Tesco and the Workfare Scheme

[El Padre™]

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2012/02/16/how-companies-like-tesco-are-paying-workers-virtually-nothing/

 

http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?page_id=31

 

Fucking scumbags.

 

[TENEMENTFUNSTER]

I concur with the above.

[baggy89]

It's not really working for free though is it? It's working to receive the benefits they are already receiving which in a number of cases will be worth more than Tesco will be paying those that they are already employing at their normal rate.

 

I've lost a few members of staff over the last few years who were marginally better off (financially) sitting at home than they were going to work and given the same choice I'd probably do the same. I also pay a couple of quid over the minimum wage basic and more for night and weekend work.

 

[tom_widdows]

Baggy the fact is Tesco can (and seemingly are) laying people off and then using this government scheme to employ staff who work for tesco but are paid by the tax payer.

 

Are you or anyone else seriously happy knowing that everytime you shop in tesco, argos (and many others) some of the people on the checkouts or stacking the shelves are doing so out of your taxes instead of that companies annual billion pound profits? Tesco etc get richer while the unemployment levels stay the same

[maverick sheep]

sometimes issues arise which suggest that enlightened dictatorship may well be a better option than simply giving people the vote because they were smart enough to fall out of their mother's clunge.

[baggy89]

I don't know how the scheme works but had assumed Tesco would be paying what they would pay normally with the exchequer making up the difference to equal what these people would normally receive in benefits.

 

Is there any actual evidence that people are losing their jobs so this scheme can be abused? or is it much like how the Poles came over and everyone lost their jobs so the Poles could do it for less.

[glasgow sheep]

I don't know how the scheme works but had assumed Tesco would be paying what they would pay normally with the exchequer making up the difference to equal what these people would normally receive in benefits.

 

Is there any actual evidence that people are losing their jobs so this scheme can be abused? or is it much like how the Poles came over and everyone lost their jobs so the Poles could do it for less.

 

That presupposes that all folk on benefits earn more than the minium wage that Tesco pay.

[baggy89]

That presupposes that all folk on benefits earn more than the minium wage that Tesco pay.

 

Yes and I had assumed that this scheme had been designed in an attempt to get these people back to work. It may have been, but further reading shows that due to its poorly thought out nature and even poorer implementation it is not working that way. That said on the links Padre provided for every seemingly genuine tale of it's poor implementation and people being taken advantage of, there is at least one equivalent story that smacks of "It's not fair I've been made to work".

 

It has to be said, however, I am looking at it from the point of view of an employer that has had just one genuine enquiry from someone looking for work, that has resulted in an employee that hasn't spent 5 of their first 6 days off sick before just not turning up any longer, in the last 5 months. And this at a time when unemployment is at it's highest since 1992 and me being at least 4 full time employee's down.