Kaos wrote
What great skill and trade is being learned from stacking shelves? What great benefit is this going to provide in the future? What better jobs will this lead to?
Vice deputy sub assistant shelf stacker? 
I had two voluntary jobs on the go when I was unemployed, but this is exploitation. Interview for free work? At the expense of the tax payer? If you agree with that you are the problem.
Don’t kid yourself, this is unskilled position that offers no experience.
I’m with you on this… but this is about finding a job that pays at worst minimum
Sleep is overrated then? 
The idea would have been fine if for example Tesco had said, yup rather than getting your JSA from the government, get it from us but you will work an equivalent amount of hours to the JSA you earn and will not go below minimum wage… I mean there’s a reason we have minimum wage in the UK and we need to make sure we keep it there without trying to find ‘creative’ ways of getting around it.
(This is a general point) - It’s funny how people don’t have a problem with offering UK people lower than minimum wage yet cry wolf when they take jobs abroad paying other people in other countries a lot less than what they would earn here but still relatively reasonable (in some cases) with what they earn there.
Your a long time dead to sleep mate :hehe:
Local Government puts money in banks, which in turn invested in the stock market. Proof. When Havering CC lost tax payers money when the Icelandic banks went bankrupt. Sure you can find other examples if you look.
As for ministers (MPs) some do, some don’t on the Tory side. Igather most of the current front bench are into insurance rather than the stockexchange. No surprise there with the way insurance laws get passed and pricesgo up.
As for Labour, most of them don’t hold the second and third jobslike the Tories, exceptions being Tony Blair a neo Tory who is so on the taxavoidance fiddle you can’t find out what he avoids in his web structure of companies.
I did a YTS scheme when I left school in the 80’s, this is effectively the same. Cheap labour while the government can say the unemployment figures are dropping. Tesco’s is the tip of the iceberg.
For those that missed it when it was up -
Stacking shelves is the best way of knowing where everything is, different sizes of the item, if you stock it in the first place, your manager depends on you to display it properly and it’s in date (if applicable), , what’s frozen or chilled, how to recycle the packaging.
Companies don’t have to pay minimum wage below 16 hours.
I wouldn’t do it now personally for nothing, everybody’s unique and individual not a dogs body. Tho supervised/controlled school projects maybe ok.
Tesco are a very greedy company. So play them at their own game. They own a lot of sites/land and won’t develope it til the council eventually gives in to it’s demands. They have been allowed to grow to big to fast. They hold all their suppliers to ransom well documented with the farmers and the milk.
I’ve been occasionally been to Tesco doing deliveries, you have to get off the bay, if a tesco truck comes in the gate (45min -tesco drivers break). They fine your company if your 5min EARLY, or late. OK if it’s one drop, but doing multi- drop like 20 is impossible. (Waitrose have an "Inconvience Fine - £50, and any excuse to fine you at that, stack unsettled in transit for example)
The march of the “TESCO TOWNS” in the UK is continuing for now.
Apparently Tesco have come out and said that this was an error and was never a position that was supposed to be available.
Call me a cynic but I think they are back peddling now they realised that the general public have found out about it and aren’t happy.
I think the only thing wrong with the ad is the fact they are still expecting the government to pay the individual JSA. I don’t think that it is exploitation of the individual as that isn’t intended as a long term solution. Its an opportunity and its up to the person to make the best of it. Its not about how much the company is worth, etc. Do you really think Tesco would be where it is today if they had just spunked money for no reason. Admittedly a fair deal would have been something like the government give Tesco a suitable person for the job and Tesco will pay them the JSA + expenses (don’t forget the individual will also be given extra cash and half price travel for a period from the Job Centre, that is dependant on how long you have been unemployed I think). This would also mean one less person on the unemployment statistics. This wouldn’t stop other types of benefits being claimed as all the individual need to do is ensure they are working <16 hours a week, but will save the government at least £200 per person per month. Even with a company as big as Tesco it would be a relatively small sum but the cash can always be used elsewhere.
They’ve said it was a mistake, but they’ve said what they meant was that it 3 days work for a chance of an interview. Which is totally scandalous too in my book. I think they’ve totted up how much money they’re going to lose considering it’s been plastered all over facebook and twitter with “BOYCOTT TESCO” pegged with every response.
Well they can honestly shove their service, I’m never going to use tesco again - ever. I hear nothing but bad things about them and this is the last straw they seem to have a demonic policy making scheme and one of the worst examples of corporation going out of control that I can name. I’ll not be sponsoring that crap any more.
That is less than minimum wage.
What is the point of a minimum wage if we just say…oh well someone is unemployed, let them work for less…isn’t really a minimum wage is it? It is just an arbitrary number that employers can ignore simply by employing someone that has been forced to sign on.
Given that signing on is the way in which most people can afford their rent when made unexpectedly unemployed, and usually short term unemployed…that would be pretty much everyone except the very wealthy?
Which is what this comes down to again, the divide between the rich and the poor…and now according to people like you Daniel, we don’t even want to offer people the protection of the minimum wage.
Like I said, lets do away with child labour laws, we will all benefit from the corporations employing children, apparently we are the 99% that benefit from huge profits in private companies, we can compete on the manufacturing stage again and what’s the problem? We can exploit adults, just a small step to exploiting children.
Even if you think the long term unemployed should be made to get up and do something for their money, this surely isn’t the way to do it.
I don’t imagine any employment was even created by this ‘job’ - Tesco just looked at the options (hire somebody at, say £14k or get the government to give you free labour who can’t leave without losing their benefits) and decided to let the taxpayer foot their wages bill.
An unemployed person gets an unpaid job, at the expense of some other potential employee - who is now presumably unemployed.
And yet, when it comes down to it in a few weeks you will spot a good offer on beer/food/wine etc etc and in you will pop. Memories are very short.
Tesco are exploitative scrooges. Asda are owned by walmart who have a pretty shitty reputation as an employer in the US.
That leaves Sainsbury or waitrose, I hope they’re not secretly laundering money for the KKK or something - a man has to buy his cornflakes from somewhere!
Is it only me who’s thinking… England now has some of the highest levels of unemployment it has ever had… and people are saying it’s ok for Tesco to say ‘we have jobs… but we don’t want to pay you any money for them’ and people think this is ok??? That’s the way out of the unemployment hole?
Forget about the ones that won’t lift their backside of the sofas for the moment, this is hardly going to touch those. What about all the people who want to work to support a family yet don’t want to be taken for a donkey ride? When did it become ok for a company to take advantage of everyone and when did the great british public become so completely apathetic to anyone else’s problems and lives but their own to see this and react?
Well ok react is a bit strong maybe but at least don’t try and justify what is clearly an opportunity by Tesco to get labour on the cheap, not offer any real opportunity to anyone but themselves?
Maybe Tesco bosses should try this experiment out and see for themselves how easy it is to live on minimum wage before they come up with ridiculous ideas…
bloody conning bastids. never shopping there again. how dare they exploit our children!!! all that a young school leaver has ever wanted is a decent paid job. they really do. job hunters now (aged 16-24 especially) will know how hard it is to find a decent job with a wage you can actually live on. there are just so many applicants for every job. anyone with kids at this age, or knows/cares about anyone in this age group wil know what i`m on about. it is so sad to watch them take knock back after knockback, and when they are labelled lazy layabout scroungers it really doent help their morale. now tesco want people to work for free they can get stuffed and should be shown a lesson in people power and boycotted.
Don’t they work for ‘free’ in the ‘Peoples Supermarket’…?
This is the problem…people working for free everywhere bringing the worst out in these multi-nationals…shame on you volunteer slaves, shame…
Aaah, Kaos no need to get aggressive here 
A few answers to your question:
You asked “Did YOUR low paid duties include nothing but menial tasks where you learnt nothing?” Yes, absolutely. I have done a lot of menial, mind numbingly stupid tasks in my previous jobs, which included stacking shelves (I did this throughout my teens), making tea and carrying very heavy power cables up and down a hill in a forest in Wales for a film shoot in freezing conditions, packing orders at a tupperware factory, data entry as an admin clerk and many, many other stupid, low paid jobs.
When I got to England in my early 20s, I had absolutely nothing apart from a few quid in my pocket and the stuff I could fit in a suitcase. My English was very limited and I did not know anybody. I struggled to get a job due to my limited language skills but eventually managed to get somewhere, because I had the gift of the gap and was able to apply skills I learned in my previous jobs of stacking shelves and working in a factory (to be punctual, reliable, to take pride in your job even if it is menial, be courteous to other people, attention to detail etc. etc.). Eventually, an opportunity presented itself and I took on a job I really didn’t enjoy and wasn’t right for me but it paid a better wage and enabled me to save up to go to uni two years later. When I finished uni, I did a lot of low paid/unpaid jobs again to gain experience and this eventually got me into proper employment a year later.
What I was trying to say is that if you go out there and get involved, even if that means stacking shelves for a while, things will happen. If you sit on your arse all day long, stuck in a flat doing nothing, then nothing will come of it.
As for your argument against the fat cats getting fatter on the expense of the poor, low skilled - yes you might be right but it’s the world we live in. But I do believe that if you are stuck in a sh*t situation whereby you have no skills, low-level entry jobs like these are a start and it’s down the person to apply themselves and look for better opportunities, which in my experience do present themselves. You just have to look for them and jump through the hoops to get there.
The problem with your reply NatureGirl is this.
1, You said originally that you did a lot of unpaid/low paid work to become a fully fledged designer…which is working towards an experienced and skilled post. Stacking shelves probably had no impact on your ability to do that, even if you say you did it, it probably wasn’t even on your CV, because like you I have done the same, I don’t put those jobs on my CV because they have no transferable skills to any job I actually want to do. No employer wants to read about everything you have ever done in your life, they want to know what you have done previously that will enable you to do the job you are applying for, that is why if you ask anyone that knows anything about CV writing they make you put in your transferable skills, not every job you have ever held.
2, It makes the assumption that people unemployed have never worked, don’t volunteer, don’t do anything but sit about all day doing nothing.
An assumption driven by the media to continue the attack on the poor without ever having to face any criticism.
Lastly, there would be nothing wrong with this job, if it just paid minimum wage. That is all that I and others have argued. Why should it pay nothing, or next to nothing, when we have a minimum wage.
I have the same problem with large public services farming out work that needs to be done to private companies that can then employ people on a lower wage, with less benefits and less security.
If the train stations need cleaning, and they do regularly, then the Train companies should employ people to clean them. If hospitals need cleaning, then the NHS should employ people to clean them, not contract out to a private company to shaft employees and save a few quid at their expense.
I don’t see how this behaviour makes our society better, and it is just a part of the overall package.
What I don’t understand about your answer is you concede that I “may be right” but then say that is the way the world is, well yes, and it won’t change while people like you, who should know better, defend it.