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Homebase let cat out of the bag about using workfare to reduce wage bills

139 replies

ttosca · 05/04/2013 10:11

Only someone very naive could believe private firms are participating in the government?s workfare scheme because they want to provide work experience for unemployed people out of the goodness of their own hearts and not as a way of reducing their wage bills by using forced labour at taxpayers? expense.

But ask any of them and they?ll swear the workfare people they?ve taken on are extra to their requirements and are not ? repeat not ? replacing jobs they would normally have had to pay someone a proper wage to do.

Well. It looks like Homebase have accidentally let the cat out of the bag.

Here?s a poster currently displayed on the wall in the manager?s office of Homebase Haringey ? which clearly shows the company is using workfare as a means to reduce their payroll costs:

tompride.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/homebase-workfare.jpg?w=529&h=715

This is particularly interesting, as Homebase have recently been lying to telling the public they?re not participating in workfare at all. See my previous post about that here:

Homebase are so embarrassed about using workfare ? they?re reduced to lying about it

Looks like Homebase just can?t stop themselves telling porky pies about workfare, doesn?t it?

tompride.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/oops-homebase-let-cat-out-of-the-bag-about-using-workfare-to-reduce-wage-bills/

OP posts:
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CogitoErgoSometimes · 05/04/2013 13:05

I don't think anyone's daft enough to believe that providing placements is a humanitarian gesture. Hmm But I don't think that poster 'lets the cat out of the bag' either. If they want a store manager to take on the long-term unemployed, they have to sell in the idea - in this instance as 'free hours'. When you're managing a team of regular employees you get into a good routine and everyone knows what they're doing. So to take on various temporary staff means disruption, extra effort, diverting regular staff and can be a PITA. I bet, even with that incentive, some stores would rather not bother.

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claig · 05/04/2013 14:27

I can see how it benefits the store, what I can't quite see is how it benefits the country.

The taxpayer is paying for this and it helps stores and their "teams" and their bosses and there are free hours with no payroll costs, but how does it help the taxpayer who paid for it?

Wouldn't it be better if people filled in the potholes in roads all over the country so that the taxpayer would benefit from the "teamwork" rather than the stores?

Also will the stores pass on their cost savings to the taxpayer by reducing their prices?

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ttosca · 05/04/2013 15:23

It's not supposed to benefit the country. It's supposed to benefit businesses.

OP posts:
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usualsuspect · 05/04/2013 15:30

This is the reason there were very few temp xmas jobs around, I know poundland used workfare instead of Xmas temps.

And if the pot holes want filling, pay someone to fill them.

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claig · 05/04/2013 15:35

The pot holes certainly want filling as the disintegration of our infrastructure harms business and damages taxpayers' vehicles.

I am suggesting that rather than people working in stores and providing free hours with no payroll costs for stores, why aren't people on workfare employed in activities that help the entire community and the taxpayers who foot the bill?

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CogitoErgoSometimes · 05/04/2013 15:47

That would be something like Roosevelt's New Deal when thousands of unemployed were shipped off to build dams and plant forests etc. Not sure how much of a dam someone could build during a four-week placement but, why not? Better than them sitting home watching daytime TV for another couple of years.....

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ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 05/04/2013 15:47

The employer doesn't just get free hours of labour! The government actually pays them for each person they take on...

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usualsuspect · 05/04/2013 15:49

Yes, all the paid pot hole fillers can get laid off,so the workfare people can do their jobs for free..

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claig · 05/04/2013 15:59

There are no paid pot hoie fillers to be seen around our streets and haven't been for a long time. The country's infrastructure is in decline and it needs to be fixed for the benefit of the country.

If people are on workfare, at least let them work to help the community and country.

There are not enough pot hole fillers to go around.
If stores need 'teams', let them pay for them and let teh taxpayer gain from any workfare that is carried out rather than stores.

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claig · 05/04/2013 16:00

'The government actually pays them for each person they take on.'

ItsAll, are there any links about this?

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MiniTheMinx · 05/04/2013 16:23

I'm with Claig on the Pot Holes. I read somewhere that the government is putting aside money to repair the roads. My fear is that it will go the way of all the money councils are already spending on roads, into the hands of main contractors, sub contractors and then eventually some self -employed unsupervised and untrained person who bodges the job.

I have now seen the same pot hole filled 5 times, what a waste of public funds.

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usualsuspect · 05/04/2013 16:31

I think you might get a few bodged jobs if untrained workfare placements fill the pot holes Grin

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claig · 05/04/2013 16:32

Let's train people up on workfare to gain useful skills and to help the community. Let's train people to become plumbers and builders and painters and decorators and roofers by renovating dilapidated buildings and factories and converting abandoned factories into accommodation that will all be bought and belong to the nation.

Let's pay building contractors a fee to train people up and supervise them as they are trained, but let all the profit go the nation who will own all of teh renovated properties. Then let's house the people on workfare and teh people on waiting lists in these new homes and not have to evict people from their council homes because tey cannot afford the extra bedroom supplement.

The skills that teh people on workfare will learn will be invaluable and help them to gain regular employment when teh economy eventually picks up again. I bet unemployed people would queue up to gain those skills rather than learning how to stack shelves.

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claig · 05/04/2013 16:39

'I think you might get a few bodged jobs if untrained workfare placements fill the pot holes'

It's all about training. It could be done.

Let's start building new motorways and by-passes with public money and let's train unemployed people how to do it, so that they will gain future employment in coucils and building contractors as road maintenance people.

Let's build lots of new toll roads and put people back to work and let teh tolls go back to teh nation so that we all benefit from people who travel our highways.

Let's motivate people, let's unite teh country and fire up the nation to overcome this depression and recession and let's build a better Britain for the entire nation and let's not let people languish without employment and skills or just learn how to stack shelves.

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claig · 05/04/2013 16:44

The cost of building roads would all be repaid by the tolls and the people on workfare would learn real skills.

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MiniTheMinx · 05/04/2013 16:48

No lets employ people directly and cut out the waste of tax payers money going to big contractors. train them, give them a living wage and supervise them.

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claig · 05/04/2013 16:49

Let's extend hospitals, let's build new schools, let's build a new airport. Let's not wait and talk about it. Let's do it now and let's train unemployed people how to do it.

Building suppliers would provide the goods and make money, engineering firms would be rolling and the whole economy would be active and there would be money in people's pockets, a trained workforce and a benefit to the taxpayer.

Let's let the stores pay for their own shelf-stacking teams, let's put people to productive work for the entire community.

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MiniTheMinx · 05/04/2013 16:50

I agree with the investment into a crumbling infrastructure however government funding should not be used to train people and give them welfare so that at some unspecified time in the future private businesses reap the rewards of tax payers money.

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claig · 05/04/2013 16:51

'No lets employ people directly and cut out the waste of tax payers money going to big contractors.'

But Duncan Smith, able as he is, and the civil servants haven't got the skills to run large-scale building projects. Let's let the experts run them and pay them to train and supervise people on real jobs not just on classes in colleges, and let's let all the things produced belong to the nation.

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wannabedomesticgoddess · 05/04/2013 16:52

Let's train people up on workfare to gain useful skills and to help the community. Let's train people to become plumbers and builders and painters and decorators and roofers by renovating dilapidated buildings and factories and converting abandoned factories into accommodation that will all be bought and belong to the nation.

Pretty sure that theres a whole army of people already qualified in the trades who are going on workfare because there are no jobs in these areas.

Perhaps we should just fuck workfare out the window and employ people. Hmm

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MiniTheMinx · 05/04/2013 16:56

No lets not give tax payers money to corporations. The last thing we need is more privatisation. Lets not allow a situation where people are trained at tax payers expense on welfare, only to be employed on minimum wage zero hrs contracts in the private sector and then have to top up their money with tax credits and HB.

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claig · 05/04/2013 16:58

'Perhaps we should just fuck workfare out the window and employ people.'

But let's be realistic, that is not going to happen. New Labour sowed teh seeds of workfare by taking on some of the American ideas when they were in power and teh great and the good have decided that there will be workfare. So if there is workfare, let's at least train people up with great skills so that they can gain real employment afterwards and let's have them doing things that help the nation rather than the stores.

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claig · 05/04/2013 17:02

'No lets not give tax payers money to corporations.'

You are self-employed. If teh government hired you to train someone, they would have to pay you.

The government, able as this Coalition one is, haven't got the skills to build Olympic stadiums. Trhey had to get experts to do it.

There is nothing wrong with paying for teh services of private business to perform useful roles of training and supervising people. The product of teh labour and teh revenue from teh tolls would all belong to the government and the nation.

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MiniTheMinx · 05/04/2013 17:07

They tried to get "experts" to provide the security too and look what happened with that.

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claig · 05/04/2013 17:11

Yes, but I think our building giants, the type of companies who built the Channel Tunnel, really are experts. If they can't train people up and build great things, then we really are stuffed.

Let's demand excellence, let's expect the best, let's build the best and train people with the best, for the best by the best.

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