Today Tesco stated they would offer all WorkFare starters the option to be paid in line with national standards. Great news that has been tainted by news that they will continue with WorkFare rather than pulling out.

So perhaps the Boycott mentioned below can be suspended.

Will TescoFare be any better than the government’s unpaid version?

It seems odd for Tesco to offer a choice but without more detail it's impossible to see what they are doing on the ground. Its now a waiting game.

 

 

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Tesco tried quite successfully to quell the storm that started on Wednesday evening (15th Feb) over a Job Centre Plus Ad for night workers.

The Ad stated that the night work post was permanent and the pay was JSA + travel expenses.

The outrage flowed on twitter and then moved to Facebook.

Tesco issued a press release and stated that the ad was a Government agency error and would be removed; they further stated that the job was not permanent and they would never do such a thing.

However, the only error in the ad was the word “permanent”

Those raging on social media knew better, but so far mainstream media have either missed the point or chose to ignore it.

Tesco went on to state that 1,400 people have worked (without pay) and (Only) 300 got a job.

A little maths… 1400 x say 20 days x 7 hrs = 196,000 hours of free labour for Tesco so far.

Fresh ads on the Job Centre web site have started to appear since Wednesday, so presumably the same error is occurring!? Tesco and others continue to get fee labour for 4-8 weeks without paying them a penny beyond travel expenses. The just get tax payer funded JSA of around £55 a week.

Chris Grayling MP stated “The idea that providing work experience for unemployed young people is some kind of forced labour is utterly and completely absurd.”

Not sure shelf stacking and loading lorries could be called work experience beyond a day or two, but perhaps he was thinking of inexperienced graduates on Internships. Which is a very different thing and open to similar abuse.

Work experience is very valuable. Exploitation with no pay is not. Anything more than a few days of work experience should be rewarded with at least minimum wage. The reward of getting into work is not just money but without the financial reward included the prospect of shelf stacking will never inspire the long term unemployed

More below…

 

 

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Why did this idea/suggestion arise?

Well firstly because it's the biggest corporate supplier of essential survival goods - food! Yet pays most staff just above national minimum wage yet the boss got a staggering £6.9 million in one year! Other at the top also get millions each year. It’s simply gross AND unfair.

Secondly because of a long standing niggle at the back of my mind. There is a huge out of town Tesco 11 miles away that was expanded about a year ago. It's many miles from any sizable town or city. When I first saw it ten years ago I was horrified that something like this even existed. Perhaps because I had spent too much time living in central London. There are big supermarkets I know and good job too; there are millions of people packed into a big city. But for a rural community to get blighted buy a monolithic monster with an exclusive car park the size of a small town seems like madness.

Also, with pay ratios in mind and then hearing about apparent legal but very dodgy sounding share sales it just tipped me into being angry enough to at least try to do something beyond moaning.

So the suggestion is for as many people as possible who do shop with Tesco (all stores inc fuel) try very hard to avoid it until Tesco stop the practice of free labour.

A few ideas that might help those that have little choice

Try to use what’s in the freezer and cupboards, see what you can find in your local independent shops, find a local market and check which day(s) it's running. If this is not an option then try and use another supermarket, like the CoOp or maybe Waitrose.

If you really have no choice because you either can't travel, then buy the absolute minimum during the Boycott of Tesco.

Tesco own so many stores and have so many surrounding land holdings that it's probably not an option for some to find alternatives

Also an employee who has a Tesco pension got nervous, it would be affected this as there are now protections in place!

Perhaps long term there will be a new way but this is not intended to shut Tesco down it’s just to remind them who they serve and that whilst we may be preoccupied with our own lives, we are not stupid.

A definition of slave labour in this context is; Tesco has people working for them and does not pay them. The government (tax payers) pay them JSA of around £55 week.

The chains of slavery are that the employer gets them working for nothing, it’s only costs is overseers to monitor and “train” them but that’s it. To those that think it’s OK to treat people like this. Think it through… Try working 30+ hour night shifts doing something really monotonous, week after week for just £55 week in the hope of getting a proper job after 6-8 weeks on £55 a week paid by the tax payer, not the employer.

This is similar to the criminal practice of interns who are required to have extensive experience.

This whole system has been spawned from historic slave practices in the USA and the various attempts to circumvent it. They continue today as workfare, Experienced Internships, voluntary placements (in profit based co’s)

How can Tesco or any other big company justify using free labour and pay it's top executives so many millions each year.

A solution to the Slave staffing issue?

TESCO stop using FREE staff and pay them in agreement with DWP etc, so that they benefit up to minimum wage including their JSA. So £55 week JSA plus the portion (from Tesco) of pay to make up minimum wage during work experience. It's been done before!! Stop slavery!!!

This way Tesco still gets cheap labour BUT it offers hope to long term unemployed with pay which will also encourage rather than penalise and threaten.
 

 

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It's early days, but Margret Thatcher is credited with much good by her supporters and causing much suffering by her detractors. When she first came to power she started selling off assets like no tomorrow. She took on the over powerful unions, opened up banking and share dealing, putting the nations economic trust and emphasis into the city.

One might say, with some justification, that some of the changes made during the early part of her rule were much needed. Things had got out of hand, industrial unrest, power cuts, the 3 day week; all had been unwell for 10 or 12 years under both parties. The country needed reorganising. The Labour Party was struggling to find it’s way, News International and other covers added to the ridicule and unelectable quality of Labour. She had a virtual free reign. (Falklands aside)

Then they (or she) decided to let most of the north of England disintegrate into long term unemployment. Millions of people and thousands of communities were simply abandoned and closed down as uneconomic. Heavy industry, mining, even car making were for the most part jettisoned as “we” could not compete in the global market. We were no longer going to be a hive of industry. Instead we would become the financial and service centre to the world. So investing the way Germany and others had was not considered viable.

Perhaps this choice was the beginning of the ever growing wealth gap, but more importantly this was also the end of community and social cohesion, she promoted individualism at the expense of community. Even taxing people individually in their homes (poll tax) rather than as a family. Avoiding even trying to bring individual responsibility and community together because that might look like socialism, or is that being too generous. Perhaps as she once hinted, “there is no such thing as society”. So she simply believes in dog eat dog with the minimum, if any rules. Much it seems was adopted from the far right views we often associate the warmongering American far right. A brutal and self centred approach based in fear, with an unhealthy desire to dominate and crush.

After shutting down whole swathes in the north, call centres started springing up, only to close down again because of competition elsewhere in the world. (Ever tried calling BT!) It’s no coincidence that the south east has prospered, the economic balance shifted south. Pay disparity grew rapidly and has continued. There are pockets in the north, there has been some recovery but it is limited. The prosperity was indirectly paid for by the financial starvation in the north coupled with selling off assets.

We no longer make much; we will probably loose the bulk of our banking sector in the next five years. There is almost nothing left to sell. We have not invested in high education, but crucially we no longer need an uneducated workforce to work in heavy industry or mining. So what to do with the growing wrongly educated young… Well we keep posturing for war with countries in the Middle East. Europe seems to be economically falling apart. No, that’s too scary and we can’t make the stuff of war any more. Oh, wait, yes we do, that’s one industry that’s still bringing in the bacon. But not the heavy stuff, Ugh.

Perhaps Margret Thatcher is now to be known as the Rusty Witch as she is long gone from power. The impact of her choices and beliefs is deeply rumbling across society and indeed the unadulterated capitalist globalisation seems to rumble on virtually unabated.

Perhaps the need for individualism will fade in time, automaton consumers will prevail. Small enclaves of people with soft hearts, organic minds and a need for social cohesion and community will be all that remains in tiny corners hidden from the monolith of self centred capitalist greed.

We need a combination of socialism and capitalism, anyone know how?

 

 

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This feels like a bit of a rant but here goes…

Hearing of numerous unexplained explosions in Iran over the last 6 months or so got me thinking. Is it OK for whoever to be doing this? We hear lots of nothing about who might be responsible and not much else.

Although, we do get fed lots of opinion about stopping Iran obtaining nuclear weapons because they might use them. UN sanctions, IAEA inspections, uranium enrichment, bla bla bla.

At what point does it become OK to attack another country pre-emptily? Iraq was attacked and invaded on the false premise (or excuse) that it had WMD. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed and maimed and Iraq’s infrastructure was set back at least 20 years. What did the invasion achieve? Certainly not the claimed freedom, democracy, or safety for the people. But it did set the countries industrial/military capacity back many decades and it acted as a warning to others; that despite huge public objections western might could still be wielded and used.

Long before this of course Iran and Iraq went to war, indeed Sadam Hussein was installed by western powers. The Shah of Iran was, er, a friend of the US. So the west has been “involved” since before the 1st world war (and long before that, but that’s another matter). Since the late 1970’s Iran has been an independent nation and despite being autocratic, and having a very objectionable human rights record, it has grown into a technically capable country in much the same way as other nuclear countries like India and Pakistan have. Just look at how Pakistan is now ripping itself apart, yet little is said about it’s nuclear capacity other than, “we hope the military will protect it”.

What rights exist to attack any country, either covertly or overtly? Is the potential of nuclear attack enough of a reason? If so, then on that basis Iran or any other country could attack another just out of fear. So clearly that is a very dangerous move by whoever.

Imagine for a moment, England starts thinking that Scotland might become powerful in it’s own right and wants to take Carlisle back into Scotland, so the English just start removing military facilities north of the border, I think not…but then again!

The capacity of countries to have nuclear weapons is growing and is unstoppable. Therefore, that in itself is not enough of a reason to start killing them. It seems that Israel might be part of the key here.

Unless Israel can resolve its difficulties with it’s neighbours, then the region will remain dangerously unstable. If, as Israel claims to fear, it was wiped off the map by a massive nuclear attack from Iran (or others), then what would then happen? Would Israel or the rest of the world obliterate the aggressor? Thus the mutually assured destruction scenario that existed during the Cold war would play out in the Middle East. Would Iran or even North Korea really go down as countries that used nuclear weapons without very substantial and “defensive” reason? Knowing that they would die too.

Whoever is behind the recent attacks within Iran is only delaying the inevitable and more worryingly is building, rather than diminishing, fear and hatred.

Iran is a very old country, it has an educated population, which also makes it’s treatment of decent even more objectionable. But it is an independent nation that had a revolution not so very long ago, threw out what it saw as western puppets and is now going its own way, perhaps it should be allowed to!

Perhaps the problem is to a large extent the State created by us after the 2nd world war, with all the border/boundary moving and muscle flexing that has gone on ever since. The lack of a state for the Palestinians, the apparent blind “we are right and better than you” stance from the Israeli state. This can only add to the anger and hatred towards Israel by a growing number of peoples around the world which in turn stirs up even more fear and hatred and so the cycle goes on. Sadly it seems to be growing ever more dangerous with Israel now openly saying it is acting from fear of annihilation and therefore is “allowed to be unreasonable”. Madness!!

Finally and perhaps most importantly here. If Iran discovers that country x is responsible for murdering its scientists and blowing up its facilities etc, does it have the right to retaliate? Like the US did when it was attacked (remember the missiles launched into Libya many years ago). Then what??

Wish someone could provide a one page list of solutions to this growing mess!

There, incoherent rant over… for now.
 

 

Minor edits 6.30pm same day!

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Many have been following the clashes between people in Cairo and the Military since last week. Yesterday saw footage of the military shooting it’s own people, previously footage shown of military throwing rocks from the 6th floor roof at occupiers/protesters. More and more footage of brutality is piling up on YouTube. Tweets galore with horrific images etc etc. Today the BBC web site seems to be ignoring 90% of what’s going on. So I captured the pages and this is what can be seen – No coverage at all except small minor link on the Middle East Page (Link to images below)

Why is this getting virtually no coverage? I don’t recall seeing people being randomly shot in Tahrir Square a few months ago yet we got 24 hour live feeds from BBC news, with constant updates. Recent events may not be as widespread in Egypt but they are very significant, are they not?

 
Screen captures for 20th December 2011
 

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Bradley Manning probably had knowledge of things he knew were very wrong. Many were illegal acts carried out against innocent people. He could see all this being hidden amongst the vast sea of other data.

So perhaps he decided to share the truth of war. Sadly he probably shared rather more than just the illegal war crimes. A key point may be that it was the only way to get the stuff out, maybe it was a single disk which held considerably more stuff than just the crimes of war. As we don't yet know how the information was shared with the world and it seems Wikileaks.

If he has not already been mentally crushed by his imprisonment and interrogation by military and Intelligence services, then he probably will be quite soon.

 

 

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Christopher Hitchens death is a sad loss; he shared his real clarity and strong intellectual observation of the political and religious dogma that rules most of our lives to those willing to listen. His common sense and direct approach was and will continue to be an inspiration.
 
Short bio - BBC on Christopher Hitchens
 

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If we threw our lot in with the EU mainstream, the ego driven power mongers (80% of our politicians) would have to give up THEIR power, not ours, the people.

What have the 90% or is that 99% to loose from joining a strong large scale block. Remember it is our politicians that want to strip away workers rights, Human rights, freedom of information rights, in fact many mainland European rights we have gained from the EU. Most western EU people have a higher standard of living than the 90% in the UK

I am all for diversity and freedom, but not when it only enriches 1% or is that 10% of the population.

So the current government is hell bent on power and protecting vested interests. Are they simply clinging to power, ego and their wealth? Is the politicians basic human nature (for personal power and wealth) overriding the so called national interest?
 

 

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So who was it that wanted to be able to drink alcohol whenever they wanted, the answer is probably most of us. We had spent time in mainland Europe and enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere… Yet what we have is something very different. My local wine bar used to stop serving at 11.15 and close at midnight. Occasionally we wanted to stay a while longer, sometimes the owner also wanted to do the same so a Lock In would happen to get around crazy restriction at the time. It made sense to change the law, relax the restriction on sensible drinking.

Little did we realise that big business was behind the change, greed for ever more consumption. The shift towards alco-pops, huge bars encouraging fast consumption, designed like waiting rooms with very little seating so that people kept that drink in their hand, thereby drinking it more quickly.

Remember in mainland Europe most people sit down at a table or bar to drink, very few are standing, bars are generally smaller and consumption is considerably more measured.

So what is the link to PayDay loans. Well both legal frameworks changed at about the same time and both are resulting in excess, which in itself is creating considerably more pain than there was before.

The rational we were fed around relaxing alcohol licensing was in part “Oh it will spread closing times and reduce the binge drinking just before closing time. Of course the complete opposite has happened.

The argument for allowing borderline criminal interest rates on short tem loans is much the same. The excuse, er sorry, the reason, that was given “It will take these away from criminal loan sharks”!

Our politicians have a lot to answer for. Perhaps we might wake up and ask them very publicly why they have not reversed these failed society damaging laws? We are told we “should” be proud of our democracy. What democracy? More like free market dog eat dog, but only if you have loads of money, then it’s legal. Otherwise it’s theft!

Deregulation in order to make more profits, then what? Financial growth is not the answer. Social inclusion and responsibility are!

 

 

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It seems that all the grumblings about pay cuts, pension cuts and the extraordinary disparity between average pay and the top 10-15% could quite easily be remedied.

The Government (that's the people that claim to represent the people) could introduce a law that created real clarity by setting an absolute limit on the difference between the highest and lowest paid in any company or organisation.

A suggestion is 10/1, but the coalition might want to set this at 15/1 or even 20/1, Labour might be in favour (publicly) of say 8/1. The figures could be worked so that the very rich stay very rich. This would simplify and clarify pay, companies that are doing well would pay well right across the board….

This would stop the growingly abusive treatment of those in the low to middle income range without turning into a communist nightmare where people can’t be bothered to work because they get paid anyway!!

So at say 12 to 1

The bankers could still pay themselves say £6,000,000 a year, but the lowest paid employee in that company would have to be paid about £500,000 a year!

Even at 50/1 the lowest paid bank employee would have to be paid a massive £120,000 a year! Within many companies the pay ratio is now well in excess of 80/1.

So at say 12/1 A company executive might earn £250,000 a year so the lowest paid employee would then get £20,800 a year.

Perhaps then we really would all be in it together, with or without the double dip recession/depression/collapse.
 

 

Image added 20/12/2011

Vote on pay ratios

What pay ratio do you think would be the most fair Please Select 8-1 10-1 12-1 14-1 18-1 20-1 25-1 30-1 40-1 50-1 60-1 80-1 100-1 150-1 200-1 300-1 None Your current yearly pay   In whole pounds only

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Perhaps the fall of communism has placed the west well on its way to a return into the extremes of poverty and obscene wealth. At least communism provided a moral and economic reason within the west to filter down wealth and better living standards to the masses, simply because "the west" had to prove capitalism was "better". Now that communism has almost disappeared, unabated capitalism can trample the masses.

Oligarchs were viewed as obscene 10/15 years ago, now they are a global presence from Russia to China and all points west.

As wealth spreads east the current financial crises is in part panic and in part perhaps it is a ploy to reduce western living standards for the masses so that the super rich can maintain their world status and avoid letting go of top table status.

 
more soon...
 

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Whilst there may be an apparent problem paying pensions coming up on the horizon, I wonder if the government stance that lies behind the drive to stop people retiring simply sets up a whole heap of problems for the young and makes the older generation more of a hindrance than a help.

What will happen to the young in the coming years, will they rebel to demand work, or will they be funnelled into the military or some other quasi social conscription in the next 5-10 years? Thereby encouraging the journey towards a war in Europe after nearly 60 years of relative peace..

In recent years there has been a lot of talk about the right to die, coupled with exposure around the appalling lack of care within elderly services. It’s starting to smell like a real opportunity to simply turn people off once they reach a certain age or level dependency. Logan’s Run style without the false promise of "Sanctuary". I can imagine a Cameron or even a Blair explaining that “as a country we simply cannot afford” all these old people anymore!

As we are living longer, would it not be better to have a longer retirement by choice and give the young an opportunity to experience the world of work with their potentially greater level of energy, drive and ambition. It might also give the young a chance to pay for there education too. The state requires us to work from the age of 5 to 16 in formal education and then spend the next 4-5 in higher education and then to work until we are 67. So basically we might have the first 5 years in freedom and the last 5-10 years to live in freedom, the other 50-60 years we are required to work and pay an overall 60% in taxation, banking fees, insurances etc. Not a fair or free society at all! Oh and the top 10% probably only pay 5-10% in these “living costs”.
 

 

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