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/

I would have said "Climate Act! Oi! No!" and the Harry Enfield character might possibly have agreed. But alas they never asked us, that would mess up their plans and only create fuss.

It's called a representative democracy. You vote them in and they do what they please. I don't really understand it, but from what I can make out, that's what New Labour was all about.

That's why people say "plus ca change..."

Yes, and the tories are all ears.

They don't ask us because they don't represent us. They represent the interests of capitalists. What we need to do is remind them that they are only going to get behind the wheel if we give them the keys.

Labour unfortunately are in a very precarious position because they have been co-opted to the right. They fear losing the benevolence of a global cabal of tax dodging corporations and the investment they believe we need. Thatcher released the equivalent to a deadly virus over the globe, something that has turned on us, will ultimately bankrupt nation states incl us and labour have little power to stop it. Its like sleeping with the enemy. They appease the global capitalists and beg for their favour.

claig-

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.

This is meaningless. Just because is already happening doesn't mean it can't be changed. If this were not true, all progress would be impossible.

I think some things cannot be changed, so I think it is best to try and modify them for teh best possible outcome.

Why is this one of those things? We already have evidence protests, boycotts and shaming are having a large effect on workfare, as many charities and companies which have been targeted have pulled out.

So your resignation is not borne out of reality (not surprising). Perhaps you should ask yourself whether you really do object to workfare at all.

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

Proto = early, latent, developing.

Your ideas are very close to fascist, I'm afraid: the disdain for 'intellectuals', 'progressives', and rhetoric directed at the 'elite' - even though you have no idea who they really are. Meanwhile you unwittingly support the real 'elite' - the rich and ruling class in power - whilst you criticise environmentalists and other left-wing or liberal organisations. Your political ideas are a total inversion of reality.

You support the Daily Mail which is a fascist newpaper which has repeatedly supported fascists (The Blackshirts and Le Pen) in the past and which uses hateful, nasty rhetoric to criticise 'the other', which basically includes anyone who isn't middle-class, white, conservative, and heterosexual.

You support the Tories, who could not be more detached and unrepresentative of the UK as a whole. They all overwhelming also rich, white, males -- many of whom inherited millions and have never worked a day in their lives. And whilst they make poor people poorer and put people on workfare to make them work for free, they spend hundreds of thousands in Parliamentary expenses on champage, and have recently come out as wanting £30K payrise.

Meanwhile you keep talking about 'The People'. You have no idea who 'the people' are. They are not represented by The Tories or the Daily Hatred.

You are seriously misguided. Seriously.

'Just because is already happening doesn't mean it can't be changed.'

I agree with you there, the poll tax was changed. But we all make different judgements and different beliefs. You probably believe in climate catastrophe, I don't. I don't think workfare will be changed because I think it was decided on high by New Labour and the Tories (whereas the poll tax did not have Labour support and even many Tories disagreed with Thatcher on it). I could be wrong, but that is the way I see it. But I am not stopping you opposing it if you think you can change it.

'So your resignation is not borne out of reality'

It is borne out of my understanding of reality, just as I don't think that the rich eleiet will end their climate change and zero-growth policies easily unless they are exposeed by more Climategates in teh future, but I doubt that will happen, so what will be will be.

'Your ideas are very close to fascist, I'm afraid: the disdain for 'intellectuals', 'progressives', and rhetoric directed at the 'elite' - even though you have no idea who they really are.'

No I am not a fascist because unlike you I believe in democracy and I like to hear all views - be that Guardian or Daily Mail. I believe in the will of teh people (just like teh American founding fathers) and not in "sofa government" by Oxbridge elites who do not represent the people.

Justr because you have not yet understood that environmentalists are puppets of teh rich elite and that the Club of Rome who commissioned teh 'Limits to Growth' report that kickstarted the worldwide green low-growth zero-grwoth movement net on what I think was a Rockefeller estate in Italy, but I can't remember exactly and would need to look it up, doesn't mean that you will not one day understand teh truth.

The Daily Mail is not a fascist paper. it is teh world's leading online paper and named teh Stephen Lawrence killers and is against teh BNP. So you can try and smear good Daily Mail journalists and millions of good readers worldwide, but it only shows the desperation of your arguments.

'[The Tories] They all overwhelming also rich, white, males -- many of whom inherited millions and have never worked a day in their lives.

Where do you get this stuff from? The Socialist Worker's Party magazine?
Thatcher was a middle class white woman and worked for a living. She was also our one and only female Prime Minister, David Davis grew up in a single parent home on a council estate and stood for leader of the Tory party. John Major left school at 16 and was the son of a circus entertainer. What are you on about? They were not all Oxbridge PPEs.

' You have no idea who 'the people' are'

I beg to differ. The people in their masses but the Daily Mail and teh Sun. You and your Socialist Worker buddies do not represent teh majority of teh people. I respect all people and all views, but as a democrat, I respect teh wishes of the majority and don't look down on them or the paper that they choose to read which is known as teh people's paper and proudly bears that name.

History of the founding fathers and the constitution.

an elite bunch of wealthy people who tried to limit democracy.

Mini, I am not an expert on American history, but I have heard some of the American Cosntitution being read out and it is one of teh world's finest documents that freed teh people from tyranny and unrepresentative government. The American Revolution was the unfolding of teh historical process that led to the freeing of teh human spirit from oligarchical rule and was supported by teh French who had had their own revolution to free the people.

America is a great country founded on noble principles and ideals and freedom of thought and expression is enshrined in their great constitution. It is one of teh shining documents of world history and teh human spirit.

But I will listen to teh Marxist view and see what they say about it.

Rockefeller, and who was he? capitalist or worker?

American history is fascinating, they kill their presidents, invade other countries, drop air bases all over the globe, undermine other governments, control the top 20 corporations, extract tribute from the poorest regions. America looks at the the rest of the world, points to the ground and says "your standing on my oil"

that should be 50*, sorry must get back to work.

Rockefeller was a capitalist and Stalin was a communists. They were both elites in their respective socities. Neither was a worker.

I am with the people, with the workers, with the Daily Mail readers against the elites who do not represent the people and who want to inflict zero-growth and low-growth and population control on the people of the earth under their climate change scam in order to maintain power and control in their oligarchical system of elte control.

That is why I read teh Daily Mail, widely known as the people's paper and the paper of the "squeezed middle" who are "sqiueezed" by the elite.

The American founding fathers didn't do any of that. America was born from noble ideas and principles.

I defy you to keep a dry eye when listening to the great words of their National Anthem - land of the brave and home of the free. Magnificent stuff. It is even better than a Daily Mail editorial and that is saying something!

I am with the people, with the workers, with the Daily Mail readers against the elites who do not represent the people

No, you're just confused.

If you don't believe me, then I am sure you will believe the Greens in their document 'Manifesto for a Sustainable Society'. Theyare telling you straight.

"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

They seem to be under no doubt. The message is change your ways or you will be forced to. Their solution, if I understand it rightly, is change voluntarily or the elite with an authoritarian regime will force you with draconian measures.

They don't think it can be stopped, they think it is inevitable. Do what the elite says or they will force you seems to be the message.

Unlike the greens and the elite, I am with the Daily Mail and the Telegraph's Christopher Booker and teh Daily Mail reader who all know this is a scam and scare tactic used to force us to change our ways.

'"The quality of life of all, except for that of a very rich and powerful minority will decline'

Why in this awful terrible save the planet catastrophe that will befall teh earth according to teh greens, will this tiny rich minority be unaffected, while the good Daily Mail reader will be "squeezed" yet again?

I think it is because this tiny minority is in charge and are doing the squeezing. And instead opposing this tiny minority and calling their bluff, the greens seem to believe it all and are the messengers who seenm to say do whatthey say or they will do it for you.

No offence Claig, but I havent a fucking clue what you are on about.

The Daily Mail is vile. It was vile long before this week. If you are with them then IMO you are a lost cause.

Claig, have you heard of Webster Tarple, I know you are aware of malthus. You see I have listened and read Tarple, I am aware of the neo-malthusians who are a bunch of academics who claim that humanity is a blot on the world and that population will reach an unsustainable level, resources will run scarce, modern farming methods are harming bio-diversity etc,...

Where to start with this Companies like Monsanto wage war upon other nations, this is done by undermining their governments using CIA and various economic tactics, with the full backing of the U.S government. Monsanto is a huge corporation involved in petro chemicals, fertilizers, GM crops and modern farming methods. Monsanto along with others have stripped the U.S, depleted soil and now bees are shipped in lorries all over the US because these chemicals are harming bio-diversity. As with oil the U.S government acts as broker, facilitator that will allow the imperialist aspirations of these corporations to exploit other countries. They do this through foreign policy, trade policies, lending, IMF, FED WTO etc and air bases all over the globe that threaten the security of other nations, whilst bankrupting the American State itself.

Tarple claims that Obamas science Tzar is a neo-malthusian who follows Paul Ehrlich's ideas. Can you see that in this case there is a contradiction btw these two camps?

Back in the 1940s a few academic economists who subscribed to the idea of liberal economic free market capitalism managed to get funding from wealthy backers to set up a think tank. Mount peralin society. The reason that the wealthy elite coughed up the dollars is because the "thinkers" generate ideas that fit with the agenda of the capitalist class. It isn't a case of the elite being thinkers. The elite are the capitalist class who fund the thinkers to think what is commercially desirable. In this case, the thinkers were paid to spread the neo-liberal orthodoxy throughout the universities. Look up the chicago school. Investigate neo-liberal theory and Margeret Thatcher's advisor Keith Joseph

"Thatcher began to attend lunches regularly at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a think tank founded by the poultry magnate Antony Fisher, a disciple of Friedrich von Hayek; she had been visiting the IEA and reading its publications since the early 1960s. There she was influenced by the ideas of Ralph Harris and Arthur Seldon, and she became the face of the ideological movement opposing the welfare state. Keynesian economics, they believed, was weakening Britain. The institute's pamphlets proposed less government, lower taxes, and more freedom for business and consumers" wiki

Although capitalists work as a class to further their own interests as a group there remains a great deal of competition over ideas and competition to gain the upper hand commercially. Not all "thinkers" think in terms of ideas and theory that will further the commercial interests of the corporate capitalist class. neo-malthusians have the backing of some very wealthy people?????? the nexus btw corporate capital and finance capital isn't as clear cut as one might think. The further up the ladder one looks it may come down to some individual finance capitalists who lets face it will play off one idea against another, one business against another and so on. In doing so they get very rich. They lend to both sides in a war as the ultimate example of this.

Sorry ttosca

Workfare is a bastard, slave invention of the U.S, another import like foodbanks that we could do without.

Yes, Webster Tarpley, a very very clever man. He is a socailist but not in the sense of Tony Blair. He is a Roosevelt type socialist but he doesn't belive in scams like global warming and understands that there is an oligarchical aristocratic elite that pulls teh strings of puppets.

'Tarple claims that Obamas science Tzar is a neo-malthusian who follows Paul Ehrlich's ideas. Can you see that in this case there is a contradiction btw these two camps? '

Yes, I know. Have you read about him? Do you know about his book with Ehrlich, called "Human Ecology"? Do you know some of teh things it says?

Fox News did a great article on it.

I don't know what you mean about the contradiction.

Mini, now you are on teh right track. YTes I know all that and every self-respecting conspiracy theorist knows all that.

But the real ruling elite is teh Neo-Malthusian elite. Climate change is their policy and every government on earthh and every puppet on earth follows their policy and they have some political parties who push the message for them and fool naive eager young socialists into falling for it and working against the interests of the people and the Daily Mail reader.

Capitlaism is just one system used by teh elite. Communism is another system. Read Gerorge Orwell, a genius and socialist, to understand that teh elite controls both. It is about power and control for teh elite - not isms. They don't care which system they are in as long as they are in charge.

Every conspiracy theorist lnows that they use teh Hegelian dialectic to create opposing systems which in reality work together to provide a synthesis from teh thesis and antithesis. Orwell told us that the systems work together to control the people.

Orwell told us "hope lies with teh proles" and the Daily Mail reader for they have not fallen for teh scams of teh oligarchs, unlike teh naive earnest young leftwingers who work unwittingly for them.

Capitalism and rip-off finance and stock market scams and banking crashes are not the ultimate purpose of teh elite, they are only stepping stones towards their Neo-Malthusian goal.

Yes I follow Fox news, I have even listened to that loon American Alex Jones.

They are locating the problem in the wrong place.

Lots of people believe that Alex Jones works for the elite. Lots of what he says makes sense but then he deliberately ruins it all by going over the top.

The capitalist created communism. They supported it against Hitler who wanted to destroy it. They armed it, they funded Lenin and Trotsky and Wall Street funded Trotsky. They created communism as the opponent of capitalism. They were two parts of the Hegelian dialectic and both systems frightened their populations with scares about the other system.