Thursday 17 September 2015

Second Day of Action against B&M Bargains:

26th September, 2015

“B&M stores started using workfare Jan 2013. Receiving free labour and stopping overtime for employees with contracts. The people forced to do this free labour are not happy and neither are the other workers.”

“Older or long term staff were sacked and a new wave of 20 workfare placements taken on.”

“Just to let you know B&M Stores have taken on new staff under a workfare scheme. This was 1 month after staff hours were cut by 50%. This meant my hours were cut from 20 to 10.”

B & M Stores use government funded Workfare scheme and replace their contracted staff with them.

The DWP says that forcing people to do work, to get experience, is good for their prospects for future employment. 

In some cases this is correct, although, as a practitioner, I'd say that some match of talents and job requirements is required before any favourable outcome is likely to occur. 

It's certainly true that a person with a good track record, who can show that they can get up in the morning, turn up for work on time and do a decent day's work for a decent day's pay is more likely to be employable, than someone whose CV shows a long period of unemployment.

It's just the decent day's pay that is missing here.

If B & M is so public spirited as to give people the opportunity to gain experience and the chance to update their CV with recent work, why are they so unwilling to pay them for it.

And how much good is this to the overall economy when, in order to give these "opportunities" to people, they are sacking or reducing the hours of existing staff? 

What does it do for their life chances?

How does this affect the person whose hours are cut for 20 to 10? Does B & M care, or is it just happy to have an endless supply of free labour?

In my opinion it's not even a good store. Compared with Home Bargains the prices are high and the staff, perhaps not unsurprisingly, are far less helpful.

I won't just boycott the store on September 26, I'll never go back.

You may be interested in this Facebook page.

Here is a list of organisations which have participated in Workfare.

22 comments:

  1. First link doesn’t seem to be working.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Squidge. Thanks for letting me know. Should work now :)

      Delete
  2. I just checked, my nearest B & M is in Helen Street. I have been inadvertently boycotting it forever, being unaware of it's existence

    With your permision I shall continue to do so :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Munguin gives his full permission to carry on ignoring them :)

      Delete
  3. Replies
    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jn504jJCjo

      Delete
    2. LOL ... The motto of this government should be:

      Arbeiten kostenlos

      Work for Free!

      Good video there of the Obergruppenführer

      Delete
    3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohPvXaTBwWA

      Delete
  4. Note Aldi and Lidl are not on the list and given the German response to the refugee crisis, have they become the good guys?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They are a company, not a government, and as I write this they are on Breakfast TV saying that they are going to pay the living wage or over to every employee.

      Delete
    2. Woops. I meant Lidl, don't know about Aldi.

      Delete
    3. Having worked for Lidl in the past they are company that wants their pound of flesh (and then some) just like all big business. However they are also a company that pays their staff are good wage for that they do (or did when I worked there). Back in the 90's when I worked for them shop assistants were on £8 odds an hour.

      Delete
    4. Hi Chicmac: I noticed that too. It's where I do most of my shopping these days. Great shops.

      I saw that Conan.I also noted that it was only going to cost them £9 million a year, so I'm guessing that most of their employees must be on that kind of money already.

      There seems to me no doubt Squidy, that you have to work really hard when you are there. They keep staffing to a minimum and everyone seems busy, but then, they also keep prices some 30% lower than Tesco...

      Delete
    5. Looking at Aldi's advertisement for staff, they pay better than the minimum wage, they also want workers who will put in hard graft but as many do already for the pittance paid I would say they are better employers. I bought a German Kitchen for my last house, my supplier had been to Germany before becoming employed by them. The German Company insist that their employees have time off, they are not worked to death as in this country. Having been in Germany as a tourist we really could do with learning how to run a country from them. No Nuclear bombs to pay for therefore the country is clean and there are no potholes in the roads. I have been in tiny villages and in large town some which were bombed flat during the last war, when I came home I compared Dunfermline High Street and it looks like it has been bombed and never rebuilt and that goes for bits of Kirkcaldy. Perth et al.

      Delete
  5. Just as an idle comment, if a workfare person should 'accidentally' drop a case of spirits, what could their overeers (I won't say employers) do?

    Stop wages? Sack them?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Idle comment, is it? Away and start up your Hootsmon again! Welcome back, Conan, hope you are well!

      PS: Never heard of this company but I suspect they are just the tip of the iceberg. I know that our local authority have done away with a lot of full-time staff and depend on "relief workers who have to wait for a phone-call to see if they can work on any specific day.

      Delete
    2. Apparent;ly Conan, if they misbehave, they are sanctioned by the jobcentre. Fair old life, huh?

      Delete
    3. They are quite big, John. They just opened a new store in Dundee in an ex- B &Q store, complete with garden centre.

      We went just after the opening to see if there were any good opening bargains. There weren't.

      The second link in the story above is a list of organisations which have participated.

      Some surprising, some not so.

      Delete
    4. Conan, I thin it would be back to the Job Centre and sanctioned for a month which I rather suspect would be worse. Here we were thinking we had got shot of slavery way back in the early 19th Century, no wonder those refugees with any sense do not want to come to Britain, so many of us want out of it as it is.

      Delete
  6. Went in once, a load of tat. Won't be going back, slavery is illegal; isn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  7. B & M has replaced Homebase in Dumbarton.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I bought my last article there, a small table and chairs for the kitchen there just before I read Tris's first article appeared, haven't been back since and doubt now that I will. I seldom shop these days in Poundstretcher but dare I say it a lot of poor folk do, many are faced with either there or nowhere. When a country is prosperous then people have money to spend in quality, when you are down in your uppers then you do not have the choice.
    Slavery has been used in this country even when it was officially abolished outside of it. The Salt Workers of Prestonpans were slaves after they abolished it in the West Indies and the Royal Navy were stopping slave ships, if my memory serves me.

    ReplyDelete