaters and make us pay through the nose for energy with newly installed meters.

Let's have a new Enlightenment just like Voltaire and the giants of old had. Let's not let them close down our ohms and our volts and treat us as dolts.

[MiniTheMinx]

ah, the skye bridge and the massive over investment of some 20 million pounds that went missing! plus the fact that some of the poorest people in the Britain were held hostage on the island by an american bank. George Monbiot Who runs Britain ?

But I digress, we need to stop workfare. Does anyone here know whether shell petrol stations are using workfare? Last week our local petrol station had lots of staff milling about with nothing to do. They were offering to fill the car and were going about with buckets washing all the pumps down. I questioned the staff and the manager who started stuttering and said "well, erm, we have got people, erm, well, from the usual unemployment, erm, list, well, no. not workfare, erm" and then shuffled off. I think they are but I don't know for sure.

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

We can train people all we like but if there are no jobs for them to progress to then whats the point?

My DP is a qualified mechanic with a specialty. He will soon be going on workfare. So what? Just ignore his years at college and serving his time and retrain him as a painter decorater? Really?

What a waste of everyones time and money.

My brother did a year of bricklaying just as the recession hit. He couldnt get a builder to give him an unpaid (!) placement to complete the course. He now works for McDonalds.

Workfare is not the answer. And either is training if there are no jobs.

[MiniTheMinx]

Did anyone notice Osborne dropping his T's when he spoke to the super market staff in Derbyshire. Twas very funny. If you want the people to prosper Claig, we must first have democracy. The right to recall our MPs when they vote against our wishes and don't represent their constituents instead voting with their party. Here we have Nicolas Soames, lovely man but such a Tory. He saves the local maternity services and then votes with the party to privatise the local hospital he spent 15 years trying to save. doh!

[claig]

Yes, it would be great to have a more representative democracy with a real PR system as the LibDems rightly wanted. But Rome was not built in a day, let's remain positive and not lose hope for it will surely happen someday.

[claig]

wannabe, the Daily Mail reported today on a man with a PhD in physics who could only find work in a call centre and ended his life by jumping off a building.

We are witnessing a tragic waste of human potential and lives in our society. Teh bankers put us into this economic crisis and New Labour with their 'light touch' regulation cannot escape all blame. They left a note saying there was no money left. It was meant to be a joke, but it is not funny and has had tragic consequences for millions of people who have lost their homes and jobs.

Jobs don't grow on trees, so we must take action to create them. We need to build new roads and toll roads where the cost of building will be recopued by the revenue stream of the tolls. In the emergency with which we are faced we need to train hundreds of thousands of unemployed people in order to prepare them for an upturn.

Teh kickstart of building toll roads and local airports and fixing infrastructure will get teh wheels of our closed down factories turning, it will fire up our furnaces (and annoy the zero-growth greens and their rich masters) and it will oil the pockets of millions with pound notes and confidence and enterprise will return and people will once again have money to burn (which will yet again annoy teh zero-growth greens and their rich masters).

It will be like the revival of a heart attack victim laid out on a slab by a shot of energy that flows through teh veins of the nation like volts from a coal-fired power station (which will yet again annoy the zero-growth greens and their rich masters).

Where ther's a will, there's a way. We can allocate our resources back to growth rather than zero-growth and low growth and we can improve the lives of millions (which will yet again displease the greens and their rich masters).

Let's adopt teh motto of the Royal Air Force who in teh Second World War never gave up hope.

Per Ardua Ad Astra - Through Adversity to the Stars

Onwards and upwards.

The greens and their rich masters won't like it, but the people will love it, like birds freed from their green cage.

[MiniTheMinx]

You are still putting money into the hands of a fascist aristo Claig, shame on you.

[claig]

I am putting money in the hands of the people by giving them employment. Osborne is no fascist, he stood up to the rich elite and told them and their green jesters that he was not prepared to bankrupt Britain to "save the planet".

I only hope that he will accelerate growth and building and infrastructure improvement as soon as possible.

[whiteandyellowiris]

workfare is outrageous imo

[MiniTheMinx]

Osborne has dubious friends, I was referring to the fact that you are putting money into the pocket of Viscount Rothermere by reading the mail.

[SanityClause]

Wow Claig, Keynsian economics? That's unusual for a fan of the DM!

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

So are we creating jobs or training people on workfare?

How about we create jobs and also create VOLUNTARY PAID apprenticeships and training opportunities so people can further themselves.

Workfare is reducing jobs and undermining the NMW.

[claig]

I don't believe everything that the Daily Mail says.

But there are Tories who have been calling for growth and kickstart to the economy. I think Boris has been calling for the extension of a major airport.

We can't afford to just sit back and wait and keep our fingers crossed that things will turn out alright. The government has been voted in by the people and it has been entrusted with the power to act. We need action not delay.

[claig]

wannabe, I don't think we can do anything about workfare. I think it has been decided on high that that will happen and New Labour even began the path towards it.

But if we are going to have it, let's make it useful to the people on workfare and to the community.

I think it is possible to both create jobs and train people on workfare with useful skils at the same time and I think that will start the economy moving.

It has got to be better than doing nothing.

[ttosca]

Osborne is no fascist, he stood up to the rich elite and told them and their green jesters that he was not prepared to bankrupt Britain to "save the planet".

Jesus Christ... that is one confused individual right there...

[claig]

'Workfare is reducing jobs and undermining the NMW.'

I agree about that, because it is not being used as part of a growth programme, but is using current capacity in a non-growing economy.

That is why I believe we should create an entirely new area of growth funded by quantitaive easing (which should be given to large capital projects rather than banks) and this will create additional jobs and put people on workfare in these new growth areas rather than with existing employers stacking shelves for free.

We have to enlarge teh job market, we have to expand and we have to grow. We can't create employment in a zero-growth low-growth climate.

[ttosca]

claig-

wannabe, I don't think we can do anything about workfare. I think it has been decided on high that that will happen and New Labour even began the path towards it.

What does this even mean? What does 'decided on high'? By whom? By what process? Why can't we do anything about it? It sounds to me like you actually support it - or want to support it.

People have boycotted and shamed various workfare companies, and it is already on the verge of collapse because so many 'providers' are pulling out.

Do you have anything to contribute but proto-fascism, claig?

[claig]

'What does 'decided on high'? By whom? By what process?'

I don't know, because I don't move in New Labour circles.

New Labour took on the marican ideas and began legislation which began teh move towards it. I don't know what process it was. Maybe it was the New Labour "sofa government" that we have heard about.

' Why can't we do anything about it? '

Because it is already happening and was voted in as far as I know. It is happening and I think it is futile to wish that it wasn't. I don't believe in charging at windmills like Don Quixote. I think some things cannot be changed, so I think it is best to try and modify them for teh best possible outcome.

I don't know what proto-fascism is, but do you have anything to contribute apart from insults?

[claig]

I'm not a progressive, I don't know how New Labour started the process, all I know is that they did.

[claig]

New Labour didn't ask me and you when they decided to start on the path to workfare, they didn't ask me and you when they brought in the Climate Act, they didn't ask me and you when they decided to "save the planet" for us, they didn't ask me and you, they never do.

[MiniTheMinx]

Some nuts support UKIP, some even vote UKIP, this gets Scameron on the run. He comes out and says "lets tackle immigration" what we have to do is put an equal amount of pressure on labour for them to come out and condemn workfare. We need to nudge labour to the left. We need to be unequivocal, you want our votes, you represent us.