Morrisons To Hire 1,000 Homeless People.

[Jack's Creation]

This is simply a publicity stunt, and whatever people from these areas he does employ you can get your bottom $ they will be on temporary contracts. To give them permanent would oblige Morrisons to offer them employment protection which they will not want to do.

^

This.

Guilt marketing at its finest.

[Injin]

Morrisons to sack 1,000 people (after a fortnight.)

[bendy]

Why don't Morrisons go the whole way and house their workers?

Each time they build a new store they could build a few blocks of flats. If they let their workers live there on a subsidised rent, there would be a mass exodus of the best shelf stackers from such as Asda & Tesco.

move the proles out of london into the generous city outskirts shop's sardines executive apartments.

pick up the £400 a week QE and the service sector economy rolling.

someone needs to fill the off plans i guess.

[FedupTeddiBear]

It's not as stupid as you think. Supermarkets are normally single floor buildings but very tall so they stand out and look impressive. Plenty of room to put a floor or 2 above. From the outside few people would even be able to tell.

No prizes for guessing who has already started doing this.

tesco villages

[FedupTeddiBear]

A large number of the homeless have mental problems. They will not be able to hold down any job. Morrisons will have the problem of having to separate those who are just down on their luck from those that will growl at customers and shit on the fresh fruit.

Maybe Morrisons are fans of Thomas Szasz.

[billybong]

If the homeless are good enough and meet the standard they should have been given the chance well before now. They shouldn't have been excluded on their housing status alone.

At the same time it sounds like they are trying to push the envelope on divide and rule and at a vulnerable time (recession/depression) undercutting existing employees working for minimum wage and just trying to make ends meet or maybe just trying to earn some extra to pay off their mortgage (and undercutting doesn't necessarily mean undercutting on wage). Quite a few students as well - just to add to their problems.

There are practical problems with the homelesss such as how to reliably get in touch with them in a hurry to fill in for another employee who might be sick etc but no doubt they've thought of all that stuff, it not just being another publicity stunt to renege on.

Maybe they are just thinking of taking advantage of overextended repossessed and homeless managers/supervisors looking for work. If at least 1 million are going to be unemployed in the next few years quite a few relatively highly skilled will possibly find themselves coming under the category of homeless.

Edited November 3, 2010 by billybong

[Self Employed Youth]

http://www.telegraph...n=finance0211am

OK, so does this suggest that these "vulnerable" people should be grateful to be given the opportunity of a "hand-up" and therefore won't mind if they are paid less than NMW.

Perhaps, these "vulnerable" people will be "vulnerable" to exploitation by large multi-nationals wanting cheap labour?

FD

You can't pay them less than minimum wage. They would obviously need help with housing and permanent accommodation.

I've been homeless myself a couple of times, but never for long, never spent more than 2 days on the streets, a friend however has spent a lot of time on the streets before owing very much to a heavy heroin addiction, which is now controlled with methadone (legal heroin if you like). When he was selling the big issue, he was earning in excess of £50 a day tax free on top of income support. I must stress, I think he earned more than most doing the same, he was a very good salesman at heart. He would use comedy and exploit human nature to sell magazines.

I've had him work with me with me a couple of times, once after quitting heroin, and he was one of the best workers I've ever worked with, another time he had relapsed, stole stock and got us both fired.

Now I've not seen a morrisons with a pharmacy yet, but if they did have them like ASDAs they would do well to have a healthy stock of meth to give to addicted employees, it stabilises them near on instantly.

[200p]

In the old days, the businessmen would also provide the housing. Lets see if we will make progress from here.

[bogbrush]

Folks, they are doing it to increase profit. This they will achieve through;

* stronger corporate morale, as employees feel better about their business.

* stronger consumer relationship as they are seen as "caring" and differentiated from their competition.

* potential banked credibility to use in future negotiations over regulation.

This doesn't make it bad, it is simple good business. The idea that they'll use it to drive down wages are abit childish; firstly legislation blocks that, but most important the main benefits are much more useful than the fairly trivial one of getting a few people on lower wages.

They think a little bit bigger than that.

[Bob Loblaw]

I think the Tesco supermarket near me tried this a couple of years ago. I was served by someone who was obviously mentally disabled and started laughing like a hyena after scanning every item. He then started to screech at the top of his voice 'My Grandmother' after every item beeped. The next week I was served by a one-armed man who had tremendous, eye wateringly bad BO to the extent that I claimed I had forgotten an item and ducked out the store.

Haven't been back since.

[aa3]

A lot of homeless people have serious mental problems.. and its very hard for them to hold down a full time job. Its sad because some days, even whole weeks they are good to work, a 'normal' person.. but then other days they have real depression or other issues and just can't do it.

[awaytogo]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/8100688/Morrisons-to-hire-1000-homeless-people.html?utm_source=tmg&utm_medium=TD_8100688&utm_campaign=finance0211am

OK, so does this suggest that these "vulnerable" people should be grateful to be given the opportunity of a "hand-up" and therefore won't mind if they are paid less than NMW.

Perhaps, these "vulnerable" people will be "vulnerable" to exploitation by large multi-nationals wanting cheap labour?

FD

I would like to think this was genuine but i suspect there is a lot of PR in this gisture. These people need more than just a job they need guidance and support. But i hope it does work out for both parties.

[billybong]

To be fair most of the stable well adjusted employees with proper housing in places like Morrisons seem to not be that keen on their jobs and can't wait to get away at the end of the day and not because of the low wages and a lot of these people are very good at their jobs (oh yes ok at annual appraisals for their minimum wage job they'll say how passionate they are about it and how they just love scanning the bar codes and how doing the scanning and so on is challenging and satisfying), so how the underneath the arches types will cope is quite another matter.

On the other hand they'll likely be pleased enough just to be inside out of the cold. I guess it will also be a great source of "resources" for their long term mates "on the outside" especially considering the loyalty (not) demonstrated these days from employers to their employees.

Edited November 3, 2010 by billybong