Poundland Girl Wins Forced Labour Ruling

Dolph said:
I have never been on JSA, when I was out of work I went and took a job at McDonalds rather than claim.
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So why exactly are you trying to decide what people should and shouldn't do if you've never experienced it?

If they wanted me to work 9.04 hours a week to "earn" my dole, i'd do it without a second thought, stacking shelves or whatever. Working for £1.86 an hour for 30 hours on the other hand? No. Just no.
 
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Rroff said:
You say that as tho its an opening available to anyone. Life isn't that black and white.
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Aren't they though?

I had my pick of excellent jobs in the last 20 years of working and currently I am exactly where I wanted to be in my life, right in the industry that interest me, but in my entire lifetime I never claimed a penny, never been on JSA, don't know what social worker, jobcenter or cheque from government looks like. But inbetween the good jobs I was a bus boy, waiter, weekend server/butler at weddings, handy man, done temp jobs, even drove across country and slept in cheap hotels few nights a week to pick up some short term contracts in "dry seasons". Openings available to anyone.

It is very much "black and white" as you put it. It angers me when people say there are no jobs available. There are always jobs available. I walked 500 yards during my lunchbreak and saw two job adverts. One for driver in flower shop. One for a morning shift cook in a greasy spoon. Both are nowhere near in my salary expectations and not in a line of work I prefer, but if I lost my job tomorrow, heck - worse case scenario, it will pay my mortgage. And I can drive a flower van and I would flip burgers at dawn, if needed. Or stand at the till in a shop. Or fill shelves at Tesco. Anyone can. These ARE openings available to anyone. If Romanian straight from the boat can do it, so can anyone, at any age. Especially young people. But because there is taxpayer sponsored alternative (watch Jeremy Kyle and play PS3), most of folk think it's beneath them.
 
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v0n said:
Aren't they though?

I had my pick of excellent jobs in the last 20 years of working and currently I am exactly where I wanted to be in my life, right in the industry that interest me, but in my entire lifetime I never claimed a penny, never been on JSA, don't know what social worker, jobcenter or cheque from government looks like. But inbetween the good jobs I was a bus boy, waiter, weekend server/butler at weddings, handy man, done temp jobs, even drove across country and slept in cheap hotels few nights a week to pick up some short term contracts in "dry seasons". Openings available to anyone.

It angers me when people say there are no jobs available. There are always jobs available. I walked 500 yards in my lunchbreak and saw two job adverts. One for driver in flower shop. One for a morning shift cook in a greasy spoon. Both are nowhere near in my salary expectations and not in a line of work I prefer, but if I lost my job tomorrow, heck - worse case scenario, it will pay my mortgage. And I can drive a flower van and I would flip burgers at dawn, if needed. Or stand at the till in a shop. Or fill shelves at Tesco. Anyone can. These ARE openings available to anyone. If Romanian straight from the boat can do it, so can anyone, at any age. Especially young people. But because there is taxpayer sponsored alternative (watch Jeremy Kyle and play PS3), most of folk think it's just feel it's beneath them.
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Ok. There are jobs available. I don't think a single person is denying there are jobs available. What you failed to mention is that there are 100 people applying for these basic jobs. And there are people who dropped out of school at 16 that have 5 years experience in these basic jobs competing with people who have a levels and a degree but merely months of experience if that. Who gets the job there? I can tell you exactly who.
 
Skillmister said:
Ok. There are jobs available. I don't think a single person is denying there are jobs available. What you failed to mention is that there are 100 people applying for these basic jobs. And there are people who dropped out of school at 16 that have 5 years experience in these basic jobs competing with people who have a levels and a degree but merely months of experience if that. Who gets the job there? I can tell you exactly who.
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Good argument but doesn't hold water. If you walk to any restaurant, any building site, any seasonal harvest/picker field, any packaging plant or cleaning crew, any minicab, any basic, menial, no-skill-required job place in this country and speak to staff there, you will immediately discover most of them have a fraction of the skills you can offer. They will have no CV, no language skills to write one, no previous experience or references they can prop their interview with, seldom any permanent place of residence in the last three years and often not even work permit.

If they get the jobs, so can local people. There is no scenario, where while seeking staff for legal, publicly advertised job, having a choice, employer would pick non english speaking immigrant over a local native workforce, if both of them were equally eager to do the job they applied for. There is no way on earth, I simply refuse to believe it. Anyone with JSA who somehow manage to regularly lose interviews for non skilled positions in favour of untrained foreigners, rise you hand, I actually want to see this. First hand. Let's get on film. Let's make a youtube documentary about it or something.
 
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v0n said:
Aren't they though?
It is very much "black and white" as you put it. It angers me when people say there are no jobs available. There are always jobs available. I walked 500 yards during my lunchbreak and saw two job adverts. One for driver in flower shop. One for a morning shift cook in a greasy spoon. Both are nowhere near in my salary expectations and not in a line of work I prefer, but if I lost my job tomorrow, heck - worse case scenario, it will pay my mortgage. And I can drive a flower van and I would flip burgers at dawn, if needed. Or stand at the till in a shop. Or fill shelves at Tesco. Anyone can. These ARE openings available to anyone. If Romanian straight from the boat can do it, so can anyone, at any age. Especially young people. But because there is taxpayer sponsored alternative (watch Jeremy Kyle and play PS3), most of folk think it's beneath them.
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I think you are right in part, there are always jobs as such. But there are so many people applying for them it's unbelievable. I was out of work in 2011 (my first time sine 1979) a couple of the positions I applied for had over 350 applicants. One position that was within walking distance that I could have done standing on my head had 280+, and it was a nothing job that I applied for simply because it was local, and would have been a stop-gap job. The position I eventually landed had almost 100 people apply and several interviews before landing it. Plus life isn't "black and white" people have commitments and families, if you don't have your own transport you are at a huge disadvantage. I'd never stepped foot in a jobcentre in 30+ years of full time employment. And my attitude to system has been totally changed by the experience. whereas 10-15 year back I may well have been a finger wagger myself. I now think many ordinary people are being almost persecuted for being unemployed. We all know there is a minority in society that won't pull their weight, lie, cheat and steal to get money out of the system. But there appears to be a government/media driven image that everyone who loses there job somehow deserves it and it's their fault, moreover they are ripping the country off just for claiming JSA, it just a manipulated, twisted view.
 
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v0n said:
Aren't they though?

I had my pick of excellent jobs in the last 20 years of working and currently I am exactly where I wanted to be in my life, right in the industry that interest me, but in my entire lifetime I never claimed a penny, never been on JSA, don't know what social worker, jobcenter or cheque from government looks like. But inbetween the good jobs I was a bus boy, waiter, weekend server/butler at weddings, handy man, done temp jobs, even drove across country and slept in cheap hotels few nights a week to pick up some short term contracts in "dry seasons". Openings available to anyone.

It is very much "black and white" as you put it. It angers me when people say there are no jobs available. There are always jobs available. I walked 500 yards during my lunchbreak and saw two job adverts. One for driver in flower shop. One for a morning shift cook in a greasy spoon. Both are nowhere near in my salary expectations and not in a line of work I prefer, but if I lost my job tomorrow, heck - worse case scenario, it will pay my mortgage. And I can drive a flower van and I would flip burgers at dawn, if needed. Or stand at the till in a shop. Or fill shelves at Tesco. Anyone can. These ARE openings available to anyone. If Romanian straight from the boat can do it, so can anyone, at any age. Especially young people. But because there is taxpayer sponsored alternative (watch Jeremy Kyle and play PS3), most of folk think it's beneath them.
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Good luck with that - tho it sounds like your a person like my brother who pretty much walks into a job no hassle and probably fairly outgoing/good with people. Its not so easy for others.

Around here theres no shortage of jobs being advertised as such but there are as someone above mentioned a LOT of people applying for those jobs. I pretty much guarantee if you went and applied for either of those jobs you mention they'd probably say its already been filled.

i.e. right now Tesco here aren't hiring, they are still shedding christmas temps as things slowdown. Most of the fast food places have dozens of people on zero hour contracts and so on. Having a quick look around earlier there does happen to be 6x warehouse positions 37hr/week @ 14grand but thats pretty unusual and 2 openings for assistant type positions at next but again they will be filled very quickly and have 100s of applications for those positions. Most of the rest of the jobs advertised are supervisor/management positions and will be filled by people with the specific experience and/or qualifications.

I'm involved in the hiring process for warehouse positions at work so I can tell you for a fact that the poster above isn't that wide of the mark when it comes to 100s of applications and the type of people who are most likely to get those jobs.

EDIT: Why I'm saying its not so black and white tho, some people just don't have good people skills, maybe don't have their own transport and/or aren't naturally get up and go type people and this completely changes their employment prospects, even with the best will in the world, in comparison to someone who is naturally more get up and go, charistmatic and have their own car (and this is just an example of the many different variables at play).
 
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v0n said:
I think first thing they should do is make it illegal to employ volunteer workforce who are on job seekers allowance. Poundland, corporations, public facilities or otherwise. So far it only gives people impression it's ok to ef around all day long in a museum, library or BBC while taxpayers pay for it. If there is a true need for someone to make coffees for senior staff in TV studios, art galleries etc, let them employ some youngster and pay them wage. That's also how this very story started as well.
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I regularly do a lot of volunteer work - it's harder (and more responsibility) than my employment in a vast multinational company turning over $120bn a year.
 
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v0n said:
I think first thing they should do is make it illegal to employ volunteer workforce who are on job seekers allowance. Poundland, corporations, public facilities or otherwise. So far it only gives people impression it's ok to ef around all day long in a museum, library or BBC while taxpayers pay for it. If there is a true need for someone to make coffees for senior staff in TV studios, art galleries etc, let them employ some youngster and pay them wage. That's also how this very story started as well.
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Lol wut ?

Museums and galleries are nearly always ran by non profit organisations and charities who simply cannot afford to employ staff . People volunteer there to gain working experience.

People are sent to Tesco and poundland to "gain experience" but make profit for already rich organisations and take jobs away from the current part time staff and any potential and already experienced staff

Libraries , museums , parks and other underfunded public services/amenities are exactly where job seekers should be going to gain experience .
 
We will do it like this.

1) All those on benefits that are able to work, will work directly for the government, or receive no benefits at all.

2) No company or private individual will make any profit whatsoever from this scheme.
 
v0n said:
there are always jobs available. I walked 500 yards during my lunchbreak and saw two job adverts. One for driver in flower shop. One for a morning shift cook in a greasy spoon. Both are nowhere near in my salary expectations and not in a line of work I prefer, but if I lost my job tomorrow, heck - worse case scenario, it will pay my mortgage. And I can drive a flower van and I would flip burgers at dawn, if needed. Or stand at the till in a shop. .
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you think your the only person who would do any work you could find to pay the bills ? Well despite what the papers say you are not.

As an example the basic warehouse job I got had over 500 applicants in 3 weeks . Not even a permanent position . You didnt even need gcse's but most have got degrees , trades , years of experience , ex police , ex forces . Tough competition for anyone really considering its a job the papers think people refuse to do
 
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