The Reality of Working for a Supermarket in 2009/Return to Victorian Britain

abaxas

wageslave wrote: »

Contact ACAS and ask their advice.

I am grateful that the lack of empathy shown by some on this thread does not represent the views of the majority of my fellow countrymen.

Great, on one fell swoop, you have branded most of the UK a bunch of workshy layabouts.

Sad but true.

tesuhoha

abaxas wrote: »

Great, on one fell swoop, you have branded most of the UK a bunch of workshy layabouts.

Sad but true.

Workshy doesnt come into it. We are talking about slavedrivers.

geoffky

abaxas wrote: »

Great, on one fell swoop, you have branded most of the UK a bunch of workshy layabouts.

Sad but true.

Are you on drugs? seriously?

wageslave

abaxas wrote: »

Great, on one fell swoop, you have branded most of the UK a bunch of workshy layabouts.

Sad but true.

Your logic escapes me.

abaxas

My point is that the reason the system exists is becasue people have (and will) not work to the specifications dictated in contract. Unless of course you beleive that there is something more sinister and the 'slavedrivers' are actually doing this for fun?

People who cant do the job, do not deserve the wage.

Thrugelmir

tesuhoha wrote: »

I am going to be very vague about the identity of the person who gave me this information as I do not want to endanger his job any more than it already is but I am outraged enough on his behalf to post this.

However he is an economic migrant and came to this country to work. He doesnt want much, just enough to pay his way, and to send a little money home to his mother.

He is on his second job. When he lost the first through no fault of his own he did not claim any benefit but lived on the savings he had. He now has another job for lets say the biggest supermarket. Agency work. He works in the supermarket depot as a picker. Every day he faces a long and problematic journey to work, cant tell you anymore as it would give away the location. He works for £6 an hour approximately. He has to turn up every day but some days after a couple of hours he is told there is no work and has to go home. He never gets an 8 hour day.

They work on a points system. They are given a point if they are more than a couple of minutes late back from lunch and a point if they take more than 4 minutes going to the toilet. If they get 3 points then they are sacked. This person recently met someone who got the sack from this place because they were only working at 120% when 200% is expected. There are no English people working at this place because they would not be able to keep up. My friend has not yet reached 100% although he is fit and athletic so he is expecting to lose his job sometime soon. So they expect 200% for just over the minimum wage. Apparently this warehouse has sacked over 1,000 people this year.

At the interview he was told he would receive training and eventually a supermarket contract. There is no training and no contract. They do not get overtime pay even if they start work early. There is no sick pay, no holiday pay, and well, certainly no pension. I think Bob Cratchett was treated better than this.

It makes me feel so angry when I think how the unions struggled to get decent working conditions for blue collar workers and now they are going back to Victorian times and being treated like !!!!!! because there is an excess of labour. The big companies are profiteering from and exploiting people because they can. They dont have to employ people with a contract anymore, they use agencies and this means they can do what they like. If someone refuses to work under these conditions then they will sack them and someone else who will work will be along in the blink of an eye. This is not the only company doing it, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands. There is an excess of labour and much unemployment. People at the top of the ladder might be saying, 'recession, what recession' but for people starting out at the bottom this is the reality of life today, no proper jobs, no full time jobs, minimum wage. Huge amounts of money are still being made but it is going to the companies and not into the pockets of the workers. These people will never be able to afford to buy a house. The poor are indeed getting very much poorer and the rich are getting richer.

My friend recently said that he hates this country because if you are honest and hardworking you get nowhere, you are better off being lazy.

The contract of employment would be with the Agency. The Agency itself has a duty of care for the employee whilst they are working on site in terms of health and safety.

Agency workers do not receive sick pay. Agency workers accrue holiday pay which will based on hours worked.

The rate of pay would have been advised by the agency at the start of the assignment. Overtime pay is not guaranteed in many jobs. Most contracts of employment have a caveat written into them excluding overtime unless by prior agreement.

Why do people come to England to work? Due to the fact that in Eastern Europe wages are low. Bulgaria still has an average wage of around £3,500 per annum. Like most of western europe, England has become increasingly expensive.

I have empathy with your post. However whilst Unions set out for better pay and conditions they themselves became arrogant and too powerful. We now have EEC law protecting employees which is better in many ways.

Next time you shop in Primark or buy something imported from China. Think how you are continuning to support an even worse system than ours. Where people earn as little as $1 a day. The world isn't fair unfortunately. Peoples self interest and greed sees to that.

wageslave

abaxas wrote: »

My point is that the reason the system exists is becasue people have (and will) not work to the specifications dictated in contract. Unless of course you beleive that there is something more sinister and the 'slavedrivers' are actually doing this for fun?

People who cant do the job, do not deserve the wage.

Have you actually read the first post on this thread?

I am going to make the assumption that you are an employee rather than an employer. If your company introduced these practices in your workplace would you consider them reasonable?

abaxas

wageslave wrote: »

Have you actually read the first post on this thread?

I am going to make the assumption that you are an employee rather than an employer. If your company introduced these practices in your workplace would you consider them reasonable?

Self employed so I guess it doesn't apply.

But in the past I've worked for BT, a much worse enviroment :P

tesuhoha

I think you said you were self-employed so I am going to ask you a few questions.

If you think these conditions are okay, then do you employ people? If so, are you expecting them to work extremely hard for the minimum wage? if so you can hardly berate people for exploitation by wearing clothes, because you are exploiting your workers. Who gets the profits from your business? Do you work as hard as the Tesco warehouse workers? Are you paying yourself more than the minimum wage? Do you think you deserve it?

abaxas

tesuhoha wrote: »

I think you said you were self-employed so I am going to ask you a few questions.

If you think these conditions are okay, then do you employ people? If so, are you expecting them to work extremely hard for the minimum wage? if so you can hardly berate people for exploitation by wearing clothes, because you are exploiting your workers. Who gets the profits from your business? Do you work as hard as the Tesco warehouse workers? Are you paying yourself more than the minimum wage? Do you think you deserve it?

I was a Tesco warehouse worker. Maybe that is the bit you are missing?