Tesco asks government to change flagship jobless scheme
Work experience programme must be voluntary, says major employer amid complaints it is profiting from forced labour
The Guardian, Saturday 18 February 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/feb/18/tesco-jobless-scheme-work-experience
Tesco said it had entered the work experience scheme in good faith but had ‘felt uncomfortable’ about being involved in a programme which was seen as compulsory. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian
The Department for Work and Pensions has come under pressure from Britain’s biggest private employer to fundamentally change the terms of one of its flagship unemployment schemes following complaints that jobseekers are being used as taxpayer-subsidised labour in high street chains up and down the country.
Supermarket group Tesco said it has asked DWP officials to make the work experience scheme voluntary after thousands of angry customers wrote in and posted messages on Twitter and the company’s Facebook site accusing the multinational of profiting from hundreds of thousands of hours of forced unpaid work.
Under the scheme, jobseekers work up to eight weeks for 30 hours a week in placements organised by job centre managers. These can take place in private businesses after the government changed the rules at the start of 2011. Before that, work experience placements were limited to two weeks and could only take place at charities and public bodies.
After the eight weeks those who have worked in store are promised no more than an interview. Companies have no obligation to have a job on offer before they enrol the unemployed on a placement. According to the latest figures 34,000 people were put through the scheme between January and November last year.
If jobseekers pull out of a placement after the first week they face having their benefits withdrawn.
In a statement from Tesco on Friday night, the company – which made £3.8bn in profits last year – said it wanted the scheme to be free from any sort of sanction.
“We understand the concern that those who stay in the scheme longer than a week risk losing their benefits if they drop out before the end of their placement,” Tesco said. “We have suggested to DWP that to avoid any misunderstanding about the voluntary nature of the scheme, this threat of losing benefit should be removed.”
Behind the scenes, DWP officials have been desperately attempting to shore up support for the scheme which David Cameron, Nick Clegg and George Osborne have personally championed. On Thursday, officials described claims that firms were thinking of withdrawing as “overheated nonsense”, adding: “A vast number of businesses are involved in providing work experience schemes, including some of Britain’s biggest names.”
The government recently said it was extending the scheme to more than 100,000 placements a year. However, this has not stopped Sainsbury’s, Waterstones and clothing giant TK Maxx announcing in recent weeks that they were pulling out.
Waterstones said it did not want to encourage unpaid work. Sainsbury’s stressed the only back-to-work scheme it was engaging with was entirely voluntary and would try out benefit claimants for an actual job vacancy. The Guardian understands that other major high street chains are reconsidering their involvement.
Tesco said it had entered the scheme in good faith but had “felt uncomfortable” about being involved in a programme which was seen as compulsory. It said it had made its concerns known to senior departmental officials on Friday.
Tesco did not comment on what action it would take if the DWP refused to change the terms of the scheme. Any move would undermine ministers’ previous stance on the importance of sanctions to reinforce personal responsibility.
“We would never offer longer-term work on an unpaid basis,” a Tesco spokesperson said, adding: “We remain 100% committed to offering long-term, sustainable and rewarding paths into employment for thousands of young people.”
DWP officials said the sanctions were introduced for those who withdraw from a placement after the first week to protect employers from wasting time, but said they were “happy to discuss with employers whether this is warranted”.
Chris Grayling, employment minister, said in a statement: “Our work experience scheme is voluntary and thanks to companies like Tesco and many others it has provided a route for literally thousands of young people to find their first job.” He added: “The idea that providing work experience for unemployed young people is some kind of forced labour is utterly and completely absurd.”
Lawyers who are bringing a legal claim against the department under the Human Rights Act legislation on forced labour, welcomed Tesco’s move. Solicitor Jim Duffy from Public Interest Lawyers said: “Tesco, one of the main beneficiaries of the schemes, has now recognised that coercing people into unpaid labour will not solve Britain’s unemployment crisis or empower Britain’s 2.6 million unemployed. The government must now scrap these schemes and come up with individualised tailored approaches that will not only get people into work but will keep them there.”
All the stores still connected with these devious workfare programs run by Unum should all be boycotted immediately. If you do not boycott these stores then if you have a job you will not shortly as your employer will look for any little method they can of removing you so they can replace you with free labor from the unemployed. Holland & Barrett is another company connected to this programme and they are getting closer to trying to sack paid employees in order to just take on free labor. You do not believe me? Check out their new training courses to push products, annoy customers or lose your job. Why all the bully boy tactics of Holland & Barrett all of a sudden? The Work Programme for one along with the evil The Carlyle Group run by Knight of Malta, George H.W Bush who own the company. So that’s the first one on the list to be boycotted as it has zero respect for its minimum wage over worked staff.
People need to wake up and fast to this before opium funded David Cameron gets his ‘Big Society’ which is nothing more than a Common Purpose slave labor brainwashed camp within the Post Industrial Zero Growth Society desired by the Club of Rome. Who in the hell does this liar, Chris Grayling think he is? Tell me how is being told you are doing work experience or else you will lose all your benefits and live on the street hungry actually anything to do with voluntary? They also use the word ‘invitation’ on the slave labor workfare letters to people for their appointments. It’s about time they knew the definition of the word ‘invitation’ and its very different to forcing someone through fear and under duress of losing their life. All of this is totally against your Human Rights and should be stopped. Those who’ve pushed it should be up in Court for unlawful actions and put in jail for injury, stress and lose to vulnerable people. Whats annoying is you have the establishment moaning about independent loan sharks taking food from people’s tables for non-payment but these nazi DWP are far worse.
Until you know for sure that certain companies have pulled out of this slave scheme then you must keep to the boycott. Do not believe Tesco are all for employing people because they are not. Why? They are installing more and more self-service cash tills making you the people do the donkey work they should be paying staff to do. Where is the saving on your bill at best? No where! You still have to shop at Aldi or Lidl to make ends meet. Lets not also forget all the scam offers Tesco has been caught out doing. A company run by the Cohen family who believe they are ancient priests and descendants of wishful fantasies. Tesco has constantly gained by all the social engineering programs over the years. All as local small businesses have been destroyed in the process making everyone in need of the likes of Tesco and War*Wart corporations. Once our local shops have disappeared all you’ll see is Tesco Express’s popping up all over the place to peddle what they decide the populace will eat. This will of course only be genetically modified and chemical poisons along with false so-called healthy foods. Remember the population reduction agendas in place right now by the Club of Rome and its Global 2000 Report along with the United Nations and its U.N Agenda 21 aka Sustainable Development.
Notice how all these jobs are dead-end service sector jobs? It’s the Zero Growth Society and if you do not understand what this means then you had better find out quickly.
-=The Unhived Mind
SLAVE LABOUR WORKFARE SCHEMES
http://theunhivedmind.com/wordpress/?p=24583
Tesco branch hit by protest over pay
Westminster Bridge Road store forced to close as demonstrators stage sit-in over job advert for unpaid permanent staff
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 18 February 2012 14.09 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/feb/18/tesco-branch-hit-pay-protest
Protesters shout slogans at Westminster branch of Tesco. Photograph: Paul Marriott
Demonstrators brought a branch of Tesco to a standstill on Saturday in protest against the company’s low wages.
Police were called when a dozen protesters sat down or stood by the tills at the Tesco branch on Westminster Bridge Road, opposite the Houses of Parliament.
The right to work campaigners, who forced the shop to close to customers, were demonstrating over a job advert that looked for permanent workers in exchange for expenses and jobseeker’s allowance.
Tesco has amended the “misunderstood” advert and says it was down to a mistake, but the row has continued.
As many police officers as protesters were sent to break up the small demonstration. The campaigners chanted: “Tesco bosses hear us say, we won’t work if you won’t pay.”
They also held signs based on the supermarket giant’s advertising catchphrase, which read: “Tesco. Exploitation. Every little helps.”
Twitter and Facebook users had highlighted the advert for a night shift worker at a store in west Suffolk on the Jobseekers’ Plus website.
It was offered under the government’s “sector-based work academy scheme”, which is linked to benefits payments. But Tesco said the impression that it was seeking to replace full-time workers was mistaken.
The error comes after unions called for high street chains to withdraw from government programmes that require the unemployed to work for up to six months or face losing their benefits.
Tesco has explained that the advert was “a mistake caused by an IT error by Jobcentre Plus” ,which was being rectified. It was an advert for work experience with a guaranteed job interview at the end of it, as part of a government-led work experience scheme.