Before we vote tonight, it is important we know that we will be voting to support the workfare schemes being introduced by the Government. The Bill will enable the sanctions to be continued and retrospectively made legal, because people refused to go on those schemes—I think justifiably so with regard to many of them. Let us take some examples from the Boycott Workfare website. Tesco is a classic, and one example refers to
“a fifty-six year old man who worked at Tesco for 40 hrs a week for 6 weeks for no pay.”
He was
“given the worst job, constantly filling freezers in the hope he would be taken on. After the 6 weeks were up the manager asked him if he would like to stay on for some extra weeks,”
and the man said,
“‘with pay?’”
The manager said no,
“why would he pay him when he can pick the phone up and get more unemployed people who have to work for nothing”?
That was at Tesco, and the list goes on. Poundland is a classic example of an organisation exploiting unemployed people, time and time again recruiting shelf stackers
while laying off other workers. Primark is another example. One young woman who went to Primark said:
“The Jobcentre paid travel money but no lunch. I worked three days a week, 10 am to 4.30 pm or 5 pm with one half-hour break.”
Primark
“don’t pay any money. It was nearly six months, from January to June. When I finished the placement I took my CV and I asked the managers if they had any vacancies. They said, ‘Not yet—we’ll call you when we do.’ I haven’t had a call.”