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February 17th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda - Supermarket blame ‘IT error’ for the blunder
- Campaigners accuse supermarket of cashing in on people’s misery
- Long-term sick and disabled ‘could be forced to work for nothing’ under Government plans
By
Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 11:42 AM on 17th February 2012
Tesco was accused of exploiting the jobless yesterday after advertising for unpaid nightshift workers.
A vacancy appeared online for the ‘permanent’ role stating that the applicant would receive only Jobseekers’ Allowance plus expenses.
The role is one of hundreds of unpaid positions adopted by the supermarket as part of the Government’s controversial ‘workfare scheme’.
No pay: The job is advertised in East Anglia for jobseeker’s allowance plus expenses only
Last night the supermarket said the listing on the Jobcentre Plus website, which prompted a backlash from Twitter and Facebook users, was posted in error.
The workfare programme is designed to tackle the long-term unemployed by committing them to accept the offer of a job or work experience and providing financial incentives to employers. If jobseekers refuse to take part, they could lose benefit payments.
But activists have accused Tesco of ‘cashing in on misery’ as the UK’s unemployment rate soars. Sam James, of campaign group Right to Work, said: ‘This is another example of working-class people being forced to pay for a crisis created by the greed of the rich.’
The position advertised by Tesco was for a worker at a store in East Anglia.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that up to 300,000 long-term sick and disabled could be forced into unpaid work under plans
drawn up by the Department for Work and Pensions.
But the proposals have been met with
criticism from charities and mental health experts who suggest forcing people to do
even a limited amount of work could be detrimental to their health, the Guardian reports.
‘Benefits plus expenses’: Tesco sparked fury by advertising for unpaid nightshift workers
Several high street names, including Waterstones and Sainsbury’s, have already pulled out of the workfare scheme after trade unions branded the use of unpaid workers ‘unfair’.
The GMB said it was ‘essential to
maintain the distinction between employment and unemployment’, adding:
‘Employment means getting paid for doing work that the employer needs to
be done. There is absolutely no justification for using jobless people
to do these jobs and paying them nothing.’
Applicants for the unpaid jobs are paid
the standard rates of Jobseekers’ Allowance – £53.45 a week for
under-25s, £67.50 for older staff. If they refuse to complete the work
they risk losing their benefits.
Chris Grayling: Hopes the back to work scheme will help cut Britain’s £100bn benefits bill
Tesco insisted it was not using the unpaid workers to replace full-time staff.
It said: ‘The advert is a mistake caused by an IT error by Jobcentre Plus and is being rectified. It is an advert for work experience with a guaranteed job interview at the end of it as part of a Government-led work experience scheme.’
The company defended its involvement in the work experience scheme, and said that so far 300 young people had won permanent jobs after placements.
It added: ‘In general, Tesco staff receive a higher level of basic pay than any other supermarket, without exception.’
Usdaw, a union that represents more than 400,000 workers in high street stores, said it was in discussions with retailers about their involvement in such controversial schemes.
It said that work experience could be valuable, but should come with a reasonable wage.
Employment Minister Chris Grayling told the Commons last month that the scheme was working well.
The DWP proposal for the sick and disabled is set to be announced after a revised welfare reform bill makes it way through parliament, the Guardian reports.
Those who will be made to work could include men and women with terminal cancer who have more than six months to live, accident and stroke victims, and some mental health patients.
These benefit claimants have been classified in the work-related activity group (Wrag). Figures show there are just over 300,000 claimants in this group.
And in official notes from a meeting in December it was suggested that there would be no time limits on the work placements. There is currently an eight-week limit for non-disabled jobseekers on the government’s work experience scheme and a six-month limit on the pilot community action programme.
And if they did not take part in the programme, they may face financial penalty as an ‘incentive for people to comply with their responsibility’.
A document produced by the DWP on the proposal reads: ‘This is a supportive measure and claimants will only be asked to do this where it is suitable in there personal circumstances.’
But the Royal College of Psychiatrists has raised concerns that ‘the capacity of relevant members of staff in Jobcentre Plus and work programme providers to make appropriate decisions about what type of work-related activity is suitable for claimants with mental health problems’.
Vicki Nash, head of policy and campaigns at mental health charity Mind, told the Guardian: ‘We are very worried about people being pressured into taking unpaid positions before they are ready.’
She also raised concerns about the work assessment’s carried out by French firm Atos, saying: ‘Many people have been wrongly assessed and put in Wrag despite evidence to the contrary.’
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Tesco should be ashamed of themselves – they are one of the worst offenders when it comes to mis-representing their offers and deals and this is no different. They make millions in profits so should be PAYING for people to work there, not taking advantage of the Government schemes to get slave labour. Yet another reason to boycott this company – as they say EVERY LITTLE HELPS!!!!
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This particular scheme has been in operation since at least 2008 – when Labour were in …………
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The best way to show disapproval at this is to stop shopping at Tesco and any other store that employs people on such a scheme.
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Tesco’s advertise British jobs in EU countries, perhaps even EU members are now getting wise, to Tesco’s low pay, that Tesco’s now have to revert, to employing people for nothing, i bet the government will go for it , as then they can not only manipulate the jobless figures, but will get big donations from the likes of these companies
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Our store is doing this…. think its a great idea, why should these people sit on the backsides all day
doing nothing and expect the tax payer to foot the bill. It gives them experience and will look good on there cv when looking for a job, a couple of them have been given permanent positions.
One of then said to me I’m not getting payed for doing this job, And I told him oh yes you are the tax payer is paying you to do this job. He didn’t have must to say after that.
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It’s not only Tescos that has this practice my son was told to work for not in a charity shop to get his job seekers allowance if he didn’t he would have it stopped, there was also a graduate who was given the same option to work in poundland. People should work to get their benefits as they should not expect to get something for nothing but there is plenty of community projects that these people could be used to do rather than giving big conglomerates a free workforce when they should actually employ these people creating jobs and getting them off jobseekers
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Judging by her daily output of ignorant, tendentious and plain silly comments, always supportive of D Cameron L e vita’s Con Coalition, “Dudley Pig” Yvonne is the one bored out of her brain. But why inflict the same on us?
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This is why the geology graduate Cait Reilly is trying to sue the government over being forced to work in Poundland. Not because she is a lazy scrounger but because she was already working as a volunteer to gain work experience at a geology museum, which had far more relevance and prospects for employment for the carer she was trying to enter.
Those who manage to find their own jobs are being forced to sign papers by the Workfare companies like A4e to say it was THEY who found them the job, even when they had nothing to do with it. That is because they get paid upto £14000 for every long term unemployed person who moves into work. The taxpayer is being used to subsidise not only the banks but big business as well.
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All of these sort of make-work schemes hit the real economy, firstly because they allow companies to “employ” people for nothing or next to nothing, secondly because the companies are thereby getting a straight subsidy from the taxpayers who are funding the benefit and the scheme administration and thirdly because they deter companies from offering decent pay or even the inadequate so-called “minimum wage” because they can get unskilled labour for free. Let’s be clear about what this is, it is forced labour, on pain of losing benefit. The only “make work” schemes that work for the worker, the taxpayer and the State are the kind which involve real projects, for real wages. BBC 2 TV Newsnight has done a superb job in exposing the prevalence of this kind of exploitation, which is getting worse. It is NOT “an IT error” (is that the best excuse they could think of?!) but hidden and evil policy, part of the attempt to create a society of economic slavery in this country. Fight!
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It’s ok to say you don’t need experience to stack shelves etc, but if you have no job, or have left school with no qualifications and can’t read or write and do basic maths (heaven forbid like many can’t under New Labour’s Education system) then surely this will at least give you an idea what work entails, give you a good work ethic, and hopefully lead to full time work. I worked for free in an office when my children has left school and I wanted to change my job, I went straight from my part time morning job and worked for a few hours every afternoon in a job I wanted to do but wasn’t confident enough or sure if I could do it, I didn’t feel it was slave labour I felt it was to my benefit as I learned alot and eventually got the job I wanted. What’s wrong with giving a few hours of your time to gain experience and better yourself instead of moping around all day bored out of your brain?
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