In a shocking twist on the workfare row, one of the largest users of unpaid labour has issued a strings of slurs against customers who chose to boycott or picket the store.
Holland & Barrett were planning to recruit up to 1000 unpaid staff on the various Government workfare schemes. This drew storms of protest with hundreds of customers taking to twitter (@holland_barrett) threatening to boycott the store. Well attended and entirely peaceful pickets took place outside scores of their stores around the UK, many attended and even organised by former customers.
The so called health food store remained silent on their use of workfare until this morning when they announced they were pulling out of the scheme. So furious however are the company at having to pay their staff they decided to vent that fury on those who had attended the many pickets.
Initially Holland & Barrett claimed they were dropping workfare due to upcoming protests, claiming, in what was little more than a crude slur, that they were concerned staff and customers might be at risk. Later in the day they went on step further, apparently telling the Guardian that staff had faced assaults at previous protests and that stock had been damaged.
The company appear to concede that they weren’t aware of any protesters being charged, let alone prosecuted, for these criminal acts. There have been no reports of arrests at any of the Holland & Barrett demos so far.
Then along came lying bastard Chris Grayling, the Minister for Employment, in a suspiciously swift response to the company’s announcement. Grayling blustered this morning that those campaigning against workfare are a “disgrace” and vowed to “stand up firmly” against protesters.
If Holland & Barrett have evidence of criminal acts against their staff perhaps they can produce a crime number with details of when the alleged incidents took place. Alternatively the company can explain why they chose not to take any action on behalf of staff who have been assaulted. Or perhaps they could admit that they are lying, cheating, snake oil selling vermin with as little respect for their customers as they have for their workers.
It is clear that Holland & Barrett have no more than contempt for the hundreds of customers who boycotted and picketed store – and may well have popped in for a vegan pasty today had they not been so ruthlessly libelled. It is also apparent that they have no regrets about plans to replace a quarter of their staff with unpaid workers. They are likely to be back to their old exploitative ways the second they think no-one’s watching.
Holland & Barrett’s only regret is that they can’t get free labour anymore. This alone has been enough to bring on a temper tantrum from the company who have turned on their own ethical customers. I’d recommend they have some chamomile tea. Bought from a local independent witch doctor.
The National Week of Action Against Workfare is going ahead as planned and begins tomorrow (Saturday 7th July) – more details at: http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?p=1154
the void 
No surprise that that lying bastard Grayling is slinging around slurs again. I hope that someone maims that slimy, odious Tory cunt.
Lets just hope Holland & Barrett will be going into administration soon like their sister company Julian Graves already are. British Heart Foundation next
Charities are very vulnerable to bad publicity, a campaign targeting legacy donations would hit them very badly.
Ideas along the line of:
‘I didn’t fight a war against forced labour to have it introduced by a charity in this country’. Picture of sign over the gates at Auschwitz ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ Photoshop Grayling and Duncan Smith as guards, buildings in the background include British Heart Foundation charity shop + others as necessary. Might be a bit over the top, but you get the idea.
Legacy donations make up almost 100% of charity donations – it’s not what goes in the collecting tin. Without legacy donations they would go under 🙂
I work of Holland and Barrett and the person who I started on this work experiance program is now my fully qualifed supervisor and very good at what he does. Out of working for nothing for 4 weeks but still getting benefits, he now has a full time well paying job and a good level of responsibility for someone aged 20. Not to mention he is now alot happier and confident. I think before you say terrible things like, “i hope holland and barrett go into administration” you should spare a thought for te good managers and staff who do a great job every day and do the job to help people and feel a sense of pride at the end of the day. Also think about the children of these employees who rely on their salary to feed and cloth them. I have been made redundant once and would not wish it on my worst enemy. Think about how you would feel if you woke up tomorrrow morning and had lost one of the most important things in your life. I love my job and I think the work experiance program wasnt a bad idea, the people i had with me got trained well and hopefully learnt skills that will help them find employment. Please, as your reading this, think about how much of a terrible thing you are saying when you wish for hundreds of decent people to lose their jobs
Damn that pr dept at H&B is getting desparate.
Julian Graves in admin. but H&B profits jumped from £47.5m to £57m last year – making it’s attempt to replace a quarter of it’s staff with workfare slaves all the more despicable.
£57m for 620 stores that is just over £90k per store hardly sparkling performance is it? Especially given another branch of the organisation is in administration. As you say without the windfall from #workfare free labour what then? The overheads just just increased and there is a lot of capital tied up in those stores I don’t think the future is looking at all rosy for H&B and just think what is going to happen should the ruling state they have been violating the Human Rights of their victims.
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That’s fucking rich coming from a company owned by a major American defence contractor (Carlyle Group). Iron supplements for Brits, hot lead for Arab & Afghani kids.
Bin LAden’s prtfolio…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlyle_Group#Investment_focus
why does this country think forcing somebody to work for benefits is a good idea and how is this going to improve the economy – henry ford paid his workers decent wages because if people can’t afford your product- the company goes out of business. a study of the american Confederacy concluded slavery damaged the economy- who would pay someone , when you can get a slave to do it- led to the economy being less efficient, less industrialised, population less educated and only benefited the very rich (leaving aside moral issues) and led directly to them losing the war because they couldn’t produce the war materials needed. I suspect the reason workfare is popular with the middle classes is because the ‘scroungers’ are poor and it’s someone to look down at- be careful because one day you may lose your job and be forced to do workfare – look at New York
A man already set himself on fire. For his sake,for his pain,for his anguish,a stand needs to be made NOW.
An unwell man sits looking at the letter he got arbitrarily stripping him of housing benefit. Then he kills himself.
These are crimes,caused by criminals ; no crimes are committed by people who are outraged by the criminal Claggeron and their crimes against humanity.
Herr Iain Duncan Schmidt (ReichArbeitMinister) easily fits the bill as a War Criminal. He needs to be removed from ‘office’ and independently psychiatrically assessed by an Atos ‘doctor’ and promptly banged up in a rubber room…..for the rest of his un-natural nasty little spiteful twisted life.
At which point do you make a stand – during the round up, during the train journey, in the deciding pens, in the showers, or in the furnace room?
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Sorry, worked all morning on this but can’t find anywhere else to post it!!
I apologise in advance if this is in any way a repeat post – I have only just found the site this morning, but I would like to run my thoughts past anyone here who may be able to add or subtract from them with regard to legal obligations of WtoW Providers.
–
First off, I set out to answer for myself this question:
“Is a WtoW supplier an “employment agency” if it supplies labour to a third party company under contract?”
The reason I did so was because it struck me that if a WtoW Provider is, or can be legitimately called, an Employment Agency, a whole raft of legislation, including the National Minimum Wage, becomes applicable.
Further, where they act – or claim to act – as a direct agent of DWP, this changes the relationship our predicament has to ECHR.
This is because e main stumbling block of ECHR is (I believe) negated by them no longer being a nebulous “private company”, but by them legitimately being classable as a State authority, an agent of the State, and therefore directly responsible for any actions they may take that may contravene ECHR Article 8.
By this I mean the “sanction” (removal) of JSA or other benefits, and further loss or jeopardising of the subjects home by way of knock-on sanctioning of Housing Benefit, which would I believe clearly deprive someone in this situation of ” respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence ” as per ECHR Article 8; 1
So, to the law, as I can find it:
The Employment Agencies Act 1973 defines an Employment Agency follows:
“13: Interpretation.
(2)For the purposes of this Act “employment agency” means the business (whether or not carried on with a view to profit and whether or not carried on in conjunction with any other business) of providing services (whether by the provision of information or otherwise) for the purpose of finding workers employment with employers or of supplying employers with workers for employment by them.
What does a WtoW Provider do, if not find ” workers employment with employers” or ” employers with workers for employment”? Clearly, they are by definition Employment Agencies, and there must fall under the Employment Agencies Act 1973. I say “clearly”, because I have been unable to find a SINGLE statement in any law that gives dispensation to WtoW Providers not to be so called.
On this point, I would be hugely grateful if people could search this out for themselves and cover my checks, because if this is the case, and they are legally “employment agencies” and there are no exemptions from being called so in statute, then they must legally be “employment agencies”.
If they are legally employment agencies, then we are – I believe – in a whole different ball game, particularly with regard to a Jobseekers right to receive the national Minimum Wage on any placement and with regard to the Jobseeker being legally allowed to refuse to take up any position and NOT have that lead to a sanction.
Further, as Employment Agencies, do they also fall under the DTI’s ” Guidance on the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003″ [ http://www.bis.gov.uk/files/file24248.pdf ] – which contains some particularly relevant passages regarding the situation.
Grayling hates anti-workfare protesters because they represent a threat to the Government’s plans to create workfare sweatshops in the UK. See this:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/aaron-peters/supply-side-and-plan-straightest-path-to-human-tragedy
The cunt Grayling’s Masterplan out of the bag – to build big fucking sweatshops in the UK where the employed will be displaced to then worked to death! The smarmy cunt has probably already signed the contracts with the builders, Chinese and big business!
Lack of “domestic consumption” is a problem – because there isn’t going to be anyway. We will all be stood for 16 hours a day in great big, dingy, dusty factories producing tat for the Chinese!
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Thank you for the auspicious writeup. It actually used to be a leisure account it. Glance advanced to more introduced agreeable from you! However, how could we keep in touch?
Johnny .. Equal before the law? My arse..if you are rich tory bagman who feels slighted about being called names you can hire expebsive lawyer , sue people , get a pubilc body to grovel , threaten thousands of people and make a few quid, but if you are poor and need legal aid then..,
http://m.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/apr/16/legal-aid-bill-thousands-risk-campaigners?cat=politics&type=article