Re: This Stinks

Other big named stores have dropped this scheme like a ton of bricks, now it as the bad publicity. See Here

Re: This Stinks

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a lot more dirt hitting the fans over this shady practice, could lead to a lot of civil unrest as other names may be uncovered.

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I hate Tesco anyway and always shop at Sainsburys who have opted out of this scheme so thats good.

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I thought I'd re-open this thread now that all the facts are known. The scaremongers and left wing rabble who have put the boot into this scheme should be ashamed of themselves, they have done nothing but a disservice to the young unemployed of this country.

It would appear that these large companies were asked by the government to give work experience to the unemployed, some of whom have never had a job and do not know what it entails to learn work schedules and disciplines. Some of the kids on the schemes have actually gained full time employment as a direct result of this scheme, job opportunities which have now been lost thanks to the hysteria generated by the mob.

Points to note:
No-one was forced to go on this scheme, it was purely voluntary.
The unemployed volunteering for this scheme retained their benefits and were paid expenses.
No existing employee was sacked to be replaced by anyone on this scheme.

The motives of the companies signed up to this scheme were, as far as I can ascertain, purely alturistic and for no-ones benefit but the unemployed. As an ex employer myself I can vouch for the fact that it actually costs employers money to find people work and give them training in a job, and they produce no benefit for the company in the short term.

These companies then, have been hounded and castigated for no other reason than left wing spite and bile, and the perpetrators should be ashamed.

The biggest losers, however, are our unemployed kids. Another chance of a job wrenched from their grasp just to satisfy a political dogma...Bravo..

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Barry I have been following this story in the news with interest and while I don't like genuine 'exploitation' I think as you point out we may have been mislead with the initial reports on this subject.

As someone who started work aged 15 in a kennel as a trainee kennel maid working from 6am to 10pm for £1 a week and my 'keep', a shared bedroom and a diet consisting mainly of potatoes and marrow I think any offer of training is better than nothing .

Many of the 'captains of industry' started at the bottom with the most basic of tasks and I have heard it said 'if you can't do the job yourself how can you expect anyone else to do it '.

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The whistleblowers should get medals for highlighting the fact that big companies were using slave labour, we don't need that in our country, we need a forward thing government to, and don't forget Tesco's were taking them on in night jobs, so no one could see what they were doing.

If they want to do something for the youth of today open the Technical Colleges like we used to have and send them to school to learn how to work, and whilst they are at it start the metal work and woodwork classes and the domestic science for the girls in our secondary schools.


The truth is the government don't know the facts, you have some of them saying it was voluntary and the minister in charge namely ID Smith saying it was compulsory.

Either way if the jobs were there for firms to take them on, why didn't they offer them the jobs in the first place, the jobs they got were not registered at the Job Centres.
It was just for 8 weeks, are you telling me it takes 8 weeks to have to train people to stack goods on shelves, not at all.
The government are with the cutbacks forcing councils to mothball over half our children's centres, if they cared about our youth of the future they would pay these kids more than job seekers allowance, and not leave it to companies to pay them just the bus fare to get there.
Nothing but the companies taking advantage of cheap labour, and a way for the government to reduce the unemployment figures, which they know are far higher than recorded.

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Well said Arthur and furthermore, if, as Barry insists these 'jobs' were voluntary, how come if the so called 'volunteers' decided to leave this scheme before the completion of their eight weeks, the DWP sanctioned them by imposing a 'fine' on their JSA - so much for 'volunteers!!!

In addition. since we now have a 'minimum' wage, which is considerably more than the rate of JSA, why couldn't the companies pay these 'Trainees' the minimum wage for the number of hours they were contracted for. As Arthur has said - this is and was a Government 'slave labour' scheme to assist those large companies who subscribed to it to benefit from 'cheap' labour.

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Oh dear, what a couple of depressing posts, the content of which is nothing but hysterical, left wing propaganda aimed at damaging the government and railing against big business rather than helping the kids into work. Let’s not forget that youth unemployment is nothing new, Labour threw billions at this problem whilst encouraging and allowing unfettered immigration, which effectively took away jobs from the indigenous population, and because of that we are 3 million jobs short in the employment market which many of our unemployed should have had.

Having said that, this is too important a subject to be a political football, and we should be working at this problem together and without party politics. It’s time that we sought out some positives, and to my mind anything which encourages and teaches any skill, any work ethic or any feeling of self worth amongst our youth should be welcomed. OK the scheme isn’t perfect and no scheme ever will be, but we owe it to our youth to give them every opportunity to better themselves through their own efforts. Encouraging them to just draw their benefits and stay in bed until late morning and blame the government isn’t the way forward.

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Nothing political intended in what I am saying, but probably very little thought went into this scheme at all Barry - just another temporary quick fix to make the numbers appear better for a couple of months. That is depressing, I think.
One aspect to this is that we now have second generations in families who have not much in the way of skills, job opportunities or incentives to do more than draw benefits and stay in bed. It is possible to "survive" on benefits and young people see their own parents without jobs or the will do any other, on benefits and managing (emphasis on managing). Without the push or expectation from their parents many kids are content to do the same. Also, I don't think the real jobs are there anymore. The majority of jobs in supermarkets are part-time and dead-end jobs. No apprenticeship or prospect of much better for the vast majority of shop workers - it has always been like that, except for maybe the little shops where it was a possibility to be "manager" eventually. I think it is far worse now we have the monolith companies. If I were a kid today I would be most depressed to think that this was all there was - In a way schemes like this are exploitation, however they may be dressed up as "opportunity"

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What I do find depressing is all this negativity, it is dead easy to slag off someone else's ideas, but where are the better ones? Isn't any scheme better than no scheme? Do we have to be defeatist all the time and just decry anyone who wants to try something new?

I seem to be a voice in the wilderness on this one, but personally I would rather have half a chance at a job than no chance....