Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Harringay Homebase using unpaid jobseekers
As a regular Homebase customer I was pretty disappointed to read this in today's Guardian:
http://m.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/apr/06/homebase-criticised-wo...
Why are the jobcentres helping Homebase at a time when a lot of our Haringey community centres are in trouble and closing down? I find it hard to see how this is 'of benefit to the community', as this scheme is supposed to be. Surely this is effectively subsidizing Homebase with taxpayers money at a time when a lot of our community funding has been cut. I'd be interested to know who makes the decisions as to where work scheme participants go - looks like Finsbury park jobcentre in this case. I'm thinking it may be worth a letter to them (and Homebase).
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Maddy on
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Are these unpaid workers getting any training or support in work skills or DIY information/customer services - I doubt it. Schemes like this are just allowing Homebase to lower their labour costs and pass them on to the taxpayer.
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Permalink Reply by Gerry Platt on
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Huffington Post reports:
"Homebase have denied using work experience staff to cut costs after an internal memo appearing to encourage managers to do so began circulating online.
The poster depicts a number of volunteer staff at the Haringey branch and is captioned: 'How the work experience program can benefit your store. Would 750 hours with no payroll costs help YOUR store?'
" ... Tom Pride, who posted the picture on his blog, Pride's Purge told the Huffington Post UK it had been passed to him by a Homebase worker, alleging the poster is "currently displayed on the wall in the manager’s office of Homebase Haringey, which clearly shows the company is using workfare as a means to reduce their payroll costs."
He said he had been passed the picture by a worker in Haringey who was angry because all the staff there had had their overtime cut because of workfare. He said: "the workfare people work even longer hours for free there than people who have been employed by the company."
full story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/04/05/homebase-workfare-work-e...
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I had to go to Homebase for a lightbulb today, so I mentioned this article to an employee. They (sorry, I know it's ungrammatical, but I am trying not to identify this staff member in any way) replied that they had not heard about it, but that all overtime had recently been cut because "there was no money to pay it". They then asked me if I worked for Homebase - clearly worried that I might be trying to catch them out.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Perhaps someone should think about writing a book on this? There seems to be a pattern where capitalism benefits from unemployment. And how, especially at times of economic downturn, what you might loosely call "a reserve army" of people without jobs helps to drive down wages and salaries.
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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Does anyone have the figures for (a) the weekly benefit rate for an 18-year-old living at home? and (b) the hourly rate at eg Homebase/minimum wage for youth? If (a) is about £50, and (b) is about £6, then they just need to work for max two days a week to be ahead cash-wise and have no need to report in to The Man and deal with that hassle. OK It's not a lifetime plan but it would cut through all this crap. 16 and 17 y-o's can't sign on anyway, they have to be in college or in work. I grew up in a time of Saturday jobs being how we all got by, is this totally over? Now there must be Sunday jobs too, all retailers are busiest at weekends.
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Permalink Reply by Abi on
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Do many young people living at home (with parents) claim benefits? I was under the impression that more were staying at home that so they didn't have to go through the hassle of doing so in the absence of jobs.
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MAYBE if you catch the older chap with the white hair who hangs around the paint counter you might get a small amount of information begrudgingly,
Oh God, you don't want him! Not if you're female, anyway. I think I've nominated him to #everydaysexism at least once. I spent over £400 in that store one week last year and was still talked down to like I was some kind of moron who didn't know one type of paint from another!
They even asked me if 'someone had played a little trick on me' when I requested a product they hadn't heard of (it was a trade product probably better quality than what they do sell!) because you know, women in DIY stores have always been told to say something daft by some cackling man who knows better.
The checkout staff in there have always been lovely though, this is very noticeable.
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Chris Stephens on Holloway Road is much cheaper for the same paints and will mix up any colour for you, including once a scrap of yellow oil paint I took in on a piece of paper and asked them to match.
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MInd you - these huge DIY emporiums have always been thus. We used to have nicknames for them: Homebase was formerly Texas Homecare, which we called "Texas Couldn't Care Less"; while Do It All in Wood Green was known as "Do it all yourself and don't ask us."
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Blimey. I'd completely forgotten about the existence of Texas Homecare - but not Do It All, thanks to their irritating jingles...
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Permalink Reply by James R Grinter on
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There's better, local places if you have the time to visit them
Eg. Over here we've got Mem's (Moorefield road) and Glickman's on the high road.
(I've tried to buy small items from Homebase, and Wickes. Hopeless, both of them, and since B&Q switched to DIY for the till too I've avoided it as much as possible)
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