Assigned Case Ref: CA153590

Dear Ken,

Thank you for your e-mail.

I am sorry to hear that you are disappointed with Holland & Barrett's decision to offer young people valuable opportunities to gain skills in the work place that will equip them in their search for a job.

We have to date taken on 500 young people for 8 week periods since last summer and of these 100 have been taken on permanently with us. They will now go on to enhance their careers by participating in our accredited training programme and becoming 'Qualified to Advise' by obtaining a QCF qualification - one that we ensure all staff have the opportunity to undertake.

We are in no way looking to exploit young people or cut jobs of existing staff by using 'free labour'. In fact, since the scheme started last year our payroll has increased demonstrating quite the opposite.

The scheme is entirely voluntarily, and if any participant complained to us in respect to them being made to work on a compulsory basis (which so far, they have not), we would not consider it appropriate to provide or continue the work experience.

We believe passionately in giving people who want the chance to learn new skills and gain references to begin their working lives with the best chance possible, and as such have devised challenging and fulfilling 8 week placements to ensure those taking part walk away having gained from the experience.


Yours sincerely

Ridhwana
Customer Service Team.
NBTY Europe.
The home of Holland & Barrett, GNC, Julian Graves, Nature's Way and De Tuinen.

They don`t seem or want to know what is really going on.

The public are told the £5 Billion is part of the Welfare budget oh aye!
Corporate Welfare is a symptom of the economics of Fascism - Musollini's Third Way,
The Corpoate-State the anti-Democratic State.

So all u antifas out there take note the Fascists are in power now.

I wonder if Holland and Barret's "voluntary" scheme means that workfarers are free to walk away, and forfeit their food vouchers at any time?

So much media talk of money and jobs, so little discussion of what money is, and what jobs are.

There are no end of 'things which need doing' . Available people time languishes while folks desperately seek permission to receive authorised credit . Too much confusion, too much delusion, too much deception.

posted by Arsene Knows on Guardian CIF, very prescient and chilling...

good on BW for organising all this and Unite for backing the Conference, etc...


A Day in the Life of John Dennison
(after Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)

As he poured himself a cup of tea the TV in the background, ‘That’s today’s summary from the BBC. For the news in full, weather and sports switch to BBC Premium; available to SKY customers only. Subscription details available via the red button or online..’

As a basic package residential customer he had no bandwidth left to check last night’s football results although access to the Government portal was always available for access to official sites only.

The audible signal for an incoming text message beeped. No need to check, he knew what it was but it was a requirement that he acknowledge receipt of the message, ‘Bus leaves at 7 am, confirm attendance’.
He pressed ACK.

As he poured a second cup of tea his ankle cuff vibrated for a second and the LED on it turned green – he was now free to leave the hostel.

The walk down to the pick-up point was little more than a kilometre but he would have to leave by 6am at the latest as some of the gatekeepers liked to make life difficult for those leaving the estate. They couldn’t hold him up too long as the GPS on the ankle band would be transmitting his position.

He put on his boots and jacket and then the blue hi-vis bib on the front of which was stencilled ‘DWP’ and on the back his ID code to make it easier should a Taxpayer have cause to complain.

It was still dark as he walked along the alley to the gate. It wasn’t too dangerous in the morning but in the evenings there were problems – Shapp’s Shanties had no street lighting. Lighting costs money and the Taxpayer has enough expense without funding non-essentials for those who don’t pay their own way.

He was lucky today, the gatekeepers were OK. They scanned his ID card and his ankle to ensure they matched. One of them printed out his pass whilst the other input the data into the DWP Workfare Access Service Terminal, colloquially known as the ‘Waster Watcher’.

The pick-up point was on the edge of town where the industrial zone was located. He approached those waiting , nodded at a couple he vaguely knew. The various coloured bibs, red for Community Payback, Green for Work Experience, Yellow for Volunteers and Blue for Workfare, tended to congregate in separate huddles although there was little by way of conversation,.
Today looked like it was going to be a good day as the mix contained more Volunteer and Work Experience than Payback although that wasn’t 100% guaranteed; if the DWP had received an urgent request from a Taxpayer they would be diverted from their standard routine.

He heard the sound of the engine as the Grayling Bus pulled up. It was a secured bus with barred and darkened windows indicating a journey passing through a Higher Rate Taxpayer area. He sighed; that meant a journey of at least 2 hours each way, time which didn’t count towards his duties so it was going to be a 16 hour shift; he hoped he’d built up enough credit to earn a lunch pack.

One of the Gangmasters started to call the roll. he was shocked into attention when one of the names called out was Mary, the name of his dead wife. He tried to forget as much as he could, the pain was still very raw. She had suffered from a chronic illness and when the Taxpayer-provided Health Credit had reached the limit set for a non-Taxpayer she had been left in his care. They had allowed him time off to watch her dying; of course this was added to his duty time which was why he was in the 12 hour duty group. He was weeping inwardly as they scanned him onto the bus.