UK workers wanted.....£2.50 per hour.

[Bulletguy]

Anyone watch Dispatches on Channel 4 last night?

 

Naively we all like to think that cheap High Street prices come courtesy of third world countries.

 

WRONG!!

 

Much of it comes from 'sweat shop' labour in the UK with employees being paid as little as £2.50 an hour working up to 70 hours a week.

 

Were they making goods to be sold on market stalls or in Poundstretcher shops? No.......they were making clothing destined for up market Hight Street chain stores such as BHS, New Look, Peacocks etc.

 

Trainer bottoms made to sell in Philip Greens shops (I can't bring myself to call him by his title) at £25 retail, were manufactured at just 85pence each. Some had labels sewn in marked as 'Made in Moldova' despite the fact they were actually manufactured in a sweat shop in Leicester.

 

If you missed the programme i'd recommend anyone to watch it. The part where Dispatches reporter Tazeen Ahmad confronts Philip Green is a stunner and shows the guy up for what he really is......a greedy fat arrogant pig. He certainly did not come off well at all. But then he doesn't give a stuff as he's made billions off the backs of sweat shop labour....and doesn't pay a penny in tax either!

 

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/

 

http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/news/TV-team-film-sweatshop-conditions-Leicester-factory/article-2849502-detail/article.html

 

Come to think of it, this kind of ties in with the 'work for nothing' thread topic with much bravado from the virtuous about a willingness to work for £1.70 ph. You can draw your own conclusions on that bit!

 

 

 

[Guest JudgeMental]

Dont it make you proud to be British! Well, as long as house prices keep going up we will be fine........They are arent they! :D

[Bulletguy]

JudgeMental - 2010-11-09 4:09 PM

 

Dont it make you proud to be British!

Shameful and disgraceful.

 

Even more distasteful when you realise the likes of Philip Green, who naturally pays no tax, have become extremely wealthy off the backs of people like this.

 

 

[Syd]

Why mock the man who has made millions for himself.

Everyone does it but how many of you would do the same as he has done given the chance.

 

When you sell anything, be that goods or services, what is your main concern, well if you are honest then you will say "PROFIT" so are you any different to Sir Philip Green.

No you are not only the scale of things differs.

 

How many people does Sir Philips businesses employ, how much does his businesses put back into the economy, does he make any charitable donations and so on and so on.

If someone comes and offers to make him goods at a low price then of course he is going to take it isn't he, he would be a fool to refuse.

 

The fact that he personally pays no tax on his earnings is his being shrewd.

 

Your discription of the man is certainly a bit one sided, do a bit of your own research on the man don't just swallow and repeat the sensationalistic and totally biased headlines of some envoius reporters

[hymerwoman]

Syd,

 

How can you condone this man when clearly he is making his millions from what amounts to slave labour.

 

How would you feel working for that rate of pay !

 

I like many others have to work for the minimum wage and am disgusted that you think it is ok to rip off workers,regardless of there origin.

 

It is greedy business bosses that have ruined this country.

[Brian Kirby]

hymerwoman - 2010-11-10 11:01 AM ....... I like many others have to work for the minimum wage and am disgusted that you think it is ok to rip off workers,regardless of there origin. ...........

As a matter of interest, why do you have to work for the minimum wage?  What stops you earning more?

[malc d]

I've not seen the programme, but surely the real villains of the piece are the factory bosses who are reported to be breaking the law ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:-(

[hymerwoman]

Hi Brian,

 

With respect Brian I am suprised that you have to ask this question because the answer is so obvious. Because my previous proffession has disappeared and that now the only type of work available is low paid manual work.

 

There are some people on this forum that still believe there are still plenty of well paid jobs out there, well i have news for them, they do not exist and if they do then show me where they are. Go down to your locall job centres and see for youselves.

 

We have to accept that times have changed and accept what work is available, unfortunatley this means low paid work.

 

There is a substantial difference between a good salary and low pay but i want to keep my camper on the road and the only way to do that is to accept whatever work there is available until times do change.

 

If we keep buying cheap goods from abroad the work situation will only get worse.

[BGD]

hymerwoman - 2010-11-10 11:01 AM

 

Syd,

 

How can you condone this man when clearly he is making his millions from what amounts to slave labour.

 

How would you feel working for that rate of pay !

 

I like many others have to work for the minimum wage and am disgusted that you think it is ok to rip off workers,regardless of there origin.

 

It is greedy business bosses that have ruined this country.

 

 

 

No.

 

It is "greedy business bosses" that made, and maintain the country; and generate the income for the economy that pays for everything else.

 

They are the people who've put up, risked, and continue to risk their own money, and worked damned hard to create the businesses that then offer employment opportunities to other people as employees.

 

If you think it's wrong, and you could to better, just do so: start your own company, make it successful, employ other people and pay all their wages, NI, tax, holiday pay, sick pay, maternity pay, pension contributions, s well as VAT, Corporation tax, business rates, accountancy and auditing fees, employers and public liability insurance, bank charges, loan interest and capital repayments, etc etc etc.

 

 

But 99.999% of people won't.

They never will.

They haven't got the drive, the determination, the imagination, the courage, the tenacity, the brains, the conviction.

 

Instead they'll live off the backs of those business risk takers, they'll accept the employment and the pay and all the perks that those people provide for them, whilst they sit and criticise the very people who provide them with those things.

 

 

 

 

[Brian Kirby]

hymerwoman - 2010-11-10 3:28 PM Hi Brian, With respect Brian I am suprised that you have to ask this question because the answer is so obvious. Because my previous proffession has disappeared and that now the only type of work available is low paid manual work. ............

Not quite sure how I can be expected to have guessed that.  You could have been incapacitated, or have to accept low paid work for other reasons, such as being tied down by small children, so limiting you to part time working. 

However, since you were trained into a profession before, is it not possible to re-train to a different area of work, possibly maximising on the skills you already have? 

Most low paid work is relatively unskilled, so with the skills you already have, and those you could possibly add, you could surely command a higher pay rate than the minimum?

Clearly, I have no idea what you did previously, what you do now, or where you live, but surely there must be demand for employees with the right kinds of skills within reach of your home?

[hymerwoman]

Hi,

 

For legal reasons i am unable to say who i worked for and the nature of there business.

 

I can tell you that i was a secretary for a business which has been transferred to India because the director said that he could make more profit and pay himself a better salary. Being his secrertay i can tell you that his salary then was £175000 per annum. Not a bad salary as i am sure anyone would agree, but because of his greed he has now made 25 people unemployed. His profits were also substantial.

 

I cannot agree with anything bgd says and find that it is always the retired business executive who has retired on a high pension who always sticks up for the higher profession and does not give a damn about anyone else.

[Brian Kirby]

BGD - 2010-11-10 4:01 PM

hymerwoman - 2010-11-10 11:01 AM Syd, How can you condone this man when clearly he is making his millions from what amounts to slave labour. How would you feel working for that rate of pay ! I like many others have to work for the minimum wage and am disgusted that you think it is ok to rip off workers,regardless of there origin. It is greedy business bosses that have ruined this country.

No. It is "greedy business bosses" that made, and maintain the country; and generate the income for the economy that pays for everything else. They are the people who've put up, risked, and continue to risk their own money, and worked damned hard to create the businesses that then offer employment opportunities to other people as employees. If you think it's wrong, and you could to better, just do so: start your own company, make it successful, employ other people and pay all their wages, NI, tax, holiday pay, sick pay, maternity pay, pension contributions, s well as VAT, Corporation tax, business rates, accountancy and auditing fees, employers and public liability insurance, bank charges, loan interest and capital repayments, etc etc etc. But 99.999% of people won't. They never will. They haven't got the drive, the determination, the imagination, the courage, the tenacity, the brains, the conviction. Instead they'll live off the backs of those business risk takers, they'll accept the employment and the pay and all the perks that those people provide for them, whilst they sit and criticise the very people who provide them with those things.

That is just a teensy bit of an overstatement, Bruce! 

I know you're exaggerating for effect, but from a population of, say 62 million, that would only give the UK a mere 620 entrepreneurs, so I think your percentage a little too high, and balance is being lost!  :-)

Not all entrepreneurs are saints, though I'm sure some must approach that status, and some do indulge in very questionable practises.

Those who take the real risks, IMO, are those who start companies, among whom Sir Philip Green is one of the exceptions, having grown his own company with great success.  More frequently, if the start up-survives and thrives, the originator finds s/he lacks the finance, the management skills, or even the will to build it beyond a certain size, and it is sold to new owners to develop and grow.  Not infrequently, the originator will then kick off with something new, because it is what most interests them.

Three phases are, I think, recognised?  Start up, expansion, and maturity, (or similar) each requiring different management skills and attitudes.  Those who run or manage the mature businesses seem to come much more from a professional, managerial, or accounting background, than from among the stock of innovative startup entrepreneurs.  They have the patience for the plc accounting rules, the political correctness of employment law, etc etc.  On the whole they don't take risks, because shareholders get nervous of risk-taking boards, preferring, generally, safe hands.  More than a few of these have been exposed as a bit mediocre when push came to shove, and have quietly gone, usually with a generous pay off.

All I am saying, is that among business owners, entrepreneurs, and senior executives, there are the good, the bad, and the ugly, and I think that has to be recognised.

It is an obvious truth that not all of us wants to, or could, start or run a company, and probably even truer that for many of us, even if we tried, we should fail.  That means, by definition, that many of us are predestined to be someone else's employee. 

That should not result in those who have tried and failed, or even those who lack the confidence or ability to try, being labelled as lacking in drive, determination, imagination, courage, tenacity, brains, or conviction, just that those attributes, in whatever quantity they are present, are placed at the service of others.

What someone can earn, in any field, is surely a measure of their worth.  It is as true of an employee as of an entrepreneur.  A bad employee is disciplined or sacked - and don't try to tell me it can't be done, it can.  A bad entrepreneur is also disciplined or sacked, it just comes in a different form, from a different quarter - more often his bank manager!  :-)

The answer to Julie's point, in an ideal world, is for all those who work for minimal pay to leave, so that pay rates are forced up, or the business is exposed as non-viable, and fails.  What we need to understand, before we bung bricks through each other's windows, IMO, is more about why there are so many people open to such gross exploitation in the first place.  I didn't see that programme, but in similar exposees I have previously seen, it was the case that many of the "employees" were illegal immigrants, who were knowingly and illegally employed by totally unscrupulous employers. 

I would assume that if Sir Philip is made aware of any of those firms supplying his companies, he will immediately cancel their contracts, as presumably will the others cited. 

Whether they could, or should, have known the background to their suppliers' chains of sub-contracts is open to question, but that they exist, doesn't say too much for the way their quality control.

[Brian Kirby]

hymerwoman - 2010-11-10 4:32 PM Hi, For legal reasons i am unable to say who i worked for and the nature of there business. I can tell you that i was a secretary for a business which has been transferred to India because the director said that he could make more profit and pay himself a better salary. Being his secrertay i can tell you that his salary then was £175000 per annum. Not a bad salary as i am sure anyone would agree, but because of his greed he has now made 25 people unemployed. His profits were also substantial. I cannot agree with anything bgd says and find that it is always the retired business executive who has retired on a high pension who always sticks up for the higher profession and does not give a damn about anyone else.

I wasn't expecting you to name and shame Julie, far too dangerous!  But surely, with secretarial skills, you can do better than the minimum?  As an example, we had a friend who became a proof reader for a publisher, which she was able to do from home.  She had turned to that from secretarial work when she had children, so could no longer commute to work.  The skills were very similar, and she found she earned more proof reading, when the lack of travel costs was taken into account, than she had as a secretary.

[Bulletguy]

hymerwoman - 2010-11-10 3:28 PM

 

There are some people on this forum that still believe there are still plenty of well paid jobs out there, well i have news for them, they do not exist and if they do then show me where they are.

 

Go down to your local job centres and see for yourselves.

 

Without looking it up on the internet they won't have a clue where their own local job centre is. They live in a bubble.

 

My sisters eldest son attended Oxford University, holds a First Class Honours degree in mathematics, and completed his Masters Degree at Wharton University in Pennsylvania....the cost of which incidentally he paid for himself as his parents certainly could not afford to fund that!

 

The Banking crisis effectively threw him out of work (no he was NOT a Banker I am glad to say), but even he is now unemployed and looking for work.

 

 

 

[Guest pelmetman]

Trouble is with you lot your educated :D Where as people like me who left school with nuffink just get on with life and do what we have always done earn a living (lol) (lol)

 

As my teacher said if I had brains I would be dangerous :D

[Guest peter]

Brian Kirby - 2010-11-10 4:01 PM

hymerwoman - 2010-11-10 3:28 PM Hi Brian, With respect Brian I am suprised that you have to ask this question because the answer is so obvious. Because my previous proffession has disappeared and that now the only type of work available is low paid manual work. ............

Not quite sure how I can be expected to have guessed that.  You could have been incapacitated, or have to accept low paid work for other reasons, such as being tied down by small children, so limiting you to part time working. 

However, since you were trained into a profession before, is it not possible to re-train to a different area of work, possibly maximising on the skills you already have? 

Most low paid work is relatively unskilled, so with the skills you already have, and those you could possibly add, you could surely command a higher pay rate than the minimum?

Clearly, I have no idea what you did previously, what you do now, or where you live, but surely there must be demand for employees with the right kinds of skills within reach of your home?

Get real Brian! I don't know.....sometimes it's like your'e on a diifferent planet to us mere mortals that have been made redundant.

[Guest Tracker]

The whole reason this country is no longer the exporting giant that it once was - not that we are doing quite as badly as everyone seems to think - may well be that 'we', as a nation, not only pay ourselves too much but 'we' don't work enough hours for it?

 

You can thank the unions for much of that as it may well be their own self detructive short sighted greed in blackmailing business into paying too much for labour that has back fired and led to those same businessmen packing up and moving their production overseas over recent years?

 

Add to that European employment protection laws which appear to be very expensive to maintain and enforce and it is no small wonder that manufacturing jobs are in short supply.

 

If I were in business and were unable to hire and fire who I though best suited to my business rather than the allegedly 'best qualified' applicant who might well not be the best person with the best attitude I too would think long and hard before expanding the business?

 

Why do you think that the government employ so many people? Because 'the government' does not itself pay them, nor itself pay for their pensions, nor have to make a profit, nor is it responsible to banks and/or shareholders - plus it has the huge political benefit of hiding the true levels of unemployment especially in ares of previously high unemployment?

 

Oh I do love a good rant!

[Guest pelmetman]

Getting back to BG original post :D I expect most of the employee's shown were I suspect illegal imigrants(not that I have seen the program :D ).

 

Because if they were legal citizens then they could get a lot better income through the benefit system, not that you need to be legal to milk it >:-(

[Syd]

hymerwoman - 2010-11-10 11:01 AM

 

Syd,

 

How can you condone this man when clearly he is making his millions from what amounts to slave labour.

 

How would you feel working for that rate of pay !

 

I like many others have to work for the minimum wage and am disgusted that you think it is ok to rip off workers,regardless of there origin.

 

It is greedy business bosses that have ruined this country.

 

 

 

 

Ok, this man is making millions, so what does that mean, it means he saw an oportunity and he seized it, something many of us are too frightened of the risks to even comtemplate, doesn't that entitle him to his rewards

Now let me ask you a question.

 

Take shirts for instance, or any other product for that matter, do you deliberately seek out expensively priced product purely because you feel sure that the workers producing those products are paid at least the minimum wage and not slave wages to salve your concience or do you seek out shirts that are of similar quality but priced at half the price and not think about the wages the workers are paid.

 

There you go then, if you answer this question honestly then clearly you will be perpetuating the very thing that you are protesting about.

 

Everyone that is protesting on here wants to purchase everything as cheaply as posible, if not for buttons, but then they complain about low wages. High wages equals high prices.

Where exactly has our high income society actually got this country today ?? It has cost us almost ALL of our manufacturing and more

[Syd]

Just a small point that I forgot to insert into my previous post

 

What is the betting odds that these "Slave" workers, be they English or immigrants both legal and illegal, who are working for these low wages are also drawing benefits.

Maybe they are not so "Poor" after all

[Bulletguy]

pelmetman - 2010-11-10 10:11 PM

 

Getting back to BG original post :D I expect most of the employee's shown were I suspect illegal imigrants(not that I have seen the program :D )

 

Leave the illegal immigrant paranoia to the red top rag mags. Actually one of the Supervisors working there was white 'brit' but we will ignore that as it won't 'fit in' with the usual rants about immigrants and foreigners etc.

 

Both these companies were operating illegally. They were committing a multitude of offences quite blatantly and quite openly. The nature of these offences is something which most of us would believe to typify that of third world countries. But this is happening here...in the UK.

 

The major High Street chain stores to which these clothes were being supplied, some of which are owned by Philip Green, were also involved in that they were selling goods which were contravening the Trading Standards by mis-describing the true country of origin. Naturally the PR machine will do a grand job in damage limitation exercises.

 

To get a better insight as to exactly what went on, people really need to watch the programme.

 

A Thatcher quote springs to mind of 'the unacceptable face of Capitalism'.

 

 

 

 

[Porky]

Bulletguy - 2010-11-11 8:03 AM

 

pelmetman - 2010-11-10 10:11 PM

 

 

 

Both these companies were operating illegally. They were committing a multitude of offences quite blatantly and quite openly.

 

 

 

If that is the case what is all the huffing and puffing about. Operating outside the law is wrong and should be punished. End of story.

 

Roy Fuller

[Bulletguy]

Porky - 2010-11-11 4:01 PM

 

If that is the case what is all the huffing and puffing about. Operating outside the law is wrong and should be punished.

 

Try telling that to those banging the drum for the 'poor' employers who have apparently 'risked their own money' to create these sweat shops.

 

They don't condemn it as wrong.......they condone it!

[Brian Kirby]

peter - 2010-11-10 9:35 PM ...............Get real Brian! I don't know.....sometimes it's like your'e on a diifferent planet to us mere mortals that have been made redundant.

Sadly, Peter, I think I may be, depending on the mortal!  That is why I was asking, because I wanted to know at first hand, not from those who sit on the sidelines and pontificate (of whom there seem quite a few!).

In retrospect, I probably should not have asked, because I unintentionally put Julie in an embarrassing position.  So, my apologies to Julie.

However, if membership of the "having been made redundant" club is a prerequisite for joining this debate, I do qualify on that score, if it helps to soothe your fevered brow.  :-)

Not all experiences of redundancy will be the same, so using one's own experience as a template for the experiences of others, is as likely to mislead as theorising.  Hence my original question.

[Guest pelmetman]

Well I suppose I do not qualify as I have never been made redundant :D

 

But maybe as a more practical suggestion for Julie (^) My better half Sue was also a secretary for many years, until she decided I was earning enough to keep her in the style she wish to be accustomed 8-)

 

Sue had many secretarial jobs and found most of them through temping agencies, it worked both ways she could try out a firm to see if she liked it, and they could check out her abilities B-)