Supermarket Spree To Create 32,000 New Jobs

[Big Orange]

That did seem like the first event. The first time I've seen the young generation try to stand up.

A truism is if you don't stand up for yourself and your interests you will get pushed around in this life. Standing up in societal terms means organizing and demanding better terms. One individual is powerless against a big company. But on the other hand hundreds of thousands or millions who organize and are willing to take collective action, they are powerful.

Another possible turning point was that the youth seem to be turning on the liberal democrats. And the liberal democrats were an outlet valve. Like you aren't happy, but you still believe in the system, you are still 'mainstream'.

When a system gets too big and stagnant, like today's Corporate-Banking-Democratic Oligarchy, it becomes much more inefficient and slowly falls apart under its own mismanagement, which it seems to be doing now, and its in serious trouble if it has systemtically alienated the younger generations (most people under the age of 45) who'll see no need in carrying on with the current status quo that's mainly generating debt, cutbacks, and unemployment.

Edited January 14, 2011 by Big Orange

[steve99]

Here is a question, how many workers in an average supermarket would be in a position to buy a house/flat at todays prices. My rough sums work out that only the very big boss at a medium to large store could by a small flat in SE of UK and maybe a terrace UP North. The one or two assistant managers may be able to buy in partnership with a spouce. The other 100 or so workers are not even in the catagory that could afford to rent a small flat by them selves, never mind buy one. Like many low paid workers in the UK, these people are heavilly reliant on outside sources like family, rent assistance, HMO rooms etc etc.

On this basis then, how can anyone with any sense of realism or responsibility report this sh*t as being some sort of panacea for the ever expanding unemployment problem (especialy considering that each new supermarket often displaces even more jobs). Nor is it a panacea for the overall economic health of the country.

You only have to look at parts of the USA to realise that Walmart has deleted many jobs and reduced thier own press ganged workers to some sort of serfdom where they doff their caps to managment and use the word 'Sir' a thousand times a day.

Even more stupid, Walmart made the statment a couple of years ago that the minimum wage should be increased because they were finding that lots of low level working people couldnt afford to shop with them, even though Wallmart are not the best payers by any stretch of a drug induced imagination.

This sh*t is a race to the bottom and ultimately lots of big business will wonder where their customers have gone,... eating the queens swans and growing their own potatoes probably. With the Tories back, dont expect the min wage to move up ever again, which will reduce these jobs to a financial value worth less than indentured servitude.

[hazymemory]

I used to work (unskilled) in an abbatoir when I was 16. I suspect my wages were not much worse than this in real terms.

I used to work in meat processing plant (dangerously unskilled) when I was 16, f all money but did turn me into a veggie so never bought any of their stinky products.

[Big Orange]

This sh*t is a race to the bottom and ultimately lots of big business will wonder where their customers have gone,... eating the queens swans and growing their own potatoes probably. With the Tories back, dont expect the min wage to move up ever again, which will reduce these jobs to a financial value worth less than indentured servitude.

That's why the current system will end sooner than later if the banks and multinationals have impoverished most of their consumers, who'll as a mob will possibly turn round and tear down the corrupt system through brute force (think student fee riots over ten times bigger). And the Tories are essentially unpopular, they weren't really voted in by a landslide, people just voted for Labour a little less.

[Snugglybear]

Is this for a proper butcher or a serving butcher ?

I was a serving butcher for a while and it takes ****** all skills !!

If this is up to £8.65 per hour for a proper butcher then it is taking the piss.

The advert says "...will be required to take block test to demonstrate skills as a butcher". So I'm presuming it means someone who knows how to cut up carcasses or whatever larger units arrive at the store into sellable cuts.

[ccc]

The advert says "...will be required to take block test to demonstrate skills as a butcher". So I'm presuming it means someone who knows how to cut up carcasses or whatever larger units arrive at the store into sellable cuts.

Looks like it. Shocking pay for that sort of skill. Its a few years courses to be a qualified butcher - I think ?

[SarahBell]

Asda is creating 15,000 Retail Apprenticeship posts. WTF is a Retail Apprenticeship ?? (other than low paid and partly funded by the state)

£2.50 an hour - that's what an apprentice is.

[Xurbia]

I used to work in meat processing plant (dangerously unskilled) when I was 16, f all money but did turn me into a veggie so never bought any of their stinky products.

I don't blame you. I eat very little meat now. I never got used all the rat traps! Fortunately I was between O levels and A levels and it was only a few months. The people working there, at the time, were like those hillbillies from the film Deliverance! When you combine that personality with sharp knives you're asking for trouble! Toughens you up though....if you survive.

[Chest Rockwell]

The nation of shopkeepers is now becoming the nation of shop assistants! Makes you proud to be British!